"What nonsense!" she cried, "if there's any risk I _want_ to share it. For the credit of our island these people have got to be hunted down, and I'd like them to know I'm hunting them! Besides, there's rather a nice cake for tea; you must come in." And in we went. XIII JEAN'S GUESSES "Come into father's room and then you can smoke," said Jean. It was the same pleasant, well-remembered room into which she had shown me that day when I first made her acquaintance, and as I followed her in now it struck me forcibly that I had taken the wrong turning that August morning. If I had taken these people into my confidence then, I should at least have started on the right road. Better than ever I realised what tricks my instincts play me. Or perhaps it may be my efforts to regulate them by the light of what I am pleased to call my reason that produce such unhappy results. "I am wondering how they found you out," she began. "It seems so mysterious that they should have suddenly started to try and murder you like that. They must have felt quite positive--and what made them feel positive?" "Did you or your father say anything to anybody about my voice; that I didn't seem to have so much accent as I had at first, or anything of that kind?" "Not a word," she said positively. "Father is the most uncommunicative of people, and I have inherited some of his closeness." "Your servants?" I suggested. "They are Ransay girls, and one foreign accent is the same as another to them," she laughed. "Then it must have been finding the parachute. I always thought that gave me away." "But it wasn't found till Monday morning, after we had been for that walk." "It might have been found by these people sooner." "It might," she admitted without much conviction. "But still--who did you see or speak to apart from us and Dr. Rendall and Mr. O'Brien?" "The Scollays," I said, "and several farmers I happened to meet; but always with a most suspicious accent. Oh, and there was one incident I forgot to mention. On the Sunday afternoon I was doing a little fancy shooting with my revolver down on the beach when Jock turned up. You know Jock the idiot?" "Well," she said, but her attention had evidently been caught by my first words. "You were doing fancy shooting," she repeated. "Are you a very good shot?" "Quite useful," I admitted with becoming modesty. "That afternoon I was rather above myself." "Then," she cried, "you were seen, and that's why the man stopped firing at you as soon as you aimed at him! He knew he would be hit if he went on!" I opened my eyes a little and smiled. "That is a flattering solution," I said, "but if I may venture to say so, it seems rather a bold inference." "I'm certain it's right," she said confidently. "Did you speak to Jock?" "Yes, I had a little talk with him; that's to say of course I did all the talking." "In your natural voice?" "Latterly I did," I admitted. "Were you far from the wall above the beach." "Not very."