"I thought it would," said Miss Hest coolly. "So while you were hunting for The Spider as a man in London I went down with Maunders--he was disguised as an old gentleman and I resumed my womanly dress. Then I wrote you on the plea of talking about Ida and asked after my pretended brother to still further puzzle you."
"You certainly succeeded," retorted Towton, trying to conceal his wonder at all this clever trickery; "but Ida was here and must have known that you were absent from the house as Francis."
"Oh, no. I appeared before her twice in this room, which is, as you see, not very well lighted, in my male disguise and with the painted scar on my face. She was entirely taken in."
"The very simplicity of your disguise took me in," said Ida angrily and wincing at having been so blinded. "Had you worn a beard or a wig I should have recognised you."
"I think not," said Miss Hest quietly and with an amused smile. "As the man I wore my hair somewhat long----"
"I noted that," said the Colonel quickly.
"How clever of you. Well, then, as a woman I merely knitted in false hair. I couldn't wear false hair as a man since Ida would then have been sharp enough to have recognised me. But plenty of women wear false plaits, so I was safe on that score: she never suspected me. My sole disguise was the cicatrice, skilfully painted, and the success of the whole business lay--as Ida has submitted--in its boldness and in the belief that I had a twin brother. I have always found," added Miss Hest musingly, "that the bolder one is the safer it is: audacity always scores. At all events, I so closely resembled my own true self that no one thought I was anyone else but what I represented myself to be. As Francis I told Ida that I was taking my sister away for a week, and so slipped up to London to meet Vernon at Lady Corsoon's and to be nearly trapped at Isleworth."
"What about Hokar and Bahadur?" asked the Colonel abruptly.
"Hokar," said Miss Jewin, making the explanation instead of Frances, "was an old servant of Captain Hest's and came to England with me and the child. Later he sent for his nephew, who was Bahadur."
"Yes. And I gave them both to Maunders when I set him up in those splendid Egyptian rooms in Bond Street," observed her mistress. "They were not engaged to strangle people, as you may think, Colonel, but I merely wished them to add to the fantastical look of the place when fortunes were being told. That you were so nearly strangled, and Vernon also, was your own fault and his own. You should mind your own business, my friend."