"I can't understand it," she said. "How any one could be so careless as—"
"It wasn't carelessness," said the judge. "If it had been I might have given the place another trial. It was done on purpose."
"Surely not."
"I pursued the cook," said the judge, "into the fastnesses of her kitchen. She fled before me, but I ran her to earth at last in the scullery. A filthier hole I never saw. I went for her straight, and expected to be told a story about somebody or other upsetting a lamp over all her pots and pans. Instead of that, she answered me, without a sign of hesitation and said— Now what do you think she said?"
"I can't guess. Not that she thought you'd like the flavour?"
"No. She hadn't quite the effrontery to say that. She told me that Mr. Meldon, this parson of yours who takes you out yachting, had given orders before I came that all my food was to be soaked with paraffin oil."
"Oh! But that's too absurd."
"So you'd think. So I thought at the moment. I didn't believe her. I thought that she was putting up an unusual line of defence to excuse her own gross carelessness. But I was evidently wrong. The girl seems to have been telling the truth. I think I mentioned to you the state in which I found my bed last night."
"You said it was damp."
"Damp! I never said damp. Soaking is the word I used; or at all events ought to have used. It was soaking with Condy's Fluid, as it turned out, though I didn't know at the time what the stuff was. I had an interview with the hotelkeeper himself, a ruffian of the name of Doyle, about that. I had very nearly to break the bell before I could get any one to come to me. It's a very odd thing, but he told me practically the same story; said that this man Meldon, whoever he is, had given orders to have Condy's Fluid poured all over my bed and chloride of lime shovelled on to the floor. I did not believe him at the time any more than I believed that miserable slut of a cook the next morning. I was in such a temper when I left that I didn't think of putting their two stories together; but going over the whole thing this afternoon in my mind it struck me as rather peculiar that they should both have hit on such a grotesque sort of a lie, if it was a lie."