"Oh, don't I? Hang your beastly conceit! Well then, I just do. I love my heavenly Charity, no end. So there. But aren't you pulling my leg when you say that Charity is the image of this Mavis girl?" "Don't call her a Mavis girl. Miss Durham to you, Tod." "Very well then--Miss Bird to you." Haskins sighed resignedly. "We'll never get on at this rate. I am really and truly in trouble, Macandrew. Do listen." Tod nodded, and his face grew serious. Haskins seized the fortunate moment and detailed everything from the finding of the sealed message--which was scarcely necessary, since Tod had hooked the cylinder--to the parting with Mavis on that enchanted night. "What do you think of it, Toddy?" questioned Haskins anxiously. "It's very rum," murmured Tod, making pencil marks on his blotting-paper. "Why does Rebb keep this girl shut up?" "That is what I wish to learn. You must help me." "I'm only too glad: but how?" "Don't you remember how Mrs. Geary said that if Mavis left the Pixy's House the Major would not be able to dash about in his motor car?" "Yes. What of that?" "It hints at money belonging to Mavis, which the Major is using." "Oh, I say," Tod fell back in his chair, "you go too far. I don't hold a brief for Rebb, but he wouldn't be such a blackguard as that. Besides, he has six thousand a year. I know that for a fact." "Who told you?" "Mrs. Berch." "What! Mrs. Crosby's mother?" "Yes. A grim old lady, ain't she? Rather like my grandmother. She is not very fond of Rebb, as he is not very polite to her. Still, she wants Mrs. Crosbie to marry him, because of the money. How she found out, I can't say; but she certainly stated that Rebb had the income I mentioned." "But I thought that both Mrs. Berch and her daughter were well off?" "They assume to be," answered Tod, with a shrug and a wink--"that is, they have a slap-up flat, and go everywhere, and Mrs. Crosbie wears expensive frocks, although the old woman looks like a rag-shop at times." "That may not be lack of money, but indifference to dress." "Humph! As if any woman, old or young, could be indifferent to frocks. Anyhow Mrs. Crosbie is supposed to be a wealthy widow in the market; but if she wants to marry Major Rebb, who is not a nice man, and if Mrs. Berch wants to be Rebb's mother-in-law, it strikes me that the two may not be so rich as they pretend." "Well! well! well!" cried Gerald impatiently, "we are wandering from the subject. Rebb, you say, has six thousand a year?" "On the authority of Mrs. Crosbie's mother--yes." "Well then, Tod, I want you to know how Rebb comes to be possessed of that six thousand a year. Can you find out?" "Well, no. You might ask the Income Tax people." "I can't help thinking," said Haskins, staring at the dusty carpet, "that the money belongs to Mavis." "If you think that on the few words let slip by Mrs. Geary," said Tod scornfully, "you haven't got a leg to stand on."