Indeed, I had read of the prowess of some of them in _The Field_, a paper that I always took in Africa, although often enough, when I was on my distant expeditions, I did not see a copy of it for a year at a time.
To my astonishment I found that I knew one of these gentlemen.

We had not, it is true, met for a dozen years; but I seldom forget a face, and I was sure that I could not be mistaken in this instance.

That mean appearance, those small, shifty grey eyes, that red, pointed nose could belong to nobody except Van Koop, so famous in his day in South Africa in connexion with certain gigantic and most successful frauds that the law seemed quite unable to touch, of which frauds I had been one of the many victims to the extent of L250, a large sum for me.
The last time we met there had been a stormy scene between us, which ended in my declaring in my wrath that if I came across him on the veld I should shoot him at sight.

Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Mr.
van Koop vanished from South Africa, for I may add that he was a cur of the first water.

I believe that he had only just entered the room, having driven over from wherever he lived at some distance from Ragnall.
At any rate, he knew nothing of my presence at this shoot.