"I shan't," said Harry; then thought better of it, and poured a glass of port down his enemy's throat. "Now tell!"
"I really didn't mean to kill her," said Theodore, and Colpster raised his head to listen. "I followed Martha up to London, intending when she got the Mikado Jewel to make her give it to me."
"Why?" asked the Squire, looking very old and grey.
"Because you said that the one who produced the jewel would be your heir, curse you!" shrieked Theodore savagely; "You are the cause of all the beastly trouble. I learned from Martha in an indirect way that Harry was coming, and then I met him."
"Yes," said the sailor bitterly. "And like a fool I told you too much."
"You told me nothing," said Dane, scowling. "Your mother wanted the emerald for Basil. But I got into your room at the boarding-house you lived in at Pimlico, and I read your mother's letters."
"You did."
"Yes. She said that she would be alone on that night and would come to get the emerald. I went to the house to see if she had left. I knocked at the door, but no one came, so I went to the window and saw her lying on the sofa near the fire. I called out to her, and asked her to let me in."
"She couldn't get off the sofa, you fool!" cried the Squire.
"She could and she did. I said that I had found out that Harry had been killed by the Japanese for the sake of the emerald. Then she crawled to the window and let me in."