The young man in flannels shrugged his shoulders, and replied:
"I confess that the problem is getting on my nerves. The more I think it over the more inscrutable it becomes. Mischief is being worked somewhere. Of that I feel confident. All the actions of our friend Boyne point to it."
"But that shroud? Why does he wear it?" asked Marigold blankly.
"As a disguise, without a doubt. Perhaps the person upstairs has been confined there so long that his mind has already become deranged, as is inevitable after a long period of solitary incarceration, and Boyne now takes the precaution of adopting the simple disguise so that his friend should fail to identify him. He may have done his captive some great injury—or something."
"True; but, if he has, it was not in order to gain. Bernard Boyne is a comparatively poor man. My aunt says that he seems to have only just sufficient money to make both ends meet."
Gerald Durrant drew a long breath. Upon his countenance was an expression of doubt.
"He may pass as a poor man, and yet be rich," he remarked. "It may sound romantic, but there are many people living in the by-streets of London, successfully concealed beneath assumed names and unsuspected by their neighbours, who for years have lived a life of penury though they are really well off. And their motive is, for some reason or other, to cut themselves adrift from friends in their own sphere. Indeed, it is a well known fact that in the last days of King Edward an ex-Cabinet Minister lived for several years in seclusion in a meagre side-street near Kennington Park, as Mr. Benwell, his real identity never being suspected until, owing to his sudden death, an inquest was held, and the police, searching his papers, discovered that he was immensely wealthy and one of Britain's foremost statesmen, who was believed to be living in seclusion in Italy."
"Perhaps Mr. Boyne is some person who has sought retirement in a similar manner," Marigold suggested.
"No. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Boyne is playing a very deep and rather dangerous game—how dangerous I cannot yet discover."
"But you could discover nothing when you watched—just as I failed to find out any fact," she said. "I had no idea you were on the watch."