The Prior and Casteno saw my look of amazement, and, rightly interpreting it, exchanged looks of mutual intelligence.
“Tell him,” said Cooper-Nassington, with a commanding nod.
“I will,” returned the Spaniard, and now he faced me. “Since I have arrived here, Glynn,” he went on, “I have heard all about that crime, and very quickly now the truth will be given to the public. This Bernard Delganni, who was found stabbed to the heart in Colonel Napier’s flat in Embankment Mansions, was really a nephew and heir-at-law of our founder, Bruno Delganni. He was in the Foreign Office service as translator to the treaty department, but he never got over the fact that he was left practically penniless in order to endow this Order of St. Bruno, and for years and years and years strove with might and main to do us all the injury he could, not only with the permanent heads of the Foreign Office, but also with the officials in India and Australia and South Africa, where we had founded houses.
“Quite a short time ago, however, he changed his tactics. He had got mixed up with a music-hall actress, who had bled him right and left for cash, and had finally driven him to some most disgraceful expedients to raise money, which were bound to be revealed unless he got nearly fifty thousand pounds to clear himself before they were discovered. In desperation he came to us, but not by way of a supplicant. ‘Pay me this sum,’ said he, half frantic with rage and fear and the bitter passions of revenge which he had cherished ever since he realised he had been disinherited, ‘or I’ll show you up to the world!’ We met; we debated about him. In the end we refused to be blackmailed. ‘Do your worst’ we said, in effect.
“Well, as you know yourself, he was a friend of Colonel Napier’s, and so he hit on that foul scheme of mystery and suicide and impersonation you have read about. He rightly saw if he blew out his brains in a plain, straightforward kind of way nobody would talk about him or worry about him but that the thing would be hushed up as soon as possible. Whereas, if he pretended to be a man of note like the colonel, and was mistaken for him, and then proved to be somebody else, all London would talk, as it did. No doubt, amongst his papers he has left some hints that we were the cause of the crime. By that means he probably hoped suspicion would be diverted from his disgraceful expedients, and he would save his name from shame at the expense of ours. We shall see. All in due time will be made clear. But it can’t really affect us. We know too much about him and the actress to suffer. At the right moment we will communicate the real facts to the police.”
“Indeed, already we have done so. I went to Scotland Yard myself,” said the Prior. “Believe me, to-morrow’s papers will put all perfectly clear.”
“Then I can see what we ought to do,” I cried, and in a few graphic sentences I sketched out a plan of action that met with instant approval from both my companions.