"Ah," I exclaimed in dry retort; "you are beginning to see that I have something as interesting to report as yourself. Did you think me a superficial egotist, without facts to back my assertions?"
"I should not have done you that injustice."
"I have penetrated, I think, deeper than even yourself, into William's character. I think him capable—But do satisfy my curiosity on one point first, Mr. Gryce. How came you to know as much as you do about last night's proceedings? You could not have been in the house. Did Mother Jane talk after she got back?"
The tip of his cane was up, and he frowned at it. Then the handle took its place, and he gave it a good-natured smile.
"Miss Butterworth," said he, "I have not succeeded in making Mother Jane at any time go beyond her numerical monologue. But you have been more successful." And with a sudden marvellous change of expression, pose, and manner he threw over his head my shawl, which had fallen to the floor in my astonishment, and, rocking himself to and fro before me, muttered grimly:
"Seventy! Twenty-eight! Ten! No more! I can count no more! Go."
"Mr. Gryce, it was you——"
"Whom you interviewed in Mother Jane's cottage with Mr. Knollys," he finished. "And it was I who helped to bury what you now declare, to my real terror and astonishment, to have been a human being. Miss Butterworth, what about the knot of crape? Tell me."