After a while I said plainly that there was a mystery underlying all this which I should like to have explained.
"You shall hear the explanation," said Shadow. "I am not what I seem; I am not a man; I am Nellie Millbank, to whom you were kind enough—although a stranger—to lend the money with which to decently inter the body of her murdered lover."
"I sometimes suspected as much," I said, while Mat and Helen both opened their eyes with surprise at learning that Shadow was a woman.
"Now," said I to Shadow, "it was to you whom I paid five hundred dollars?"
"Yes."
"Then"—to Mat—"how was it possible for you to send that same five hundred dollars to your mother?"
"I found the money," said Mat.
"I lost it," said Shadow.
Here was one of those little things which had so deeply puzzled me made light as day.
By questioning, by listening when all the parties talked freely, I finally understood all the ins and outs of the thrilling drama in real life.