“Because if you do, he will tell Cora Van Santen, and she will be indignant, and will certainly speak her mind openly about it, and there will be an explosion of wrath, and explanations, and inquiries, and the party will be broken up, and perhaps the detective himself found out, exposed, and thrown out of the house, and a fresh scandal will be made, just as we have got rid of the old one.”
Gerard thought this very good advice, though he was surprised that she should give it. He readily agreed not to say anything to Arthur about the presence of the detective, and went indoors with her just in time to see the arrival of a batch of visitors, among whom he saw the man Cecil Jones, whom he believed to be a decoy of the Van Santens.
This belief was strengthened when he found that Jones was in a jubilant and boastful mood, and that he was telling the other visitors that he had come prepared to beat Denver Van Santen at poker, having provided himself with money enough to bluff him to any extent he liked.
It seemed to Gerard that no man would have talked like this, doing his best to invite the attentions of the spoiler, after the scene of the preceding Sunday, which must certainly have been talked about by all the habitues of the Priory, unless he was an absolute fool. And in spite of his sheepish looks and gentle manners, Gerard had reason to believe that Cecil Jones was by no means so silly as he looked.
Miss Davison was not the woman to have foolish friends; and that Cecil Jones was the friend he had seen her with on more than one occasion previous to his visits to the Priory he was quite sure.
Gerard decided, therefore, that Jones, in his character of decoy to the rest of the pigeons whom the Van Santens plucked, had been allotted this rôle of careless and wealthy spendthrift in order to prove that, in spite of the scene of the preceding Sunday, the confidence of the visitors in the integrity of the Americans was as great as ever.
Gerard was annoyed at this scheme and he took care to show Cecil Jones that he did not believe in his bluff.
“You were not here last Sunday, I think?” he said dryly; “but no doubt you heard what took place here?”
“I did hear about it, of course,” said Jones, raising his voice, so that he could be heard by the rest of the people in the music-room, where they were standing; “but I shouldn’t think of taking the word of a man like Sir William Gurdon against that of people I know and like.”
“Why not?”