Eileen had no need to say anything. Her face told Rollo that she had not been offended.
“You startled me not long ago, Mr. Westenhanger,” their host went on, “by asking me if the Dangerfield Secret was not just three generations old. If that was a mere guess it was a very good one. Actually, what has been called the Dangerfield Secret originated in my father’s day; and since it has been passed on to Eric it has lasted through three generations. And now it passes away, thanks to you young people.”
He paused for a moment before speaking again.
“You must bear in mind that some of this is conjecture, and that I am trying to fit it together so as to take in the facts which have come to light this afternoon. Before I came into this room I had not the key to the problem; and I have hardly had time to fit the new links into the chain neatly. But it seems evident to me that even in my grandfather’s day, there was a Talisman and a replica; and that the replica was kept under the tinted bell to conceal the fact that the stones were false. From your inferences, Mr. Westenhanger, it seems clear that he devised this particular hiding-place for the real Talisman.
“Now take the state of affairs on the morning of my grandfather’s death. He knew the risk he ran—his opponent was a noted duellist; and he had no one at hand whom he could trust. Probably, as you suggested, he collected the more valuable family jewels and placed them with the real Talisman for safety’s sake. We did him an injustice when we assumed that he had already sold them to pay his gambling debts.
“I don’t care to speculate on his mental condition at that moment. Quite probably, after a night’s carousing he was not clear-headed. He jotted down the memory-help he used himself as a clue to the hiding place, and very probably he failed to realise that it was no real help to anyone but himself. Then he went out—and that was the end.”
With quite unconscious dramatic effect the old man paused in his narrative and sat for some instants in silence. When he spoke again it was in a lighter tone.
“And now I come to a fresh character. I never knew him, but I have been trying to reconstruct him in my mind from many things which were told to me about him. He was the solicitor for the Dangerfield estate at the time my Corinthian grandfather died.
“Imagine his position, Miss Cressage. He takes over the administration of the estate—you remember that my father was a mere child then—and he finds it terribly encumbered with the debts which had accumulated in my grandfather’s day, a load of liabilities which even a generation failed to clear away. Credit was essential if the ship was to be kept afloat at all. And the biggest asset of the estate was the Dangerfield Talisman. So long as that remained, no one could suppose that things were seriously involved, and with care, he could just pilot us through. Without that palladium, the creditors would have come down at once and the game would have been up. Friocksheim would have come to the hammer. Everything would have gone down in the crash. And in the midst of all his anxiety he learned that the Talisman was a sham of gilded lead and spurious stones!”
Rollo broke off his narrative, leaving time for them to appreciate the position.