"What does it all mean, dear?" asked Cyril, when they were quite safe.
Next morning, Dora being at school as usual, Bella received Cyril and Durgo in Miss Ankers' tiny drawing-room to discuss the position of affairs with regard to the Huxham mystery. In the negro's opinion it was no longer a mystery, for after hearing Bella's account of Granny Tunks' utterances while in the trance he unhesitatingly pronounced Henry Vand guilty.
"But on what evidence?" asked Cyril, who, like Bella, had small belief in the manifestation of the unseen.
"The evidence that Granny said that she did say," returned Durgo quietly.
"That evidence would not be accepted in a court of law," remarked Bella.
"I am aware of that. I have not been to Oxford for nothing, missy. But it gives me a clue, which I shall follow up. This afternoon I shall see Mrs. Tunks and question her."
"But if she really knows anything," said Cyril, after a pause, "it will prove that her trance statements were by design and from practical knowledge."
"I am sure they were," said Bella emphatically. "I fancied that as Granny did not see the second set of papers, which Durgo got from Mr. Pence, that she did not know the name of Maxwell Faith, my father. But now I remember that in the first set, which she found and delivered to you, Durgo, my father's name was also mentioned; also the number and the value of the jewels. All her talk was of the jewels."
"And of the murder of your real father by Huxham," said Durgo drily; "that was not in the first set of papers, and was only lightly referred to in the second set."
"That is strange," said Cyril reflectively.
"You no doubt think so," said the negro calmly, "as you disbelieve all that you can't see or prove. I know otherwise."
"But, Durgo," argued Cyril, surprised at this assumption, "you have been to Oxford, and surely must have rid yourself of these barbarous African superstitions."
"You call them superstitions because you don't know their esoteric meaning. But there is such a thing as magic, white and black."
Durgo shrugged his shoulders. "Of course I never argue with an unbeliever, Cyril Lister," he said indifferently, "but the Wise Men came from the East, remember, and Europe is indebted to the East for most of her civilisation."