aul, what are you to
think of good people?"

"Such as Deborah who is nursing my darling? I think she's the best woman
in the world."

"Except your mother?"

Paul nearly fell from his seat on hearing this remark. Beecot senior
certainly might have been in earnest, but his good opinion did not
prevent him still continuing to worry Mrs. Beecot, which he did to the
end of her life.

"I suppose that Matilda Junk creature had nothing to do with the
murder?" asked Beecot, after an embarrassing pause--on his son's part.

"No. She knew absolutely nothing, and only attacked Deborah because she
fancied Deborah was attacking Maud. However, the two sisters have made
it up, and Matilda has gone back to 'The Red Pig.' She's as decent a
creature as Deborah, in another way, and was absolutely ignorant of
Maud's wickedness. Hurd guessed that when she spoke to him so freely at
Christchurch."

"And the Thug?"

"Hokar? Oh, he is not really a Thug, but the descendant of one. However,
they can't prove that he strangled anything beyond a few cats and dogs
when he showed Maud how to use the roomal--that's the handkerchief with
which the Thugs strangled their victims."

"I'm not absolutely ignorant," growled his father. "I know that. So this
Hokar goes free?"

"Yes. He would not strangle Aaron Norman because he had but one eye, and
Bhowanee won't accept maimed persons. Failing him, Maud had to attend to
the job herself, with the assistance of Tray."

"And this detective?"

"Oh, Ford, with Sylvia's sanction, has paid him the thousand pounds,
which he shares with his sister, Aurora Qian. But for her searching at
Stowley and Beechill, we should never have known about the marriage, you
know."

"No, I don't know. They're far too highly paid. The marriage would have
come to light in another way. However, waste your own money if you like;
it isn't mine."

"Nor mine either, father," said Paul, sharply. "Sylvia will keep her own
fortune. I am not a man to live on my wife. I intend to take a house in
town when we are married, and then I'll still continue to write."

"Without the spur of poverty you'll never make a hit," grinned the old
gentleman. "However, you can live where you please. It's no business of
mine but I demand, as your indulgent father, that you'll bring Sylvia
down here at least three times a year. Whenever she is well I want to
see her."

"I'll bring her next week," said Paul, thinking of his mother. "But
Deborah must