"What did you do then?" I asked, amazed at her revelation.
"At once I wrote to M'sieur Craig, who was at Villa d'Este, on the Lake of Como, asking him to meet me in secret in Paris, at the earliest possible moment. He met me one afternoon in the tea-rooms in the corner of the Place Vendome, and there I told him what I had discovered. And—and—well, I was forced to confess to him, for the first time, that I was a thief." She added in a changed voice, "the cat's paw of my uncle. I know I——"
"That's enough, Lola!" exclaimed the young man. "We need not refer to that. With Mr. Vidal, I am fully aware that your connection with those terrible crimes has been a purely innocent one. You have been forced into assisting them—held to them and to silence on pain of death."
"Yes," I added, "that's true. Lola is innocent. I vouch for that."
"Yes. Put upon my guard by Lola," Craig exclaimed, "I crossed at once to London, and without revealing who it was who intended to personate me, I told old Jerningham, the solicitor, to be careful. I remained in London a week, and then, unable to further repress my curiosity, I went to Cromer. I——"
"Ah, perhaps I had better continue my narrative, so that we shall be rightly understood," Lola interrupted, with cheeks flushed in her excitement. "A couple of days after Edouard had gone to London, my uncle, stung to fury by a letter he had received from old Vernon, suddenly announced that we were both going to Cromer. Therefore, we left Paris, and duly landed at Charing Cross, just in time to catch the last train up to Cromer, where we arrived between ten and eleven o'clock at night. In order to spring a surprise upon Vernon, we evaded the hotel and went to some rooms in Overstrand Road for which he had already telegraphed, having seen an advertisement in a railway guide."
"To the house where he afterwards lodged?" I asked.
"Yes. He had taken the same name he had used in Berlin, Doctor Arendt," she replied. "Well, I had gone to my room, but was standing at the open window, without switching on the light, when I saw him leave the house. Wondering what might be in progress, I put on my knitted golf coat and cap, and went after him. He took a long night-ramble past the flashing lighthouse on the cliff, and away across the golf-links, towards Overstrand, apparently reflecting deeply, his anger rising more and more against Vernon, whom he had accused of robbing him. For a long time I watched as he sat upon a log on top of the cliffs about a mile and a half from the town, gazing out upon the sea, and smoking a cigar, I having hid myself behind a bush. I was rather sorry I had come out, yet in the circumstances, and in the interests of Edouard, I felt it my duty to watch in patience. At last my uncle rose and strolled back over the golf-course, along the cliff-path, towards the town. As he came along over the low hill from the lighthouse, strolling on the grass, and making no sound, he suddenly discerned upon a seat the figure of a man in wide-brimmed hat and cape seated with his back to him and looking out to sea. The night was warm and pleasant, a calm and perfect night on the North Sea——"
"Were you near him?" Sommerville interrupted.