"I don't know; the body was gone. I've never been able to find out where the captain put up the body. But, as I say, he turned out Mr. Vand and his wife, as I knew she was then, and cursed up and down. But he didn't pick up the knife; in place of doing so, which would have been more sensible, seeing that he had murdered the Lister cove with it, he went to his desk and pulled out a black bag. He emptied this of jewels, and my mouth watered." "Ah, so you recognised the bag when you tried to steal it from Mrs. Vand in your mother's cottage?" "Yes, I did," said Luke sullenly, "and very sorry I am that I didn't get clear off with it." "You have quite enough to answer for as it is," said Inglis sharply. "Go on, as I have got everything down so far." "Well, then while the captain was sitting at the desk gloating over the jewels Mr. Vand comes in softly like a cat. He saw the jewels and his eyes lighted up. Captain Huxham, being busy, didn't hear him, so he picks up the knife lying near the door, and before I could cry out he rushed at the old man. Huxham turned to meet him, and got the knife in his heart. Then Mr. Vand, as cool as you please, dropped the knife behind the desk, and taking the bag with the jewels, he put 'em back--went away." "What did you do?" "I went home and tried to sleep, but couldn't." "Why didn't you warn the police?" asked Inglis. "No, sir. I'm only a gipsy, and they'd have thought I'd something to do with the business. If I'd accused Mr. Vand him and his wife would have accused me, and it would be two to one. Besides," said Luke coolly, "I wasn't sorry to see old Huxham downed after killing the other gent. Serve him right, say I. So that's all." "Humph," said Inglis, finishing his writing. "You made capital out of this?" "Yes, I did," said Luke defiantly, and taking the pen which Inglis held out to him. "I told Mr. and Mrs. Vand what I'd seen. They were frightened--it was the next morning, you see--and paid me heaps of money to hold my tongue. Then, like a fool, I went on the bend, and talked so much that Granny got to know heaps, and so set the nigger brute on our tracks. There"--Luke signed his name--"you can't hang me for what I've told you." Inglis and Lister both signed as witnesses, and the inspector put the paper into his pocket. He was about to ask further questions--to cross-examine Tunks in fact--when the door opened and a young constable appeared in a mighty state of excitement. "Sir," he cried to his superior officer, "Mrs. Vand has escaped!" "Escaped!" cried the inspector, in a voice of thunder. "Yes, sir. Dutton is lying drugged in the hut, and the old woman has been stunned. Mrs. Vand and the gipsy girl are gone." CHAPTER XXIV A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY