C. let the paper drop from his huge red hands in
the intensity of his surprise, while his jaw fell in unison at so
startling and almost incredible a piece of intelligence. "Nevitt
knows all!" he exclaimed, half incredulous. "He means to ruin
us! And he told this to Gwendoline! Gone down to Mambury! Oh no,
Minnie, impossible! You must have made some mistake. What did she
say exactly? Did she mention Mambury?"
"She said it exactly as I've said it now to you," Mrs. Gildersleeve
persisted with a stony stare. "He's gone down to Devonshire, she
said; to the borders of Dartmoor, on a hunt after the records; to
a place in the wilds by the name of Mambury. Those were her very
words. I could stake my life on each syllable. I give them to you
precisely as she gave them to me."
Mr. Gildersleeve gazed across at her with the countenance which had
made so many a nervous witness quake at the Old Bailey. "Are you
QUITE sure of that, Minnie?" he asked, in his best cross-examining
tone. "Quite sure she said Mambury, all of her own accord? Quite
sure you didn't suggest it to her, or supply the name, or give her
a hint of its whereabouts, or put her a leading question?"
"Is it likely I'd suggest it to her?" the meekest of women answered,
aroused to retort for once, and with her face like a sheet.
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