“Well, it’s fixed up and Ben decides to meet his brother after midnight, alone; but the old sailor’s pluck wavers—­who shall blame him?—­and he arranged in secret with you that you should be hidden in his tower room when Robert Redmayne comes to keep the appointment.  He writes a letter to his brother, and Jenny and Doria go to sea again and take it, together with stores and a lamp.  While they’re away, you get planted in the tower room to watch the coming interview; and when the pair in the motor boat return, Jenny’s uncle tells her that you’ve gone back to Dartmouth and will blow in again next morning.  You recollect exactly what followed.  Night comes and, at the appointed time, footsteps are heard ascending to the observatory and Bendigo prepares to meet his brother.  But no Robert Redmayne appears.  It is Giuseppe Doria.  He has already had a long talk with his master about Jenny Pendean.  He has told the old sailor of his love for Jenny and so forth.  You, hidden, heard that yarn, and how Bendigo told him to stow the subject and say no more about it for another six months.

“Now the next thing puzzled me for a moment; but I think I know what happened.  Only Pendean’s final statement, if he ever makes one, will serve to clear the point; but I can guess that at that first interview with Ben he tumbled to the fact that you were hidden in the tower room.  He is a man with a power of observation sharp as a razor, and I’m inclined to bet that before he left Bendigo, after their talk over Jenny, he’d got you—­knew you were there.

“That being so, his own plans had to be modified pretty extensively.  Whether he meant to finish off Ben that night, you can’t be sure; but there is very little doubt of it.  Everything was planned.  The interview with Robert had been arranged and various people, including yourself, knew about it.  His wife was ready down below to help him get the body away, and their plans were, no doubt, mature to the last detail.  If, therefore, all had gone right with Pendean, if you had really been away that night, next morning you would probably have been greeted with the information that Bendigo had disappeared.  You would possibly have found evidences of a struggle in the tower room and a pint of blood judiciously decorating the floor, but nothing else.

“Only on the assumption that Pendean had found you out can I explain why this didn’t start under your nose.  I imagine that if he had believed his master alone at one o’clock that night, he would have knocked him on the head and proceeded as I suggest.  But he does no such thing.  He arrives in great excitement to describe another meeting with Robert and to report that the wanderer has changed his mind and will only see his brother in his own secret hiding-place after dark.

“On hearing this, Bendigo bids you come out of your cupboard, and Doria, so to call him, pretends great indignation and surprise.