“Mr Dalston.”
The name obviously conveyed no meaning to him. He only pondered me, dumfoundered, fingering his lips.
“The man is an infernal scoundrel, sir,” I said with emphasis. “I intimated as much to you once before. What I did not, could not, touch upon at the time, was the strange coincidence of his double connection with your family. He was not only your son’s travelling tutor, sir; but he is also, by his own assertion, and in Lady Skene’s belief, my father.”
For a moment his mind, grasping desperately at the significance of my words, slipped and went under.
“Dalston!” he muttered amazed. “Delane was Charlie’s tutor.”
“Delane or Dalston, sir—it is all the same. The man had his reasons for assuming a name not his own. It was to cover over the tracks of a very discreditable liaison he had had with a young woman, whom he had known when he was an usher at a school at Clapham.”
“At Clapham!” The word seemed to take him in the face. “Go on,” he said presently, with a sudden clinching intonation.
“Is it necessary, sir? You will comprehend me, I think.”
“She deceived me about you?”
“Yes.”