"Oh, I don't mind," rejoined the old man, good-humouredly, and then and there related the past of the dead man. He stated how Lady Wyke had been the actress Maisie Chain, and how Sandal had witnessed the ill-omened wedding. Then he told Claudia about the separation, the journey to America, the presumed death in the fire at the Chicago theatre, and finally described how Lady Wyke had learnt her husband's determination to marry again. "So she came over to prevent that," he concluded, "and so completely knocked the old man off his perch that he ran away to hide from her at Hedgerton."
"What did he intend to do?" asked Claudia, after she had digested the story. Lemby shrugged his shoulders. "Ask me another, my girl? I don't know. Whether he intended to lie low until he could get rid of her and marry you, or whether he intended to stick to her and chuck you I can't say. Seeing that she's a bit of a tartar, I guess he wanted to divorce her if possible."
"Could he have done so?"
"Lady Wyke says he couldn't, as she has always kept herself respectable."
"I don't think that Sir Hector was to blame," said Claudia, after a pause "except in not telling me and you before he went to Hedgerton."
"I should have squeezed the explanation out of him when I paid him that visit, my girl, if he hadn't gone to see the man who killed him."
"Do you know the girl who killed him?" asked the girl in a low voice.
"No, I don't," denied the pirate, roundly, but looking uneasy, "and I wish you'd stop harping on that dashed murder, Claudia. Wyke's dead and buried, and his widow has got the cash, so let the whole shoot slide."
"How can I when you hinted that you were mixed up in the matter?"
"Oh, I only said that to get you to come to Australia with me," said her father, rising with a yawn and stretching himself lazily.