The nine-thirty plane from Lisbon, due to arrive at Tangier two hours later, was on time; it swept in lower, broader circles above the airport. Most of the passengers, pressing their faces to the small windows of the small aircraft, were mystified or annoyed.

It was the first day in April. Below them they had expected to see Tangier, that lotus-city where you might do as you please, drowsing under a hot hard sunlight reflected from white houses, and the blue indentation of the Mediterranean where Cape Spartel marks the northernmost point in Africa. But, deplorable to relate, the weather was as bitterly cold as it might have been in London or New York. The plane bumped through tattered wreaths of mist through which such passengers caught glimpses only of dull green ground.

"Oh , dear!" inwardly groaned Miss Maureen Holmes.

It was only by accident that the slender, dark-haired American girl wore a fur coat. For some reason Maureen Holmes could not bring herself to leave it behind in New York. But dolefully she thought she spent as much on clothes —and light summer, almost tropical clothes —as the cost of the whole trip.

Suddenly, and apparently out of the air, Maureen was addressed by a bass voice whose owner seemed to think he was speaking in a hushed whisper.

"S-s-t!" hissed the voice. "Oi!"

The backs of these seats in the plane were very high. Also, electrically illumined signs in two languages above the door to the pilot's cabin announced that you must keep your seat belt fastened. Yet the very large, stout, barrel-shaped gentleman, occupying the seat in front of Maureen, had overcome these difficulties.

In some fashion he had turned round and kneeled to face Maureen. Over the seat peered a face which was large, round, and square-jawed, with a polished bald head and a pair of shell-rimmed spectacles pulled down on a broad nose. Though he meant only earnestness, he directed at Maureen a look of such horrible malignancy that the girl would have shied back if she had not recognized him.

"Now listen, my wench," he began, in what he imagined to be his most polished social manner. "I've got to explain a few things. Just between ourselves . . . sh-h, now! ... my name is . . .'

Maureen knew what it was. Her green eyes, with the long black lashes, and broad mouth rather heavily made up against a pale complexion, held a certain anxiety as well as a secret admiration. Ever since the TWA airliner had left New York for Lisbon, she had half-hoped the old reprobate might speak to her.

"But you're the old man," she said simply. "You're Sir Henry Merrivale."

"Well . . . now," muttered H.M., not altogether displeased. "Sh-h!" he added, with a look so horrible that it would have paralyzed a Commando.

Against the blast of that personality, which seemed only a disembodied head glaring over the back of the seat, Maureen bristled a little. At home, at her work, she was cool and business-like and efficient, without losing any of her strong femininity. But now that she was abroad, her defenses were lowered, her true nature emerged; and she blurted out the words involuntarily.

"You're awful!" she said.

"What d'ye mean, I'm awful?" yelled H.M.

His powerful voice, against throttled motors as the plane circled down more softly through mist, caused shivering passengers to sit up and look. The Portuguese steward walked forward and indicated to H.M., more or less in English, that he was supposed to fasten his seat belt. H.M. handed the steward a ten-pound note and told him to sling his hook, which he did.

Maureen Holmes, already sorry for what she had said, tried to explain.

"I mean-according to the newspapers. When you first got to New York, you started a riot in the subway. Some people still say, in that Manning case, you . . . you . . ."

"Hocussed the evidence, hey?"

"If "hocussed' is the right word, yes. The police were after you in Washington, in Baltimore, in Philadelphia, in I don't know how many places! Including that little town near Charleston, where you persuaded the chief of police to arrest the mayor."

"Oh, my wench!" said H.M.

His big arm dismissed these small matters as mere peccadilloes. Sir Henry Merrivale, in fact, was puzzled as to why anyone should bother about them.

"When you got back to New York for the last time," persisted Maureen, "there was another riot and a murder in the Metropolitan Museum. Of course," Maureen glanced up from under her eyelashes, "the case was cracked by a Detective Lieutenant of the Homicide Squad. . . ."

"Uh-uh," grunted H.M., rolling up heavily innocent eyes. "Sure. Absolutely."

"But the Police Commissioner gave you a big banquet, and everything seemed wonderful. Everybody thought you were going back to England; not to Tangier. You sneaked out. You . . ."

Maureen paused. Lowering her head, so that her sleek black hair again contrasted with the beauty of the pale complexion, she tapped her gloved fingers irresolutely on her handbag.

"Oh, it's none of my business," she added softly, raising her green eyes, "but would you mind me telling you why, in a way, I hated the whole thing?"

"Lord love a duck, no."

"Aside from your—your horribly undignified conduct, and you an English nobleman, too . .’

H.M.'s mouth fell open. "Undignified? Me?"

"Aside from that," insisted Maureen, "it was all those dreadful women! I'm sorry! And at your age, too!"

Now she had really produced a reaction from the man of dignity.

