"Yes, I did. However, I sent her to you to do business. Then I thought as she was committed so far with The Spider that there would be no harm in my trying to get her on my side so that I might marry Lucy. I knew that Ida was not entitled to the fortune, as there was no will and she was not old Dimsdale's daughter. I knew also that Lady Corsoon was kept short by her husband and would like to have her own money, if only to pay The Spider and recover the jewels so as to hide her fault from Sir Julius. For this reason I wrote the letter asking that Lady Corsoon should aid me to marry her daughter." "And you asked for ten thousand pounds also," said Towton wrathfully. "Only one year's income of the Dimsdale investments," retorted Maunders with great coolness; "a man must have some money for his honeymoon." "And when Lady Corsoon died you guessed that your wife--which she never will be, you can rest assured--would inherit the whole Dimsdale fortune?" "Quite so. I thought of everything. I suppose Lady Corsoon showed you the second letter as well as the first in your character of Nemo?" "You are correct," replied Vernon with great composure, "and I noted that the second letter, like the first, was signed with the ideograph of The Spider." "Naturally, it would be," said Maunders with a shrug. "I easily had an india-rubber stamp made. The thing, if done, had to be well done." "You are a blackguard," said Colonel Towton, much disgusted. "And may I ask," requested Vernon with irony, "how many other people you have blackmailed by using this stamp?" "None; nor did I blackmail Lady Corsoon. I simply made a suggestion." "On the threat of telling her husband about her gambling and sale of the family jewels." "The Spider used that argument first," said Maunders sullenly; "I simply endorsed it." "I heartily believe that you are the scoundrel himself," snapped Towton. "I swear I am not. Why, even my mother was blackmailed--my adopted mother, that is--on the plea that she is my _real_ mother. Would I have done such a thing as that? "You would do anything to gain your own ends," said Vernon coldly, "always provided your villainy was not discovered." Maunders grew furiously scarlet. "At least I would have spared my aunt. Mrs. Bedge would give me her last sixpence in my character as her adopted son. There was no need for me to attempt blackmail." "Perhaps there was not. But all this does not explain how you came to communicate the secret of Dimsdale to The Spider." "I didn't communicate it, and how he managed to learn it I can't say." "How did you become possessed of it?" asked Towton very directly. "I shan't tell you. And I'm not going to be ragged any longer. If I'd guessed for one moment that you were in this house I would not have put in an appearance." "I can well believe that," said Vernon coolly.