'You don't mean to say that she knows--?' 'Wait and hear me. This woman, from something that occurred during Mrs. Calverley's lifetime, seems to have entertained some suspicion of the Claxton mystery. The morning after his death, when I happened to be alone in the room with her, she found some means of alluding to some partnership in the house at Mincing-lane, and of introducing the name of Claxton. I tried to pass the thing off as lightly as I could, but I was horribly confused, and I daresay I made a mess of it; at all events her suspicions were not abated; for when I came out of Rose Cottage, after my first interview with that poor creature, I found this Frenchwoman waiting for me close by the gate.' 'She had followed you to Hendon, then,' cried Statham. 'What explanation did you give for your being there?' 'What explanation could I give? Even though I had designed to tell a lie, I could not have framed one calculated to have escaped her detection.' 'Do you mean to say, then, that this intriguing Frenchwoman, who is in Mrs. Calverley's confidence, knows all?' 'All!' Humphrey Statham shrugged his shoulders, plunged his hands into his trousers-pockets, and sank back into his chair with the air of a man for whom life has no farther interest. 'You cannot realise my position,' cried Martin. 'It was with this very power that she possesses over Mrs. Calverley that she threatened me. And she has expressed her willingness to aid us in our plans, provided I do not interfere with her management of my mother.' 'If anything were to be said to her it would have been well to tell her all,' said Humphrey Statham; 'a half-confidence is always a mistake. So this charming creature knows all about the double mystery of Calverley and Claxton, and promises to render us assistance in our endeavours to do the best for all persons concerned! Well, it is a most confounded nuisance that she knows anything about it; but as it is, I don't know that she may not be made useful.' 'She has made herself useful already,' said Martin Gurwood. 'You ought not to have sent me on this errand, which I was utterly unfit to fulfil. I saw this poor girl, and, as kindly as I could, told her of the death of this man--her husband, as I called him--but when she pressed to be taken to him, imagining that he was only just dead, I was entirely nonplussed, and knew not what to say. You had given me no instructions on that head, you know.' 'By Jove, no; that was an omission,' said Statham, rubbing his head. 'How did you manage?' 'After a struggle I told her that the body was lying at Mr. Calverley's house in Great Walpole-street, and that as she did not know Mrs. Calverley, it would be necessary to apprise that lady of her visit. So I left her, promising to return in the evening and take her with me. It was then I met Madame Du Tertre.' 'Well, what did she say?'