“Well. Have you detained me to hear only what I already knew?”
“Pardon me, I have not finished. I have now to inform you that you inherited under a misconception, first because Colonel Monk was married and had issue, secondly, because he did not die in India, but reached the shores of England, where he perished in the shipwreck of the ship Trinidad, in the year 1864.”
Monk was livid. At this moment Jones, who had been watching the scene from a distance, came over, panting and perspiring in ill-concealed terror.
“Lor’, Mr. Monk, what’s the matter? Look ye now, we shall be late for the wedding.”
As he spoke Marshall, the detective, clapped him playfully on the shoulder.
“How d’ye do, William Jones? I’ve often heard of you, and wished to know you. Pray stop where you are. I’ll talk to you presently.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Monk now said with dogged desperation, “with all this rigmarole, Mr. Lightwood, or whatever your name is. It seems to me you are simply raving. If I am not my cousin’s heir, who is, tell me that?”
“His daughter,” said the man quietly.
“He never married, and he never had a daughter.”
“His daughter, an infant twelve or fourteen months old, sailed to England with him, was shipwrecked with him, but saved by a special Providence, and has since been living in this place under the name of Matt Jones.”