“When did she settle down in Baycombe, then?”
“When she came back from South Africa. About six years ago I had a letter from her from Port Said, saying that she was on her way to the Cape. She was away a year, and I hardly had a line from her. Then one day she turned up and said she’d had enough of travelling and was going to live at the Manor.”
“And did she?”
“She used to go abroad occasionally, but they were quite short trips.”
“When was the last expedition?”
She pondered.
“About two years ago, or a bit less. I can’t remember the exact date.”
“Now think,” suggested the Saint—“roughly, you hardly saw her at all between the time she introduced herself as your guardian, when you were twelve, until she came back from South Africa, when you were sixteen or seventeen.”
“Nearer seventeen.”
“And in that time anything might have happened.”