His pipe was started, and he puffed out dense volumes of smoke with an air of keen enjoyment. "Worst of having a woman for your hostess," he remarked, "one can't smoke except a sickly cigarette or two. You should take to a pipe, Ducaine." "Will you be good enough to explain those two misstatements, Colonel Ray?" "Lies, both of them!" he answered, with grim cheerfulness. "Rotten lies, and I hate telling 'em. The hansom cab accident must have sounded a bit thin." "It did," I assured him. He removed his pipe from his teeth, and pushed down the tobacco with the end of his finger. "I came down from town by the same train that you did," he said, "and as for my broken head and smashed arm, you did it yourself." "I imagined so," I answered. "Perhaps you will admit that you owe me some explanation." He laughed, a deep bass laugh, and looked down at me with a gleam of humour in his black eyes. "Come," he said, "I think that the boot is on the other leg. My head is exceedingly painful and my leg is very stiff. For a young man of your build you have a most surprising muscle." "I am to understand, then, that it was you who committed an unprovoked assault upon me--who planned to have me waylaid in that dastardly fashion?" "Do you think," Ray asked quietly, "that I should be such a damned fool?" "What am I to think, then, what am I to believe?" I asked, with a sudden anger. "You found me starving, and you gave me employment, but ever since I started my work life has become a huge ugly riddle. Are you my friend or my enemy? I do not know. There is a drama being played out before my very eyes. The figures in it move about me continually, yet I alone am blindfolded. I am trusted to almost an incredible extent. Great issues are confided to me. I have been given such a post as a man might work for a lifetime to secure. Yet where a little confidence would give me zest for my work--would take away this horrible sense of moving always in the darkness--it is withheld from me." Ray smoked on in silence for several moments. "Well," he said, "I am not sure that you are altogether unreasonable. But, on the other hand, you must not forget that there is method, and a good deal of it, in the very things of which you complain. There are certain positions in which a man may find himself where a measure of ignorance is a blessed thing. Believe me, that if you understood, your difficulties would increase instead of diminish." I shrugged my shoulders. "But between you and me at least, Colonel Ray," I said, "there is a plain issue. You can explain the events of last night to me." "I will do that," he answered, "since you have asked it. Briefly, then, I parted from you on the steps of my club at a few minutes past nine last night." "Yes!"