Pratt turned to the drawer from which he had taken the letter and took out two small keys, evidently belonging to patent padlocks. He held them up before Nesta. "There they are!" he said triumphantly. "Been in my possession ever since--and will remain there. Now--do you wish to read the letter? I've read it to you word for word. You don't? Very good--back it goes in there, with these keys. And now then," he continued, having replaced letter and keys in his drawer, and turned to her again, "now then, you see what a diabolical scheme it was that was in your mother's mind against me. She meant me to meet with the fate which overtook her own son! She meant me to fall through that bridge. Why? She hoped that I should break my neck--as he did! She wanted to silence me--but she also wanted more--she wanted to take from my dead body, or my unconscious body, the certain something which she was so anxious I should bring with me, which she referred to as _that document_. She was willing to risk anything--even to murder!--to get hold of that. And now you know why I went to Normandale Grange that Saturday--you know, now, the real reason. I told a deliberate lie at the inquest, for your mother's sake--for your sake, if you know it. I did not go there to hand in my application for the stewardship--I went in response to the letter I've just read. Is all this clear to you?" Nesta could only move her head in silent acquiescence. She was already convinced, that whether all this was entirely true or not, there was truth of some degree in what Pratt had told her. And she was thinking of her mother--and of the trap which she certainly appeared to have laid--and of her brother's fate--and for the moment she felt sick and beaten. But Pratt went on in that cold, calculating voice, telling his story point by point. "Now I come to what happened that Saturday afternoon," he said. "I may as well tell you that in my own interest I have carefully collected certain evidence which never came out at the inquest--which, indeed, has nothing to do with the exact matter of the inquest. Now, that Saturday, your mother and you had lunch together--your brother, as we shall see in a moment, being away--at your lunch time--a quarter to two. About twenty minutes past two your mother left the house. She went out into the gardens. She left the gardens for the shrubberies. And at twenty-five minutes to three, she was seen by one of your gardeners, Featherstone, in what was, of course, hiding, amongst the trees at the end of the north shrubbery. What was she doing there, Miss Mallathorpe? She was waiting!--waiting until a certain hoped-for accident happened--to me. Then she would come out of her hiding-place in the hope of getting that document from my pocket! Do you see how cleverly she'd laid her plans--murderous plans?"