"What about the returned money, Miss Sandoval? Why should the society instruct Manuel, or Centa, to kill Grent and rob his body, then give back the money to itself? That's robbing Peter to pay Paul with a vengeance."
"So it is. I can't understand it at all."
"Then again," said Frank warming, "did you not take two tickets from the bank?"
"I don't know. Mr. Grent mentioned only one ticket, and it was in an envelope. But now you mention it, Mr. Darrel, the envelope was rather thick; there might have been two tickets."
"There were; one for Mr. Grent, the other for Miss Hargone. She had arranged to elope with Grent; at least, she fooled him into believing so, but instead of going she sent Julia Brawn, disguised in that fawn-coloured mantle. Then Grent was killed."
"I can't say. Perhaps that Centa you speak of got wind that Grent was bolting with the money to Italy, and followed to kill him. But who can tell? It is all a mystery."
"I don't wish to speak ill of the dead," said Maria, with a sigh, "but it seems to me that my uncle was acting very badly. That he should deceive my poor aunt, who loved him so!" And a tear trickled down her face.
Darrel said nothing, but he was quite satisfied that he knew the extent of Grent's villainy. He had stolen the ten thousand pounds in such a way as to throw the blame on Vass, and he had intended to fly to South America with Lydia Hargone, deserting his wife for a woman who had deceived him at last. But Providence, which rules all things, had thwarted his evil plans, and instead of getting away with the fruits of his iniquity he had met with a cruel death at the hands of an unknown man. As he had sown, so had he reaped.
"Let me ask you one thing," said Darrel, as he took his leave: "why did you not tell us this before?"
"Because, in the first place, I promised my uncle to keep silent; and in the second, he told me that if I spoke the society--since he hoped to escape it--might kill my aunt. It was for her sake that I kept silent."
"Lies! Lies! Lies!" thought Darrel. "What a liar Grent was."
When he got back to town he saw Torry and told him the whole story, whereat the detective was much pleased.
"Didn't I say Grent had the money!" said he, slapping his thigh. "What a plot to get it, the cunning old fox! I'm almost loth to catch and hang the man who killed him."