“Very likely,” I agreed; “but why did your mother tell you?”

I saw at once that he meant to evade that question if possible.  For some reason Miss Tattersall was to be kept out of the case.  Possibly she had made terms to that effect.  More probably, I thought, Jervaise was a trifle ashamed of the source of his evidence against me.

“Oh! look here, Melhuish,” he said, with a return to his bullying manner.  “You’re only making things look worse for yourself by all this beating about the bush.  It’s evident that you didn’t sleep in the house, and I want to know why.”

“Is sleeping in the house a condition of your hospitality?” I asked.

“Not in ordinary circumstances,” he said.  “But the circumstances are not ordinary.  I suppose you haven’t forgotten that something happened last night which very seriously affects us?”

“I haven’t, but I don’t see what the deuce it’s got to do with me,” I returned.

“Nor I; unless it’s one of your idiotic, romantic tricks,” he retorted; “but I have very good evidence, all the same, that you were concerned in it.”

“Oh! is that what you’re accusing me of?” I said.

“It is,” Jervaise replied.

“Then I can put your mind at rest,” I said.  “I am ready to swear by any oath you like that I had nothing whatever to do with your sister’s elopement, and that I know...”  I was going to add “nothing more about it than you do yourself,” but remembering my talk with Banks, I decided that that was not perfectly true, and with the layman’s respect for the sanctity of an oath I concluded, “and that I know very little more about it than you do.”

“It’s that little bit more that is so important,” Jervaise commented sardonically.

After all, a legal training does count for something.  I was not his match in this kind of give and take, and I decided to throw down my hand.  I was not incriminating Banks.  I knew nothing about his movements of the night, and in that morning interview with old Jervaise the most important admission of all must almost certainly have been made.

“Well, you have a right to know that,” I began, “although I don’t think you and your family had any right whatever to be so damnably rude to me at lunch, on the mere spiteful accusations of Miss Tattersall.”

“Miss Tattersall?” Jervaise put in, with a very decent imitation of surprise.

“Oh!  I’m going to be perfectly honest with you,” I returned.  “Can’t you drop that burlesque of the legal manner and be equally honest with me?”

“Simply dunno what you’re driving at,” he said.

“Very well, then, answer the question you shirked just now,” I retorted.  “Why did your mother rush to tell you that I hadn’t slept in the house last night?”

“The mater’s in an awful state of nerves,” he said.

Incidentally I had to admit to myself that I had not made sufficient allowance for that indubitable fact, but I chose to disregard it at the moment.  I wanted to be sure of the treachery of Grace Tattersall.