And once more the lean and grimy finger pointed to the seedy-looking matron who nodded a melancholy head, half in pride, half in regret.
"Clever, did you say?" asked the coroner, more briskly now. At last he held a thread in this extraordinary tangled skein. "Then do you mean to assert that your son—Paul Baker—went about the world calling himself Philip de Mountford?"
"That must 'ave been it, sir, I think."
"Deceiving people?"
"Aye! 'e was ever a bit o' no good."
"You think he imposed upon his lordship, the Earl of Radclyffe?"
"'E must 'ave done, sir, mustn't 'e now? seein' as 'ow 'is lordship must 'ave been took in."
"You helped him in the deception, I suppose?"
"Me, sir? Lor' bless ye no! Me an' 'is mother ain't clever enough for such things! We knew nothin' of Paul's doin's, and 'e allus went 'is own way, sir."
"But at least you knew that this fraud was going on?"