I told her all about our midnight adventures in the hall, and of how he had made a special point of my coming to see him on the barge; then, after explaining the reason for my sudden trip to London, I gave her a short but faithful account of everything that had happened since.
It was easy to see from the look of indignant horror in her eyes that she had known nothing about the death of Satan. She listened to me, however, in absolute silence, her face alone betraying the intense interest with which she was following every syllable. Even when I had finished she still sat there for a moment without speaking, as though trying to puzzle out the full significance of all she had just heard. At last she straightened herself in the chair, and threw away the half-smoked cigarette which she had been holding between her fingers.
"I have treated you very unfairly," she said in a low voice. "I ought to have told you the truth that day at Shalston. If anything had happened to you it would have been entirely my fault."
"Oh, that's nonsense," I declared. "You're not responsible for your relations any more than I am. Providence just dumped them on us, and we've got to make the best of it."
There was a moment's pause.
"I wonder how much you have guessed," she said. "I wonder if you have any idea of my uncle's real reasons for coming to England."
"I've got some notions on the subject," I admitted. "They're a little muddled, because I can't quite fit in our friend Dr. Manning. For a comparative stranger he appears to have rather an important part in the show."
With the shadow of a smile on her lips she leaned forward.
"If you tell me what you know," she said, "the rest will be easier for me to explain."
"Well, from what I've gathered one way and another," I began, "I should say that it was the late lamented Mr. Richard Jannaway who was responsible for the whole trouble. He was always a bad hat; in fact, the only decent thing he ever did in his life was to die without making a will. I know he was in South America for years, and it looks to me as if he'd managed to run up pretty badly against your uncle. He probably played the old boy some dog's trick, and Señor de Roda, being a gentleman of spirit, naturally determined to get level with him. Unless I'm much mistaken, that's how it is that you come to be sitting here at the present moment."