Miss Brown arrived early the following morning, and was disposed to beinquisitive.
"I should like to know," she said, "exactly what has become of Mr.Vincent Cawdor."
Peter Ruff took her upstairs. There was a little mound of ashes in thegrate.
She nodded.
"I imagined that," she said. "But why did you send me out to watchyourself?"
"My dear Violet," Peter Ruff answered, "there is no man in the worldto-day who is my equal in the art of disguising himself. At the sametime, I wanted to know whether I could deceive you. I wanted to be quitesure that my study of Mr. Vincent Cawdor was a safe one. I took thoserooms in his name and in his own person. I do not think that it occurredeven to our friend John Dory to connect us in his mind."
"Very well," she went on. "Now tell me, please, what took you up toWestmoreland?"
"I followed Rounceby and Marnstam," he answered, "I knew them when I wasabroad, studying crime--I could tell you a good deal about both thosemen if it were worth while--and I knew, when they hired a big motor carand engaged a crook to drive it, that they were worth following. I sawthe trial of the flying machine, and when they started off with youngFranklin, I followed on a motor bicycle. I fished him out of the tarnwhere they left him for dead, brought him on to London, and made my ownterms with him."
"What about the body which was found in the Longthorp Tarn?" she asked.
"I had that telegram sent myself," Peter Ruff answered.
She looked at him severely.
"You went out of your way to make a fool of John Dory!" she said,frowning at him.
"That I admit," he answered.
"It seems to me," she continued, "that that, after all, has been thechief object of the whole affair. I do not see that we--that is thefirm--profit in the least."
Peter Ruff chuckled.
"We've got a fourth share in the Franklin Flying Machine," he answered,"and I'm hanged if I'd sell it for a hundred thousand pounds."
"You've taken advantage of that young man's gratitude," she declared.
Peter Ruff shook his head.
"I earned the money," he answered.