“She won’t believe me, Mr. Bygrave—­she won’t believe me!”

“Wait a little again, Mr. Vanstone.  There are more instructions to come.  You have got your directions for to-day, and you have got your directions for to-morrow.  Now for the day after.  The day after is the seventh day since we sent the letter to Zurich.  On the seventh day decline to go out walking as before, from dread of the annoyance of meeting me again.  Grumble about the smallness of the place; complain of your health; wish you had never come to Aldborough, and never made acquaintances with the Bygraves; and when you have well worried Mrs. Lecount with your discontent, ask her on a sudden if she can’t suggest a change for the better.  If you put that question to her naturally, do you think she can be depended on to answer it?”

“She won’t want to be questioned at all,” replied Noel Vanstone, irritably.  “I have only got to say I am tired of Aldborough; and, if she believes me—­which she won’t; I’m quite positive, Mr. Bygrave, she won’t!—­she will have her suggestion ready before I can ask for it.”

“Ay! ay!” said the captain eagerly.  “There is some place, then, that Mrs. Lecount wants to go to this autumn?”

“She wants to go there (hang her!) every autumn.”

“To go where?”

“To Admiral Bartram’s—­you don’t know him, do you?—­at St. Crux-in-the-Marsh.”

“Don’t lose your patience, Mr. Vanstone!  What you are now telling me is of the most vital importance to the object we ha ve in view.  Who is Admiral Bartram?”

“An old friend of my father’s.  My father laid him under obligations—­my father lent him money when they were both young men.  I am like one of the family at St. Crux; my room is always kept ready for me.  Not that there’s any family at the admiral’s except his nephew, George Bartram.  George is my cousin; I’m as intimate with George as my father was with the admiral; and I’ve been sharper than my father, for I haven’t lent my friend any money.  Lecount always makes a show of liking George—­I believe to annoy me.  She likes the admiral, too; he flatters her vanity.  He always invites her to come with me to St. Crux.  He lets her have one of the best bedrooms, and treats her as if she was a lady.  She is as proud as Lucifer—­she likes being treated like a lady—­and she pesters me every autumn to go to St. Crux.  What’s the matter?  What are you taking out your pocketbook for?”

“I want the admiral’s address, Mr. Vanstone, for a purpose which I will explain immediately.”

With those words, Captain Wragge opened his pocketbook and wrote down the address from Noel Vanstone’s dictation, as follows:  “Admiral Bartram, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh, near Ossory, Essex.”