‘But are you not aware that my father went to Morwell on the next day, Midsummer Day, and was told that Eve had eloped with you?’
‘With me!’ the manager stood still. ‘With me! Nonsense!’
‘On the twenty-fourth she was gone.’
Mr. Barret shook his head. ‘I cannot understand.’
‘One word more,’ said Jasper. ‘You will see Miss Eve Jordan. Do not tell her that I am her uncle. Do not cast a doubt on her mother’s death. Speak to her only in praise of her mother as you knew her.’
‘This is puzzling indeed,’ said the manager. ‘We have had a party with us, an amateur, a walking character, who talked of Morwell as if he knew it, and I told him about the Miss Eve we had left there and her marriage to the squire. I may have said, “If ever you go there again, remember me to the lady, supposing her alive, and tell me if the child be as beautiful as I remember her mother.”’
‘There is but one man,’ said Jasper, ‘who holds the key to the mystery, and he must be forced to disclose.’