"Believe me, Miss Rendall, I am just as careful of my skin as other people, but there is absolutely no danger so long as they don't spot me." "But how long will that be? And you are taking no precautions at all!" "But I am! I assure you I am. I have a code wire arranged with my cousin and when he gets the message 'Request permission to be visited by my own doctor,' he will be in Ransay as fast as he can steam." She gave a little laugh, but looked anxious still. "What a delicious message! Well, that's better than nothing. But you don't imagine they will give you warning, do you?" "You will," I said confidently. "When you guess there's danger I'll wire. And now, I hope you have some idea in your head besides this notion of my danger. Be honest! what's in your mind?" But I now perceived I had also an obstinate ally. "I have told you," she persisted, "we must find out a little more before doing anything rash. And I promise not to keep anything back, and to tell you at once if I find out anything worth knowing. Oh, if you only knew how I want you to catch those people! As if I could possibly do anything again to interfere with you!" What I should have liked to do was to take her hands and say something very friendly. What I did do was to thank her and assure her I trusted her, in words that I think she knew were sincere; and arrange to see her accidentally next day. And then I set off for my sanatorium with thoughts that were not in the least of the detective type. It was Jean Rendall's eyes, voice, smile and face--herself from her hair to her ankles--that filled my mind as I hummed my way home. Unlike the suspicious stranger, Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse had not been given to singing, whistling, or humming as he walked, but he broke loose now. I had instinctively dreaded a too close acquaintance with that girl while the case was doubtful. I felt in my bones she would be dangerous. Now I was enraptured to discover she was fatal. XIV THE POCKET BOOK Out of the doctor's smoking-room window you saw nothing but a field or two of bleached wintry grass, with a glimpse of grey sea beyond and that iniquitous pebble drive close at hand. That at least was all I could see on the blighting March morning after my tea with Jean Rendall. The chilly damp weather had given place to chillier hard weather. With the temperature below freezing and thin showers of dry snow driving up every now and then before a biting nor'east wind, there was little temptation to go abroad without excuse. My excuse was due in an hour's time when Miss Rendall and Mr. Hobhouse proposed to encounter one another accidentally on the road, and meantime I was turning away from the window towards the fire when I heard the gravel crunch.