e marriage was a failure. She
divorced him--by mutual consent, I fancy. Anyhow, _I_ was left on his
hands.

"He went to Assam, and fell in with a tea planter named Manning, who
had a big estate, but neglected it for racing. My father suddenly
developed business instincts and Manning made him a partner.
Unfortunately--well, that is a hard word, but it applies--my father
married again--a girl of his own class; rather beneath it, in fact.
Then Bob was born.

"The old man made money, heaps of it. Manning married, but lost
his wife when Sylvia came into the world. That broke him up; he
drank himself to death, leaving his partner as trustee and guardian
for the infant. There was a boom in tea estates; my father sold on
the crest of the wave and came to London. He progressed, but Mrs.
Fenley--didn't. She was just a Tommy's daughter, and never seemed to
try and rise above the level of 'married quarters'.

"I had to mind my p's and q's as a boy, I can assure you. My mother
was always thrown in my teeth. Mrs. Fenley called her 'black.' It was
a ---- lie. She was dark-skinned, as I am, but there are Cornish and
Welsh folk of much darker complexion. My father, too, shared something
of the same prejudice. I had to be the good boy of the family.
Otherwise, I should have been turned out, neck and crop.

"As I behaved well, he was forced to depend on me, because Bob did
as he liked, with his mother always ready to aid and abet him. Then
came this scrape I've spoken of. I believe Bob was being blackmailed.
That's the long and the short of it. Now you know the plain, ungarbled
facts. Better that they should come from me than reach you with the
decorations of gossip and servants' tittle-tattle."

The somewhat strained and metallic voice ceased. Fenley was seated at
the corner of the table near the door. Seemingly yielding to that
ever-present desire for movement, he pushed with his foot an armchair
out of its place at the head of the table.

Sylvia Manning had pointed out that chair to Furneaux as the one
occupied by Mortimer Fenley at breakfast.

"Is the first Mrs. Fenley dead?" said Furneaux suddenly.

"I don't think so," said Fenley, after a pause.

"You are not sure?"

"No."

"Have you ever tried to find out?"

"No, I dare not."

"May I ask why?"

"If it were discovered that my mother and I were in communication I
would have been given short shrift in the bank."

"Did she marry again?"

"I don't know."

Again