“At Lilac Lodge, over Windsor way,” replied the Captain, trying to answer all three questions at once.  “They started about a week after the Comstocks went to live there.  And the thing was so appalling, the place seemed so certainly under a curse, that although he had paid a good round sum for it, and had spent a pot of money having the house decorated and the garden laid out just as Miriam and her mother fancied it—­Miriam is Miss Comstock, my fiancee, Mr. Cleek—­nothing would induce Mr. Harmstead to stop in it another hour after the second murder occurred.”

“Mr. Harmstead!  Who is Mr. Harmstead, Captain?”

“The late Mrs. Comstock’s bachelor uncle—­a very rich old chap, who was once a sheep-farmer in New Zealand, and afterwards in Australia.  Mrs. Comstock hadn’t seen him since she was a very little girl until he came to England some few months ago to settle down and to take care of her children and her.”

“How did it happen that she hadn’t seen him in all that time?  I take it there must have been some good reason, Captain?”

“Yes, rather.  You see it was like this:  The Harmsteads—­Mrs. Comstock was a Harmstead by birth, and Uncle Phil was her father’s only brother—­the Harmsteads had never been well to-do as a family:  indeed none of them but dear old Uncle Phil ever had a hundred pounds they could call their own, so when Miss Harmstead’s father died, which was about eight months after his brother left New Zealand and went to Australia, she married a young joiner and cabinet-maker, George Comstock, to whom she had long been engaged, and a few weeks later, fancying there would be a better chance for advancement in his trade in England than out there, Mr. Comstock sold out what few belongings he had in the world and brought his wife over here.”

“Oh, I see.  Then of course she had no opportunity of seeing her uncle until he came here?”

“No, not a ghost of one.  She corresponded with him for a time, however—­wrote him after the first child was born—­and christened ‘Philip’ in honour of him.  In those days it used to take six months to get a letter to Australia, and another six to get word back, so the baby was more than a year old when Uncle Phil wrote that if he didn’t marry in the meantime and have a son of his own—­which was very unlikely—­he would make young Phil his heir and come out after him, too, one of these fine days.”

“One moment.  Was the person you allude to as ‘Young Phil’ one of the sons that was murdered?”

“Yes.  He was the first victim, poor, chap!”

“Oh, I see!” said Cleek.  “I see!  So there is money in the background, eh?  Well go on.  What next?  Hear any more from Uncle Phil after that?”