"Now, I was alone with Greyle for awhile that evening," continued Addie. "It was while my father was getting some food downstairs. Greyle said to me that he knew he was dying, and he gave me a pocket-book in which he said all his papers were: he said I could give it to my father. I believe he became unconscious soon after that; anyway, he never mentioned that pocket-book to my father. Neither did I. But after Greyle was dead I examined its contents carefully. And when I was in London at the end of the week, I showed them to—my husband."
Addie again paused, and at least two of the men glanced at each other with a look of surmise. Her—husband! "Who the—"
"The fact is," she went on suddenly, "Captain Andrius is my husband. But nobody knew that—not even my own father. We've been married three years—I met him when I was crossing over to America once. We got married—we kept the marriage secret for reasons of our own. Well, he met me in London the Sunday after Greyle's death, and I showed him the papers which were in Greyle's pocket-book. And—now this, of course, was where it was very wicked in me—and him—though we've tried to make up for it today, anyhow—we fixed up what I suppose you two gentlemen would call a conspiracy. My husband had a brother, an actor—not up to much, nor of much experience—who had been brought up in the States and who was then in town, doing nothing. We took him into confidence, coached him up in everything, furnished him with all the papers in the pocket-book, and resolved to pass him off as the real Marston Greyle."
Mr. Petherton stirred angrily in his chair and turned a protesting face on Sir Cresswell.
"Apart from being irregular," he exclaimed, "this is altogether outrageous! This woman is openly boasting of conspiracy and—"
"You're wrong!" said Addie. "I'm not boasting—I'm explaining. You ought to be obliged to me. And—"
"If Mrs. Andrius—to give the lady her real name—cares to unburden her secrets to us, I really don't see why we shouldn't listen to them, Mr. Petherton," observed Vickers. "It simplifies matters greatly."
"That's what I say," agreed Addie. "I'm done with all this and I want to clear things up, whatever comes of it. Well—I say we fixed that up with my brother-in-law."
"His name—his real name, if you please," inquired Vickers.
"Oh—ah!—well, his real name was Martin Andrius, but he'd another name for the stage," replied Addie. "We gave him the papers and arranged for him to go down to Scarhaven to my father. Now I want to assure you all, right here, that my father never did really know that Martin was an imposter. He began to suspect something at the end, but he didn't know for a fact. Martin went down to him at Scarhaven, just a week after the real Marston Greyle had died. He claimed to be Marston Greyle, he produced his papers. My father told about the Marston Greyle he'd buried. Martin pooh-poohed that—he said that that man must be a secretary of his, Mark Grey, who, after stealing some documents had left him in New York and slipped across here, no doubt meaning to pass himself off as the real man until he could get something substantial out of the estate, when he'd have vanished. I tell you my father accepted that story—why? Because he knew that if Miss Greyle there came into the estate, she and her mother would have bundled Peter Chatfield out of his stewardship quick."