“Yes, you can, and yet you can’t!” exclaimed Miss Ingate.  “You can, and yet you can’t!”

“I met Miss Ingate on Frinton front,” Jane Foley proceeded.  “She was just getting into her carriage.  I had my bag and I asked her to drive me to the station.  ‘To the station?’ she said.  ’What for?  There’s no train to-night.’”

“No more there wasn’t!” Miss Ingate put in, “I’d been dining at the Proctors’ and it was after ten, I know it was after ten because they never let me leave until after ten, in spite of the long drive I have.  Fancy there being a train from Frinton after ten!  So of course I brought Miss Foley along.  Oh!  It was vehy interesting.  Vehy interesting.  You see we had to think of the police.  I didn’t want the police coming poking round my house.  It would never do, in a little place like Moze.  I should never hear the last of it.  So I—­I thought of Flank Hall.  I——­”

Jane Foley went on: 

“Miss Ingate was sure you wouldn’t mind, Mrs. Moncreiff.  And personally I was quite certain you wouldn’t mind.  We left the carriage at Miss Ingate’s, and carried the bag in turns.  And I stood outside while Miss Ingate woke up Mr. Aguilar.  It was soon all right.”

“I must say Aguilar was vehy reasonable,” said Miss Ingate.  “Vehy reasonable.  And he’s got a great spite against my dear Inspector Keeble.  He suggested everything.  He never asked any questions, so I told him.  You do, you know.  He suggested Miss Foley should have a bed in the tank-room, so that if there was any trouble all the bedrooms should look innocent.”

“Did he tell you I’d come here to see him not long since?” Audrey demanded.

“And why didn’t you pop in to see me? I was hurt when I got your note.”

“Did he tell you?”

“Of course he didn’t.  He never tells anybody anything.  That sort of thing’s very useful at times, especially when it’s combined with a total lack of curiosity.  He fixed every, thing up.  And he keeps the gates locked, so that people can’t wander in.”

“He didn’t lock the gate at the bottom of the garden, because it won’t lock,” said Audrey.  “And so he didn’t keep me from wandering in.”  She felt rather disappointed that Aguilar should once more have escaped her reproof and that the dream of his double life should have vanished away, but she was determined to prove that he was not perfect.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Miss Ingate.  “It wouldn’t startle me to hear that he knew you were intending to come.  All I know is that Miss Foley’s been here for several days.  Not a soul knows except me and Aguilar.  And it seems to get safer every day.  She does venture about the house now, though she never goes into the garden while it’s light.  It was Aguilar had the idea of putting this room straight for her.”

“And it was he who cut the bread-and-butter,” added Jane Foley.