“Well, there was the situation as I understood it when I took on the job—­or quite soon afterwards.  He thought that he was being pursued; in a sense he was.  If these Radbolts found out the truth, they certainly would pursue him, try to shut him up, and prevent him from making away with his money or leaving it to anybody else.  I didn’t at all know at first what a tidy lot he had.  He hated the Radbolts; even after he ceased to know them as cousins, he remained very conscious of them always; they were enemies, spies, secret service people on his track—­poor old boy!  Well, why should they have him and his money?  I didn’t see it.  I don’t see it to this day.”

Mary was in Mr. Saffron’s armchair.  Beaumaroy stood before the fire.  She looked up at him.

“They seem to have more right than anybody else.  And you know—­you knew—­that he was mad.”

“His being mad gives them no right!  Oh, well, it’s no use arguing.  In the end I suppose they had rights—­of a kind; a right by law, I suppose—­though I never knew the law and don’t want to—­to shut the old man up, and make him damned miserable, and get the money for themselves.  That sounds just the sort of right the law does give people over other people—­because Aunt Betsy married Uncle John fifty years ago, and was probably infernally sorry for it!”

Mary smiled.  “A matter of principle with you, was it, Mr. Beaumaroy?”

“No—­instinct, I think.  It’s my instinct to be against the proper thing, the regular thing, the thing that deals hardly with an individual in the name of some highly nebulous general principle.”

“Like discipline?” she put in, with a reminiscence of Major-General Punnit.

He nodded.  “Yes, that’s one case of it.  And then, the situation amused me.  I think that had more to do with it than anything else at first.  It amused me to play up to his delusions.  I suggested the shawl as useful on our walks—­and thereby got him to take wholesome exercise; that ought to appeal to you, Doctor!  I got him the combination knife-and-fork; that made him enjoy his meals—­also good for him, Doctor!  But I didn’t do these things because they were good for him, but because they amused me.  They never amused Hooper, he’s a dull, surly, and—­I’m inclined to believe—­treacherous dog.”

“Who is he?”

“Sacked from the Army—­sent to quod.  Just a jail-bird whom I’ve kept loose.  But the things did amuse me, and it was that at first.  But then—­” he paused.

Looking at him again, Mary saw a whimsical tenderness expressed in his eyes and smile.  “The poor chap was so overwhelmingly grateful.  He thought me the one indubitably faithful adherent that he had.  And so I was too—­though not in the way he thought.  And he trusted me absolutely.  Well, was I to give him up—­to the law, and the Radbolts, and the jailers of an asylum—­a man who trusted me like that?”

“But he was mad,” objected Doctor Mary obstinately.