“You’ve got some sense, Hilary,” she admitted.

“Tell me,” said Jaffery.  “How did we come to miss you on the boat?  We watched the London trains carefully.”

“I came from Southsea about an hour before the boat started and went to bed at once.”

“Southsea?  Why, we were there all the evening,” said I.  “What were you doing at Southsea?”

“Staying with Emma—­Mrs. Jupp.  The General lives there.  I couldn’t stick that boarding-house by myself any longer so I wrote to Emma to ask her to put me up.”

“So that’s why you went on Thursday?”

“That’s why.”

“Pardon me if I’m inquisitive,” said I, “but did you take Mrs. Considine—­I mean Mrs. Jupp—­into your confidence?”

“Lord no!  She’s not my dragon any longer.  She knew I was going to Havre—­to meet friends.  Of course I had to tell her that.  But Jaff Chayne was the only person that had to know the truth.”

We questioned her as delicately as we could and gradually the intrigue that had puzzled us became clear.  Ras Fendihook left London on Sunday for a fortnight’s engagement at the Eldorado of Havre.  As there was no Sunday night boat for Southampton he had to travel to Havre via Paris.  Being a crafty villain, he would not run away with Liosha straight from London.  She was to join him a week later, after he had had time to spy out the land and make his nefarious schemes for a mock marriage.  His fortnight up, he was sailing away again to America.  Liosha was to accompany him.  In all probability, for I delight in thinking the worst of Mr. Ras Fendihook, he would have found occasion, towards the end of his tour, of sending her on a fool’s errand, say, to Texas, while he worked his way to New York, where he would have an unembarrassed voyage back to England, leaving Liosha floundering helplessly in the railway network of the United States.  I have made it my business to enquire into the ways of this entertaining but unholy villain.  This is what I am sure he would have done.  One girl some half dozen years before he had left penniless in San Francisco and the door over which burns the Red Lamp swallowed her up forever.

For the present, however, Liosha was to join him in Havre.  Not a soul must know.  He gave sordid instructions as to secrecy.  As Jaffery had guessed, he had instigated the comic destination of Westminster Abbey.  Although her open nature abhorred the deception, she obeyed his instructions in minor details and thought she was acting in the spirit of the intrigue when she enclosed the letters to Mrs. Jardine to be posted in London.  By risking discovery of her secret during her visit to the admirable lady at Southsea and by ingenuously disclosing the plot to Jaffery she showed herself to be a very sorry conspirator.