"What!" cried Ritson, jumping up with an activity surprising in so elderly a lawyer. "Did she----?"
"Here!" interrupted Kyles impatiently, "we'll never get on at this rate. Mr. Gowrie, you had better tell what happened at the 'Marsh Inn' and I'll take up the story when your knowledge fails."
Gowrie smiled graciously, asking nothing better than to be the central figure in the conversation. The three men listened attentively, but the two women, still glaring at one another, gave but a careless ear to the tale, told in the old tutor's best style and in his best English. "For the beenefit o' the lawyer body," explained Gowrie, nodding towards Ritson, "him being unacquaint wi' the tongue o' Auld Reekie. But baith ye laddies," he indicated Herries and Kyles respectively, "ken well the vernacular ye sooked in wi' yer mither's milk as it micht be."
"Get on, get on," cried Kyles looking at his watch, "we have not much time. I have steam up, and we lift anchor before midnight."
Ritson smiled to himself, thinking that before midnight Captain Kyles would probably find himself in Tarhaven prison. However, as Gowrie was speaking, he gave his attention to the story, and it astonished him not a little.
The sage related all that had taken place at the inn since his arrival there, and described with indignation how he had been kidnapped while searching for the box buried by Mrs. Narby. In the midst of his diatribes, the Captain cut him short.
"I learned from Señora Guzman that Mrs. Narby had gone to see her son in London," he explained rapidly, "and got the address from the maid-servant of the inn. Mrs. Narby had given her the address and had told her to send on any letters. On receiving this information I went ashore with one of the notes, which I took from the box. I intended to come and see you, Herries, and make an arrangement. But I met Kind by chance on the jetty and made the arrangement with him. He agreed to take the note to town, and give it to Pope Narby; also to try and induce him to pass it, and then give information to the police so that Pope might be arrested, and thus the note would be brought under the notice of the Scotland Yard authorities."
"But Pope would never have tried to pass a note of that sort, when he knew that the authorities had the numbers."
"He did not know that this was one of the stolen notes. Mrs. Narby, I presume, went to London to tell him that the box had been found--which it was by me, and is now on board,--but he would never connect Kind and the stolen notes. Kind presented the note to Pope, who is a fool, as a present from Señora Guzman, who admired his poetry. It was for fifty pounds, and Pope swallowed the bait. He went out to cash the note, as he was short of money. Kind, according to my instructions, entered the shop with him, and declared that it was one of the notes that had to do with the Tedder murder, and gave Pope in charge."
"But since Kind gave him the note----"