"He wished to see you before revealing himself as your uncle."
"He could have appointed the meeting to take place in his house. Why was it arranged to come off in Parley Wood?"
"There," said Madame Alpenny with candour, "I cannot help you. But that Monsieur Evans was strange--ah yes, he was dangerous. He told me that he would meet you at the Gipsy Stile, and took me there to show me the place. I went into the wood after I had left the big house."
"I am aware of that," said Hench, remembering what Peter had said. "Go on."
"You seem to know much," she sneered.
"Enough to get you arrested and tried, condemned and hanged," said Hench in a significant tone. "Go on, I tell you."
Madame Alpenny snarled, and her eyes glittered viciously. "Don't try to ride the tall horse over me, beast that you are. I am not afraid; no, I am not at all afraid. I do not know why your uncle arranged the meeting for the wood. All I had to do was to draw your attention to the advertisement, which I did. He wrote it out and put it in the journal. For all I know," went on the woman, more or less to herself, "this man wished to kill you, and chose a lonely place to do so."
"Why should he wish to kill me?"
"Because he hated your father and he hated you, Monsieur. He did not wish you to get the money. I did, because then you could marry Zara and I would be rich for the rest of my life."
"That means I would have been under your thumb."