“You saw his illegitimate brother, your uncle, and never Lord P. at all.  Now just listen.  This fellow who called himself Clover is a precious rascal.  We don’t know as much about him as we’d like to, but I dare say we shall find out more.  How did he come to be sitting with those ladies in the theatre, you’re wanting to ask?  Simple enough.  Knowing his likeness to the family of Lord Polperro he palmed himself off on them as a distant relative, just come back from the colonies; they were silly enough to make things soft for him.  He seems to have got money, no end of it, out of Lord P. No doubt he was jolly frightened when you spotted him, and you know how he met you once or twice and tipped you.  That’s the story of your Uncle Clover, Polly.”

The girl was impressed.  She could believe anything ill of Mrs. Clover’s husband.  Her astonishment at learning that he was a lord had never wholly subsided.  That he should be a cunning rascal seemed vastly more probable.

“But what about that letter you sent—­eh?” pursued Gammon with an artful look.  “Didn’t you address it to Lord P. himself?  So you did, Polly.  But listen to this.  By that time Lord P. and his people had found out Clover’s little game; never mind how, but they had.  You remember that he wouldn’t come again to meet you at Lincoln’s Inn.  Good reason, old girl; he had had to make himself scarce.  Lord P. had set a useful friend of his—­that’s Greenacre—­to look into Clover’s history.  Greenacre, you must know, is a private detective.”  He nodded solemnly.  “Well now, when your letter came to Lord P. he showed it to Greenacre, and they saw at once that it couldn’t be meant for him, but no doubt was meant for Clover.  ’I’ll see to this,’ said Greenacre.  And so he came to meet us that night.”

“But it was you told me he was Lord P.,” came from the listener.

“I did, Polly.  Not to deceive you, my dear, but because I was taken in myself.  I’d found what they call a mare’s nest.  I was on the wrong scent.  I take all the blame to myself.”

“But why did Greenacre go on with us like that?  Why didn’t he say at once that it wasn’t Lord P. as had met me?”

“Why?  Because private detectives are cautious chaps.  Greenacre wanted to catch Clover, and didn’t care to go talking about the story to everybody.  He deceived me, Polly, just as much as you.”

She had begun to eat, swallowing a mouthful now and then mechanically, the look of resentful suspicion still on her face.

“And what do you think?” pursued her companion, after a delicious draught of lager beer.  “Would you believe that only a day or two before Lord P.’s death the fellow Clover went to your aunt’s house, to the china shop, and stayed overnight there!  What do you think of that, eh?  He did.  Ask Mrs. Clover.  He went there to hide, and to get money from his wife.”

This detail evidently had a powerful effect.  Polly ate and drank and ruminated, one eye on the speaker.