"As yet she has not taken any strong steps," he confessed with some reluctance; "because she has been obliged to act under her lawyer's guidance. Remember that she is a foreigner, and knows nothing of our legal machinery."
"Very likely not. But Webber does—Webber her solicitor. I suppose Webber has been very energetic."
"He has not done so much as one might have expected. In fact he has seemed to me rather remiss. He has had his own private hands at work, which as he says is the surest plan; but he has brought no officers from London down. He tells me that in all such cases they have failed; and more than that, they have entirely spoiled the success of all private enquiry."
"It looks to me very much as if private enquiry had no great desire to succeed. My conclusion grows more and more irresistible. Shall I tell you what it is?"
"My dear fellow, by all means do. I shall attach very great importance to it."
"It is simply this," Sir Harrison spoke less rapidly than usual; "all your mystery is solved in this—Lady Waldron knows all about it. How you all have missed that plain truth, puzzles me. She has excellent reasons for restricting the enquiry, and casting suspicion upon poor Fox. Did I not hear of a brother of hers, a Spanish nobleman I think he was?"
"Yes, her twin-brother, the Count de Varcas. She has always been warmly attached to him; but Sir Thomas did not like him much. I think he has been extravagant. Lady Waldron has been doing her utmost to discover him."
"I dare say. To be sure she has! Advertised largely of course. Oh dear, oh dear! What poor simple creatures we men are, in comparison with women!"
Mr. Penniloe was silent. He had made a good dinner, and taken a glass of old port-wine; and both those proceedings were very rare with him. Like all extremely abstemious men, when getting on in years, he found his brain not strengthened, but confused, by the unusual supply. The air of London had upon him that effect which it often has at first upon visitors from the country—quick increase of appetite, and hearty joy in feeding.
"Another thing you told me, which confirms my view," resumed the relentless Doctor—"the last thing discovered before you came away—but not discovered, mark you, by her ladyship's agents—was that the cart supposed to have been employed had been traced to a smuggler's hiding-place, in a desolate and unfrequented spot, probably in the direction of the coast. Am I right in supposing that?"