I thought for an instant or two. “Right. I’ll trust you for the night.

 

I’ll lock you into this room and keep the key. Just one word, Mr Scudder. I

believe you’re straight, but if so be you are not I should warn you that I’m a

handy man with a gun.”

 

“Sure,” he said, jumping up with some briskness. “I haven’t the privilege of

your name, sir, but let me tell you that you’re a white man. I’ll thank you to

lend me a razor.”

 

I took him into my bedroom and turned him loose. In half an hour’s time a figure

came out that I scarcely recognized. Only his gimlety, hungry eyes were the

same. He was shaved clean, his hair was parted in the middle, and he had cut his

eyebrows. Further, he carried himself as if he had been drilled, and was the

very model, even to the brown complexion, of some British officer who had had a

long spell in India.

 

He had a monocle, too, which he stuck in his eye, and every trace of the

American had gone out of his speech.

 

“My hat! Mr Scudder—” I stammered.

 

“Not Mr Scudder,” he corrected; “Captain Theophilus Digby, of the 40th Gurkhas,

presently home on leave. I’ll thank you to remember that, sir.”