nance with the
pink cambric handkerchief--"She's awfully afraid, as it is, that a word or
two she dropped quite innocently, to that infernal liar and swindler,
who'd bled her of a monkey, good English cash--paid for procurin' and
forwardin' items of information that he took damned good care should reach
us at Gueldersdorp too late to be of use, led up to--to the crime!... By
the Living Tinker! it's out at last!"

The big man, so cool and nonchalant a minute or so before, fanned himself
with the pocket-handkerchief, and turned red, and went white, and went
red, and turned white half a dozen times, in twice as many beats of his
flurried pulse.

"--Out at last, Saxham, and that's why I've been gulpin' and blunderin'
and bogglin' for the last ten minutes. Poof!" Major Bingo exhaled a vast
breath of relief. "Tellin' tales on a woman--and her your wife--even when
she's begged you to, isn't the sweetest job a man can tackle!"

"Let me have this story in detail once and for all," said Saxham, turning
a stern, white face, and hard, compelling eyes upon the embarrassed Major.
"What utterance of Lady Hannah's do you suppose to have led to the tragedy
in the Convent Chapel? Upon this point I must and shall be clear before
you leave me!"

"You shall have things as clearly as I can put 'em. This pretended Secret
Agent of the War-Intelligence-Bureau that never existed, and who called
himself Van Busch--a name that's as common among Boers as Murphy is among
Irishmen--arranged to pass off my wife as his sister, a refugee from
Gueldersdorp, who'd married a German drummer, and buried him not long
before. Women are so dashed fond of play-actin'! Kids, Saxham,--that's
what they are in their weakness for dressin' up and makin'-believe! And my
wife----"

The large Major was in a violent lather as he ran the thick finger round
inside his collar, and swallowed at the lump in his throat.

"--My wife saw Van Busch at Kink's hotel at Tweipans from time to time. He
came, I've already explained, to sell bogus information for good money.
And as the boodle ran low, the cloven hoof began to show, and the brute
became downright insolent."

"As might have been expected," said Saxham, coldly.

"--Kept his hat on in my wife's room, talked big, and twiddled a
signet-ring he wore," went on the Major. "And, bein' quick, you know, and
sharp as they make 'em, you know, my wife recognised the crest of an old
acquaintance cut upon the stone. I knew the m