H.M.'s head, disembodied and slowly turning purple, moved from left to right like a saint's head on a platter. "I am absolutely innercent!" he yelled, with passion and, it must be conceded, a great deal of truth. "It's that newspaper crowd, so help me! They print what they like about me, 'cause they know I won't cut up rough about it. Burn me, I can't even speak to a good-looker without flash-gun pictures! If they could 'a made anybody swallow it, they'd have had me makin' passes at the Statue of Liberty." "Then it really isn't true?"

"I'm misunderstood, my wench," said H.M., his face taking on the pathetic look of one who needs to be protected in this wicked world. "Honest! I'm the most misunderstood, clean-hearted ba —believer in good that ever walked. I stand there as good as gold, not botherin' anybody"—Sir Henry Merrivale really believed this —"and they up and mortify me. Look at me, my wench! Take a dekko at my dial! It's all right to call me Pop, which in America they mostly did. But am I an old rip?"

Despite her low spirits, mirth rose in the heart of Maureen Holmes. But her expression remained grave and sympathetic as she looked back at him.

"No, Sir Henry. I don't think you are."

"Good!" said H.M., his whole expression instantly changing. "Now we're going to land in a minute or so," — here a heavy arm darted across the back of the seat, pointing its forefinger almost against the nose of the startled Maureen —"and you're goin' to answer me a few pretty intimate questions. Got that?"

"Well! I . . ."

"What's your name, my wench?" Maureen told him.

"Are you here in Tangier on business, or is it a holiday?"

"It's just my vacation. Two weeks clear, with the addition of time for the plane trip back and forth,"

"What's your job at home? If any?"

"I —I'm a receptionist for Jones, Howard, & Ramsbotham. You know —the big law firm. Three-eighty-six Fifth Avenue."

"Uh-huh. Where are you staying in Tangier?"

Maureen smiled wryly. It brought colour into her cheeks, making her face prettier and emphasizing the forthright yet reserved green eyes.

"At the Minzeh Hotel," she answered. "They said it was the best in Tangier; and I can't afford it, actually. But I just. . , I just . , ." Ruefully she threw out her arms, and smiled again.

"Hah, better and better," declared H.M. "I booked reservations there, too. Now tell me. This Plushbottom law firm—what do they pay you —taking it by the week, say?"

Though her face grew more pink, Maureen told him.

"Uh-huh," said H.M. Again his forefinger pointed at her nose. "Then here's what I'll do. I'll triple that salary, and throw in two hundred as a bonus, it you'll pretend —only pretend—to be my secretary for a fortnight."

There was a silence, while Maureen looked back at him. Passengers, gabbling, were peering close to mist-stained windows in the near-silence of the plan. Then H.M. groaned.

"Oh, for the love of Esau!" he said, and smote his hands across his head. "No! It's not what you're thinkin'l It's not the evil old man creepin' up with evil propositions, which I'll prove." His martyred look returned. "I'm the poorest, most misunderstood . . ."

"But I don't think that!" protested Maureen. "Honestly!"

'Then . . ."

"I don't understand. Why do you want me to 'pretend' to be your secretary?"

"Sh-h!" hissed H.M., peering round conspiratorially. "Nobody knows I'm in Tangier. Not a soul! Oh, except the British Consulate; they're sending a young feller named Bentley to meet me; but they'll keep their mouths shut. What's more, nobody's goin' to know I'm here. I mean to sit back in a deck chair and sunglasses, doin' nothing, and recuperate from my holiday in America."

"But . . ."

"A while ago," H.M. sneered bitterly, "when you talked about the coppers chasing me practically from New York to San Francisco, I s'pose you thought I was having a good time? Well, I wasn't. 'Cause why? 'Cause those same coppers dragged me into the case to help 'em. Then, burn me if I know why, they got annoyed because I pinched the exhibits or flummoxed the evidence."

Here H.M. stuck his unmentionable face over the back of the seat, even his spectacles seeming larger.

"And what was every single one of those cases, my wench? Cor! I'll tell you. It was an impossible situation, that's what!"

"But," Maureen hesitated, "isn't that supposed to be your specialty?"

H.M.'s tortured expression was that of a reformed drunkard who sees before him a fine, noble bottle of whisky, with the top off and nobody in sight.

"I can't resist 'em," he said plaintively. "Supposin' I hear of a bloke shot to death in a locked room, or strangled on the sand at the seaside with no footprints except his own. Oh, my wench! Bright, burnin' flames of curiosity begin to shoot up round my collar; I can't rest, I can't sleep until I explain it."

"Yes; well?"

"It's got me, that's all. In London there's a snake named Masters: I couldn't understand why he went off his rocker, but I understand now." Again H.M. became all pathos. "I'm an old man, whatever they think. I can't stand the gaff. If anybody as much as says 'impossible' to me, "I'll bat him over the head with a soda siphon. Mind! I don't expect anything like that in Tangier; but I want to be smacking well certain I don't get involved. . . . That's where you come in."

