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- I4I-

being only faintly interested in such very tame detective stories (had I not just been reading Somerset Maugham's admirable spy-stories) 'She was shot at once!' answered M.J. bringing me back with a start to the realities of present day warfare.

But all this was mere by-talk leading up to the matter in hand: Mr.J. was looking for a gardener who while in my service had acted as a letter-box (here he explained what a letter-box meant in detective [[strikethrough]] phraseology [[/strikethrough]] terms). Was there a back way leading from my garden to the Villa S. which was used as a spy centre during the German occupation? (We were fortunately unaware at the time that this big Villa on our hill had been marked down by the Allies for heavy bombing). There is probably a way, I replied, and no less one probably from every other garden fiving on to the fields. But the gardener Mr. J. was searching for came from my garden and no other, and he could be identified as having one front tooth missing, short side-whiskers, a limp, greyish hair and about forty years of age. Did I know of such a man in my employ? Before I could sum up the various gardeners who had been in our service during these five years, Mr. J. informed me that a certain Orlando had already been taken from his sick-bed to prison. He had a tooth missing and he limped. 'Yes, I caught him limping when I ordered him to walk across the room', said the astute detective,' though the man insisted that his legs were stiff from