“Very good.  I drove up to the inn; and—­behold me closeted with Mrs. Inchbare in her own private parlor! (My reputation may or may not suffer, but Mrs. Inchbare’s bones are above suspicion!) It was a long business, Blanche.  A more sour-tempered, cunning, and distrustful witness I never examined in all my experience at the Bar.  She would have upset the temper of any mortal man but a lawyer.  We have such wonderful tempers in our profession; and we can be so aggravating when we like!  In short, my dear, Mrs. Inchbare was a she-cat, and I was a he-cat—­and I clawed the truth out of her at last.  The result was well worth arriving at, as you shall see.  Mr. Delamayn had described to me certain remarkable circumstances as taking place between a lady and a gentleman at an inn:  the object of the parties being to pass themselves off at the time as man and wife.  Every one of those circumstances, Blanche, occurred at Craig Fernie, between a lady and a gentleman, on the day when Miss Silvester disappeared from this house And—­wait!—­being pressed for her name, after the gentleman had left her behind him at the inn, the name the lady gave was, ‘Mrs. Silvester.’  What do you think of that?”

“Think!  I’m bewildered—­I can’t realize it.”

“It’s a startling discovery, my dear child—­there is no denying that.  Shall I wait a little, and let you recover yourself?”

“No! no!  Go on!  The gentleman, uncle?  The gentleman who was with Anne?  Who is he?  Not Mr. Delamayn?”

“Not Mr. Delamayn,” said Sir Patrick.  “If I have proved nothing else, I have proved that.”

“What need was there to prove it?  Mr. Delamayn went to London on the day of the lawn-party.  And Arnold—­”

“And Arnold went with him as far as the second station from this.  Quite true!  But how was I to know what Mr. Delamayn might have done after Arnold had left him?  I could only make sure that he had not gone back privately to the inn, by getting the proof from Mrs. Inchbare.”

“How did you get it?”

“I asked her to describe the gentleman who was with Miss Silvester.  Mrs. Inchbare’s description (vague as you will presently find it to be) completely exonerates that man,” said Sir Patrick, pointing to Geoffrey still asleep in his chair. “He is not the person who passed Miss Silvester off as his wife at Craig Fernie.  He spoke the truth when he described the case to me as the case of a friend.”

“But who is the friend?” persisted Blanche.  “That’s what I want to know.”

“That’s what I want to know, too.”

“Tell me exactly, uncle, what Mrs. Inchbare said.  I have lived with Anne all my life.  I must have seen the man somewhere.”