"Where I come in? How?"

"Looky here," urged H.M. "You don't even have to be with me. When you go out of the hotel, just leave a note sayin' you've gone out with me; but you don't know where we're going or when we'll come back. If I'm in the hotel when you're there, you answer the phone. You say I'm paralyzed drunk - that's a good 'un! - or that I've got some awful infectious disease, or anything that'll keep *em away. I'm dead serious, my wench. Will you do it?"

Maureen bit at her underlip. Her gaze roved over the quivering cabin, everywhere except at H.M. She threw back her fur coat, revealing a slender, supple figure in a dark-green frock with metal buttons.

"Sir Henry," she said wretchedly, "I can't."

With a soft bump and jar, the plane wheels struck the runway, hopped a little, and steadied. The steward bawled out in Portuguese that passengers must still retain their seats. The motors chuttered again, for some complicated maneuvering to bring the door of the plane, portside rear, opposite the airport station.

The romantic-minded Maureen stretched out a hand to touch the back of the seat under H.M.'s head.

"I'm terribly sorry," she almost pleaded, "but I can't!" She hesitated. "You see, these two weeks are complete freedom from —well, from what you just said. They can't get you, no matter how they try. You can stick out your tongue at a ringing telephone. You haven't any responsibility towards anybody or anything."

Maureen drew a deep breath.

"It's glorious!" she added in her low, fine voice. "If you'd ever worked for years in an office, and got to the point of thinking, 'I must remember this, I must remember that, until you wanted to scream out loud, then I think you'd understand."

There was another pause, while Maureen lowered her eyes.

Then Maureen was astonished that H.M.'s big voice could be so gentle.

"I'm sorry too, my wench," he said, glaring at the floor. "And I'm the bloke who ought to apologize." Desperately he scratched on his head for hair that wasn't there. "Maybe the old man understands a lot more things than you think. But I say: you'll keep my secret, won't you?"

"Of course I will!" breathed Maureen. "All the secrets! Although . . ."

"Sh-h! Although what?"

"If we're staying at the same hotel, we're bound to run into each other. You must have made your reservation under a fake name. What name do I call you by?"

"Herbert Morrison," H.M. returned promptly. "Now don't get a funny look on your face, as if you'd heard it somewhere before! The initials are the same, ain't they? I'm good old Herbie Morrison. Sh-h!"

With a metallic sigh, the plane slid to a stop. There was a rippling and clashing as seat belts clattered open. The passengers, talking loudly in at least five languages, pressed hastily towards the door. Since H.M. and Maureen occupied the two foremost seats on the starboard side, they lingered and were more leisurely. Nobody had sat opposite them.

Up rose H.M. in all massiveness, goodly and great behind his corporation. On his head he firmly placed a Panama hat, with a vivid band and a down-turned brim. His light Palm Beach suit was set off by one of those revolting hand-painted ties which would have caused a shudder in Regent Street.

"Sir Henry," suggested Maureen hesitantly, "wouldn't it be better if you went first? I mean, you'll have to move sort of sideways down the aisle towards the door, and it would be much less awkward."

Even H.M.'s suspicious eye could detect no insulting reference to his corporation.

"Clever good!" he agreed, turning himself sideways and hopping down the aisle with his arms in the air like a ballet dancer. "Burn me, how good it is to sneak into a place where nobody knows you!"

"But, Sir Henry . . ."

"Sh-hl Call me Mr. Herbert Morrison, or else Pop."

"But I couldn't call you that!" Maureen was genuinely shocked. "Anyway, what is all that commotion down there outside the door?"

Though it was much warmer now that they had landed, the still-misted windows showed little outside. But it was evident that the fog had gone. Across the Tangier airport, built in mountain country far above and behind the city, a spiteful little wind still blew.

But shouts, imprecations now rose and boiled up round the portable steps which they had rolled against the open door. Each passenger, as he or she hurried down the steps, was whisked adroitly to one side; and all were lined up against the plane like those about to be shot.

"It's nothin', my wench," H.M. scoffed airily. "When Spaniards or Portuguese or Arabs begin yelling at each other, and you don't know more'n a dozen words, it sounds like there's goin' to be a murder; but it only means they're arguing about one peseta on the bill. Sh-h! Y'see . . ."

By this time he was at the door, where the steward bowed so low he nearly fell flat. H.M., handing him money, had hurried three steps down the stairs before he looked up. Directly ahead of him, about forty feet away, ran the long, rather low line of the airport station, with a row of glass doors along the front.

Then H.M. did look up, and surveyed what was before him. His neck swelled, and his eyes slowly bulged out behind (he big spectacles. If he had not established a firm grip on the handrail, he would have reeled. "Oh, lord love a duck!" he whispered.