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

"I got to know of that," went on the wily Gammon. "And I told
Greenacre. And Greenacre made me tell it to Lord P. himself. And that's
how I came to be with Lord P. on New Year's Eve! Now you've got it all."

"Why didn't you tell me?" asked Polly with ferocity.

"Ah, why? I was ashamed to, my dear. I couldn't own up that I'd made a
fool of myself and you too."

"How did you know that he'd been at my aunt's?"

"She sent for me, Polly; sent for me and told me, because I was an old
friend. And I was so riled at the fellow coming and going in that way
that I spoke to Greenacre about it. And then Greenacre told me how
things were. I felt a fool, I can tell you. But the fact is, I never
saw two men so like in the face as Clover and Lord P."

"When you was there--at my aunt's--did you talk about me?" asked the
girl with a peculiar awkwardness.

"Not a word, I swear! We were too much taken up with the other
business."

For a minute or two neither spoke.

"And you mean to say," burst at length from Polly, "that my uncle's
still alive and going about?"

"All alive and kicking, not a doubt of it, and Lord P. buried at Kensal
Green; no will left behind him, and all his property going to the next
of kin, of course. Now listen here, Polly. I want to tell you that I
shouldn't wonder if you have a letter from Greenacre. He may be asking
you to meet him."

"What for?"

"Just to have a talk about Clover--see? He's still after Clover, and he
thinks you might be of use to him. I leave it to you--understand? You
can meet him if you like; there's no harm. He'll tell you all the story
if you ask him nicely."

On this idea, which had occurred to him in the course of his glowing
mendacity, Gammon acted as soon as he and Polly had said good-bye. He
discovered Greenacre, who no longer slept at the Bilboes, but in a
house of like cosiness and obscurity a little farther west; told him of
the brilliant ingenuity with which he had escaped from a galling
complication, and received his promise of assistance in strengthening
the plot. Greenacre wrote to Polly that very night, and on the morrow
conversed with her, emphasizing by many devices the secrecy and
importance of their interview. Would Polly engage to give him the
benefit of her shrewdness, her knowledge of life, in his search for the
man Clover? His air of professional eagern