"Then I began to understand. You were only a little time from the room. Why did you go from the room? Ostensibly to see Captain Gifford off in his new autocar. Here was a possible solution. I saw Gifford later, and he told me that you had been larking off in his car for twenty minutes--long enough at that time of night to get to my chambers and back easily.
"That is logical, at any rate. But to go further. You borrowed a man's coat to put over your shoulders. And the coat you borrowed was mine with the latchkey in the pocket. That I got from a footman. And when I came to look for my skeleton plot, it was gone. Then I knew where I had to search. Leona Lalage was at the bottom of the Corner House mystery. It was her hand that I had to force. Once that was done the rest was easy."
"So far you have made it quite plain," Leona murmured, "but I fail to see that all the rest was easy."
"Easy to me," said Lawrence, "whose plot had been stolen. Remember it was really I who planned that business of palming the notes on to Bruce."
"Of course, of course," Leona murmured with her hand to her head. "My mind has not been quite so clear for the last few days. Go on."
"Well, a man had been murdered at the Corner House which was not a detail of my plot. I saw that man, and Miss Lawrence had seen him, too. She saw him, you will remember, one night in one of the windows of the Corner House. She saw a struggle go on there. The other man was no doubt Balmayne."
Leona inclined her head as if in consent.
"Afterwards, which is much more to the point, my niece saw Leon Lalage here. I had better call him your husband, because really there is no denying that. The man was in your house in the morning room, and Hetty saw him. After the business of the notes came out and the story of the Spanish gipsy was told, I knew perfectly well what had taken place. You had called Bruce in to your drunken husband by means of your new motor, with Balmayne playing the deaf mute. After Bruce was gone you killed the man with a knife you procured at Rosser's, in Regent Street. I find the knife in the dry well behind the house."
Leona said nothing. There was a queer, strained look, half of admiration, on her face. But she uttered no protest, no denial.
"Now we come to the marvellous evidence against Bruce. There you had stolen my plot, body and boots. Bruce is poor, so was my hero. You find out all about that picture he bought, and Balmayne or somebody--it does not in the least matter who--in the guise of a Dutchman puts Bruce in possession of £200. These notes he places in his pocket.