I estimate
the expense (including a telegram)--"

"Never mind the expense!" I interposed, losing all patience with the
eminently Scotch view of the case which put my purse in the first place
of importance. "I don't care for the expense; I want to know what you
have discovered."

He smiled. "She doesn't care for the expense," he said to himself,
pleasantly. "How like a woman!"

I might have retorted, "He thinks of the expense before he thinks of
anything else. How like a Scotchman!" As it was, I was too anxious to
be witty. I only drummed impatiently with my fingers on the table, and
said, "Tell me! tell me!"

He took out the fair copy from Benjamin's note-book which I had sent to
him, and showed me these among Dexter's closing words: "What about the
letter? Burn it now. No fire in the grate. No matches in the box. House
topsy-turvy. Servants all gone."

"Do you really understand what those words mean?" I asked.

"I look back into my own experience," he answered, "and I understand
perfectly what the words mean."

"And can you make me understand them too?"

"Easily. In those incomprehensible sentences Dexter's memory has
correctly recalled certain facts. I have only to tell you the facts,
and you will be as wise as I am. At the time of the Trial, your husband
surprised and distressed me by insisting on the instant dismissal of
all the household servants at Gleninch. I was instructed to pay them
a quarter's wages in advance, to give them the excellent written
characters which their good conduct thoroughly deserved, and to see
the house clear of them at an hour's notice. Eustace's motive for this
summary proceeding was much the same motive which animated his conduct
toward you. 'If I am ever to return to Gleninch,' he said, 'I cannot
face my honest servants after the infamy of having stood my trial for
murder.' There was his reason. Nothing that I could say to him, poor
fellow, shook his resolution. I dismissed the servants accordingly. At
an hour's notice, they quitted the house, leaving their work for the day
all undone. The only persons placed in charge of Gleninch were persons
who lived on the outskirts of the park--that is to say, the lodge-keeper
and his wife and daughter. On the last day of the Trial I instructed
the daughter to do her best to make the rooms tidy. She was a good girl
enough, but she had no experience as a housemaid: it would never enter
her head to lay the bedroom fires ready for lighting,