"I think not," rejoined Miss Hest contemptuously. "Don't you know me well enough yet to be aware that I provide against all contingencies. Come in!" she added, raising her voice, and, when the door opened, looked at Towton. "I shall ask my old nurse, Miss Jewin, to relate the beginning of my career; at a later time I can take up the tale, and then our tumbled-down friend yonder can finish the story. Sarah, enter and close the door."
Miss Sarah Jewin was peaked-faced and white, with thin lips, scanty grey hair and cold grey eyes. She was thin and bony and very tall, so that in her plain black dress she looked like a line--length without breadth. As she entered Maunders with a groan hoisted himself into a chair. Miss Jewin had already pushed him aside when she entered the room and, in place of replying to her mistress, stood looking at his scowling, haggard face with a look of consternation. Maunders replied to the look with petty triumph.
"Yes, I got out," he said, rubbing the ragged beard which disfigured his well-moulded chin. "I wrenched a bar out of the window and climbed down by the ivy. Now the murder's out, and you and your hellish mistress are about to be brought to book."
"Don't mind him, Sarah," said Frances lazily and leaning back in her chair to light a cigarette; "you are safe and so am I. Let the fool talk. In the meantime, tell Colonel Towton here how I came to England and how you knew that Ida was merely Dimsdale's adopted daughter."
"I thought you wanted these things kept secret," said Miss Jewin in dismay and turning pale with dread at the situation in which she found herself.
"The time for secrets is past, Sarah. Shortly, thanks to your having allowed Maunders to escape and to Colonel Towton's sense of justice, the hue and cry will be out against the whole of us. Is Hokar at his post?"
"Yes. He went away when you gave orders."
"That's all right. I'll escape, sure enough, and so will you. We'll leave Maunders behind to face justice: he can declare himself to be The Spider instead of me if he chooses."
"Oh!" Miss Jewin started back looking terrified. "Do they know----"
"Maunders has told them, you dear old idiot. But there's no time to be lost, Sarah; tell your story."