ng his likeness to the family of Lord Polperro he palmed himself
off on them as a distant relative, just come back from the colonies;
they were silly enough to make things soft for him. He seems to have
got money, no end of it, out of Lord P. No doubt he was jolly
frightened when you spotted him, and you know how he met you once or
twice and tipped you. That's the story of your Uncle Clover, Polly."

The girl was impressed. She could believe anything ill of Mrs. Clover's
husband. Her astonishment at learning that he was a lord had never
wholly subsided. That he should be a cunning rascal seemed vastly more
probable.

"But what about that letter you sent--eh?" pursued Gammon with an
artful look. "Didn't you address it to Lord P. himself? So you did,
Polly. But listen to this. By that time Lord P. and his people had
found out Clover's little game; never mind _how_, but they had. You
remember that he wouldn't come again to meet you at Lincoln's Inn. Good
reason, old girl; he had had to make himself scarce. Lord P. had set a
useful friend of his--that's Greenacre--to look into Clover's history.
Greenacre, you must know, is a private detective." He nodded solemnly.
"Well now, when your letter came to Lord P. he showed it to Greenacre,
and they saw at once that it couldn't be meant for him, but no doubt
was meant for Clover. 'I'll see to this,' said Greenacre. And so he
came to meet us that night."

"But it was _you_ told me he was Lord P.," came from the listener.

"I did, Polly. Not to deceive you, my dear, but because I was taken in
myself. I'd found what they call a mare's nest. I was on the wrong
scent. I take all the blame to myself."

"But why did Greenacre go on with us like that? Why didn't he say at
once that it wasn't Lord P. as had met me?"

"Why? Because private detectives are cautious chaps. Greenacre wanted
to catch Clover, and didn't care to go talking about the story to
everybody. He deceived me, Polly, just as much as you."

She had begun to eat, swallowing a mouthful now and then mechanically,
the look of resentful suspicion still on her face.

"And what do you think?" pursued her companion, after a delicious
draught of lager beer. "Would you believe that only a day or two before
Lord P.'s death the fellow Clover went to your aunt's house, to the
china shop, and stayed overnight there! What do you think of that, eh?
He did. Ask Mrs. Clover. He went there to hide, and to get money from
his wife."