The long speech was too much for her, and her lips quivered pitifully a second time.

“I fully understand,” said Theydon sympathetically.  “Now, I’m positive you have eaten hardly anything today.  Won’t you let me order an egg?”

“No, please.  I’ll be glad of the tea, but I cannot make a meal—­ yet.  Is it true that my niece was absolutely alone in her flat on Monday night?”

Seeing that Miss Beale was consumed with anxiety to hear an intelligible version of the tragedy, Theydon at once recited all, or nearly all, that was known to him.  The only points he suppressed were those with reference to the gray car and the ivory skull.  The lady listened attentively and with more self-control than he gave her credit for.

Bates came in with a laden tray, on which a boiled egg appeared.  Mrs. Bates had used her discretion, and decided that any one who had set out from Oxford so early in the day must be in need of more solid refreshment than tea and toast.  Thus cozened, as it were, into eating, Miss Beale tackled the egg, and Theydon was glad to note that she made a fairly good meal, being probably unaware of her hunger until the means of sating it presented itself.

But she missed no word of his story, and when he made an end, put some shrewd questions.

“I take it,” she said, “that the strange gentleman who visited my niece on Monday night posted the very letter which I received by the second delivery yesterday?”

“That is what the police believe,” replied Theydon.

“Then it would seem that she resolved to come to me at Iffley as the result of something he told her?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I heard from her only last Saturday, and she not only said nothing about coming to Oxfordshire, but asked me to arrange to spend a fortnight in London before we both went to Cornwall for the Summer.”

“Ah!  That is rather important, I should imagine,” said Theydon thoughtfully.

“It is odd, too, that you and the detectives should have noticed the smell of a joss stick in the flat,” went on Miss Beale.  “Edith—­ my niece, you know—­ could not bear the smell of joss sticks.  They reminded her of Shanghai, where she lost her husband.”

Theydon looked more startled than such a seemingly simple statement warranted.  He had realized already that the ivory skull was the work of an Oriental artist, and the mention of Shanghai brought that sinister symbol very vividly to his mind’s eye.

“Mrs. Lester had lived in China, then?” he said.

“Yes.  She was out there nearly six years.  Her husband died suddenly last October—­ he was poisoned, she firmly believed—­ and, of course, she came home at once.”

“What was Mr. Lester’s business, or profession?”