Bude and Jay fell back as Robin joined the group. The detective bent his gaze on the young barrister as he put his question, and Robin for the first time noticed his eyes. Keen and clear, they were ill-suited, he thought, to the rather gross features of the man. By right he should have had either the small and roguish or the pale and expressionless eyes which are habitually found in individuals of the sanguine temperament. The detective had a trick of dropping his eyes to his boots. When he raised them, the effect was to alter his whole expression. His eyes, well-open, keenly observant, in perpetual motion, lent an air of alertness, of shrewdness, to his heavy, florid countenance. “That is my name,” said Robin, answering his question. “I am a barrister. I have met some of your people at the Yard, but I don’t think....” “Detective-Inspector Manderton,” interjected the big man, and paused as though to say, “Let that sink in!” Robin knew him well by repute. His qualities were those of the bull-dog, slow-moving, obstinately brave, and desperately tenacious. His was a name to conjure with among the criminal classes, and his career was starred with various sensational tussles with desperate criminals, for Detective-Inspector Manderton, when engaged on a case, invariably “took a hand himself,” as he phrased it, when an arrest was to be made. A bullet-hole in his right thigh and an imperfectly knitted right collar-bone remained to remind him of this propensity of his. His motto, as he was fond of saying, was, “What I have I hold!” “Well, Mr. Greve,” said the detective in a loud, hectoring voice, “perhaps you will be good enough to tell me what you know of this affair?” Robin flushed angrily at the man’s manner. But there was no trace of resentment in his voice as he replied. He told Manderton what he had already told Humphries: how he had gone from the billiard-room across the hall and down the library corridor to the side-door into the grounds, intending to have a stroll before tea, but, finding that it was threatening rain, had returned to the house by the front door. The detective scanned the young man’s face closely as he spoke. When Robin had finished, the other dropped his eyes and seemed to be examining the brilliant polish of his boots. He said nothing, and again Robin became aware of the atmosphere of hostility towards him which this man radiated. “It is dark at five o’clock?” Manderton turned to Bude. “Getting on that way, sir,” the butler agreed. “Are you in the habit, sir,”—the detective turned to Robin now,—“of going out for walks in the dark?” Greve shrugged his shoulders. “I had been sitting in the billiard-room. It was rather stuffy, so I thought I’d like some air before tea!” “You left Miss Trevert in the billiard-room?” “Yes!” “Why?” Greve put a hand to his throat and eased his collar.