"No, I didn't.
Actually I had no recollection of ever having seen him before.
These boys at hotel reception desks all look exactly alike.
We had had a very pleasant time at Montreux and the proprietor there had been extremely obliging, so I tried to be as civil as possible and said I hoped he was enjoying being in England, and he said, yes, that his father had sent him over for six months to learn the hotel business.
It all seemed quite natural."
"And your next encounter?"
"About - yes, it must have been ten days ago, he suddenly turned up here.
I was very surprised to see him.
He apologised for troubling me, but said I was the only person he knew in England.
He told me that he urgently needed money to return to Switzerland as his mother was dangerously ill."
"But Letty didn't give it to him," Miss Bunner put in breathlessly.
"It was a thoroughly fishy story," said Miss Blacklog, with vigour.
"I made up my mind that he was definitely a wrong 'un.
That story about wanting the money to return to Switzerland was nonsense.
His father could easily have wired for arrangements to have been made in this country.
These hotel people are all in with each other.
I suspected that he'd been embezzling money or something of that kind."
She paused and said dryly:
"In case you think I'm hardhearted, I was secretary for many years to a big financier and one becomes wary about appeals for money.
I know simply all the hard luck stories there are.
"The only thing that did surprise me," she added thoughtfully, "was that he gave in so easily.
He went away at once without any more argument.
It's as though he had never expected to get the money."
"Do you think now, looking back on it, that his coming was really by way of a pretext to spy out the land?"
Miss Blacklog nodded her head vigorously.
"That's exactly what I do think - now. He made certain remarks as I let him out - about the rooms. He said,
'You have a very nice dining-room (which of course it isn't - it's a horrid dark little room) just as an excuse to look inside.
And then he sprang forward and unfastened the front door, said,
'Let me.'
I think now he wanted to have a look at the fastening.
Actually, like most people round here, we never lock the front door until it gets dark.
Anyone could walk in."
"And the side door? There is a side door to the garden, I understand?"
"Yes.
I went out through it to shut up the ducks not long before the people arrived."
"Was it locked when you went out?"
Miss Blacklog frowned.
"I can't remember...
I think so.
I certainly locked it when I came in."
"That would be about quarter-past six?"
"Somewhere about then."
"And the front door?"
"That's not usually locked until later."
"Then Scherz could have walked in quite easily that way.
Or he could have slipped in whilst you were out shutting up the ducks.
He'd already spied out the lie of the land and had probably noted various places of concealment - cupboards, etc.
Yes, that all seems quite clear."
"I beg your pardon, it isn't at all clear," said Miss Blacklog.
"Why on earth should anyone take all that elaborate trouble to come and burgle this house and stage that silly sort of holdup?"