Robin closed the door. But he got into the car first. As he had stood on the pavement in doubt, the recollection of Jeekes’s inexplicable lie about the payments made by Parrish for the French lady in the Mayfair flat came back to him and deepened the suspicion in his mind. It would in any case, he told himself, do no harm to find out who this rather unsavoury-looking Rotterdam friend of Jeekes’s was ... So Robin jumped into the car and sat down on the back seat next to the secretary. “It happens,” he said, “that I am particularly anxious to see Miss Trevert. As I gather you are going to meet her, I feel sure you won’t mind my accompanying you ...” The yellow-faced man turned with an easy smile. “Sorry,” he said, “but we are having a meeting with Miss Trevert on private business and I’m afraid we cannot take you along. Jeekes here, however, could take a message to Miss Trevert and if she _wanted_ to see you ...” He broke off significantly and smiled slily at the secretary. Robin felt himself flush. So Jeekes had been telling tales out of school to Mr. Victor, had he? The young man squared his jaw. That settled it. He would stay. “I promise not to butt in on your private business,” he replied, “but I simply must see Miss Trevert before I go back to London. So, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll come along ...” The yellow-faced man glanced at his wrist watch. “I can’t prevent you!” he exclaimed. Then he rapped out something in Dutch to Jeekes. The secretary leaned forward to catch the remark. The yellow-faced man threw in the clutch. “Goed!” (good), answered Jeekes in the same language, and resumed his seat as the car glided smoothly away from the kerb into the traffic of the busy square. Robin settled himself back in the seat with an inaudible sigh of satisfaction. He did not like the look of Jeekes’s companion, he told himself, and Mr. Victor, whoever he was, had certainly manifested no great desire for Robin’s company. But he was going to see Mary. That was all that counted for the moment. They threaded their way through the streets in silence. It passed through Robin’s mind to start a discussion with Jeekes about the death of Hartley Parrish. But in the circumstances he conceived it might easily assume a controversial character, and he did not want to take any risk of jeopardizing his chance of meeting Mary again. And no other subject of conversation occurred to him. He did not know Jeekes at all well, knew him in fact only as a week-end guest knows the private secretary of his host, a shadowy personality, indispensable and part of the household, but scarcely more than a name ... The car had put on speed as they left the more crowded streets and emerged into the suburbs. Now they were running over a broad straight main road lined with poplars. Robin wondered whither they were bound. He was about to put the question to the secretary when the man Victor turned his head and said over his shoulder: “_Nu_!”