"Siddown," he grunted.

I sat. He tapped the letter in front of him.

"According to this piece here, you're the goods al

right, and I don't need to look further. Say, are you wel up in the social matters?"

I said that I thought I could satisfy him in tha

respect.

"I mean to say, if I have a lot of dooks and earls ai viscounts and suchlike down to the country place I' ' gotten, you'll be able to sort them out all right and p'i

THE BIG FOUR 77

them where they should be round the dining table?"

"Oh! quite easily," I replied, smiling.

We exchanged a few more preliminaries, and then I

found myself engaged. What Mr. Ryland wanted was a

secretary conversant with English society, as he already had an American secretary and a stenographer with

him.

Two days later I went down to Hatton Chase, the

seat of the Duke of Loamshire, which the American

millionaire had rented for a period of six months.

My duties gave me no difficulty whatever. At one

period of my life I had been private secretary to a busy member of Parliament, so I was not called upon to

assume a role unfamiliar to me. Mr. Ryland usually

entertained a large party over the week-end, but the

middle of the week was comparatively quiet. I saw very

little of Mr. Appleby, the American secretary, but he

seemed a pleasant, normal young American, very efficient in his work. Of Miss Martin, the stenographer, I

saw rather more. She was a pretty girl of about twentythree or four, with auburn hair and brown eyes that

could look mischievous enough upon occasion, though

they were usually cast demurely down. I had an idea

that she both disliked and distrusted her employer,

though, of course, she was careful never to hint at anything of the kind, but the time came when I was unexpectedly

taken into her confidence.

I had, of course, carefully scrutinised all the members

of the household. One or two of the servants had been

newly engaged, one of the footmen, I think, and some

of the housemaids. The butler, the housekeeper, and the

chef were the duke's own staff, who had consented to

remain on in the establishment. The housemaids I dismissed as unimportant; I scrutinised James, the second

footman, very carefully; but it was clear that he was

78 Agatha Christie

an under-footman and an under-footman only. He had,

indeed, been engaged by the butler. A person of whom I

was far more suspicious was Deaves, Ryland's valet,

whom he had brought over from New York with him.

An Englishman by birth, with an irreproachable manner,

I yet harboured vague suspicions about him.

I had been at Hatton Chase three weeks, and not an

incident of any kind had arisen which I could lay my

finger on in support of our theory. There was no trace

of the activities of the Big Four. Mr. Ryland was a man