"That's what I told the young lady. You promised in your telegrams to come back."
"But I never sent any telegrams; they were all forged."
The detective regarded him steadily and with an air of doubt.
"Then why did you go away? What was your motive in frightening the poor girl?" he asked.
"I went involuntarily. I—well, I suppose I must have been drugged and put on board a ship at Hull."
"H'm! What ship?"
Gerald gave the name of the ship and of its captain, which the detective scribbled down.
"Yes. You'd better tell me the whole of your story. It seems rather a curious one."
"It is," declared Durrant, and he proceeded to describe what happened on that fateful night when he met the two ladies in distress outside Kensington Gardens.
The detective listened attentively, but noting Gerald's unkempt appearance and rough dress, together with his excited manner, he came to the conclusion that what he was relating was a mere exaggerated tale concocted with some ulterior motive, which to him was not apparent.