To Sheila's surprise, instead of the browbeating she had learned to expect, she saw that for some incomprehensible reason it suited him to accept the denial.
"He went to investigate a silver mine," he said after a moment.
"A mine!" she exclaimed; and the knowledge that he had not challenged the lie gave to the exclamation a vehemence so well simulated that it left him somewhat shaken in his first impression.
"That at least is my conviction," he said. "Now for the story."
He spoke rapidly, recounting in trivial detail the various steps by which he had traced Fargus to Mexico and into the dangerous mining region of Durango. From time to time Sheila, who suffered under these numerous details, interrupted, saying:
"Leave that."
"Be more brief."
"But tell me, tell me first of his death!"
"Here we are," Bofinger said finally, after completing without deviation his methodical recital. "On the twenty-fifth day of January, the last day of his life, he quarreled with his attendants and dismissed them. Despite all warnings he then pushed on in the sole company of an Indian breed and arrived at two o'clock at the ranch of a Mexican, Manuel Stroba. Here is his affidavit, the importance of which you'll see later."
As he prepared to read it, she snatched it from his hand, crying: