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is.”
    “Well, I’m sure your father doesn’t give away secrets to the chaps from the newspapers. Or even to you, I’ll wager.”
    “Not unless he’s looking for favours.” I saw the gleam in his eye and got in first: “Please, Major. No more flirting. So you won’t tell me what you suspect?”
    “No.” There was no badinage there: his voice was flat and emphatic.
    “I could write my story without your corroboration.”
    “If you did that and I should ever meet you again, I’d tan your bottom.”
    “An officer and a gentleman?”
    “I make no claim to the latter title. Goodnight, Miss O’Brady. Please turn off the light as you go out.”
    I was used to being dismissed, that was part of the game in my profession; but somehow the dismissal by him hurt me. I knew I had brought it on myself, but there are certain occasions when a woman wishes she could retire with dignity. I tried for that as I walked towards the door, but even then I knew that in my peignoir and derby I could not look regal or even viceregal.
    I stopped at the door and turned. “You and I are not finished with each other, Major. I do not give up easily.”
    “Nor I, Miss O’Brady. Goodnight.”
    I switched off the electric light and opened the door. The club thumped down on my bowler hat and I slumped to the floor.
    End of extract from memoirs.
    II
    Farnol leapt out of bed as the man, masked by a ragged scarf, jumped over the girl and came at him, the club in one hand and a long dagger in the other. Farnol grabbed for the gun on the bedside table, but in the gloom of the darkened room, his eyes still full of the just extinguished electric light, his hand fumbled and knocked the gun to the floor. The intruder dived across the bed at him and he flung himself back, just avoiding the swish of the dagger. He stumbled around in the unfamiliar room, bumped against a clothes-horse. He picked it up and swung it, hitting the assassin full in the face with the wooden shoulders inside his tail-coat. The man let out a gasp and staggered back and Farnol, eyes accustomed to the darkness now, went after him. The thug swung the club blindly and Farnol grunted as it grazed his ribs.
    Then the man was past him, jumping over the still prostrate Bridie in the doorway and racing out into the corridor. Farnol scrambled after him, not stopping to waste time in looking for his gun. The man appeared to know his way about the huge house. He ran along the dimly-lit corridor, out on to the gallery and down the wide stairs. Farnol, a blue silk streak, was only a few stairs behind him as they reached the entrance hall. The thug made no attempt to go out the front doors, as if he knew he might run into one of the roving picquets in the main drive. Instead he went straight down towards the ballroom. Farnol grabbed a heavy brass candlestick from a table and chased after him.
    The man was tall and thin, as tall as Farnol; and he was swift, just that much swifter than Farnol. His clothes were ragged, but he was recognizable as a hillman: the dark turban wound Pathan style, the blue scarf round his face and the sheepskin jerkin said he wasn’t from the plains.
    The next two or three minutes were like some bizarre conducted tour of the Lodge. The two men raced through the huge moonlit ballroom, skidding on the polished floor; through into the dining-room where the logs in the big fireplace still glowed; back across the hall to the drawing-room. Here the thug ran headlong into the great velvet curtain that draped its entrance; he dropped his club and tried to slash his way through the heavy cloth with his knife. Farnol caught him and grappled with him, but once again the man got away. He raced back up the stairs and still Farnol pursued him, wielding the candlestick. But the man was frantic now, drawing away from Farnol with every step. He tore down the corridor between the bedrooms. At the far end Farnol glimpsed the open window. The thug went through it without seeming to lose