“It’s rather difficult to explain,” said Anthony. “You see, Battle, I’ve come to have really a very high opinion of your abilities. When the moment comes, you’re always there. Look at tonight. And it occurred to me that, in withholding this knowledge of mine, I was seriously cramping your style. You deserve to have access to all the facts. I’ve done what I could, and up to now I’ve made a mess of things. Until tonight, I couldn’t speak for Mrs. Revel’s sake. But now that those letters have been definitely proved to have nothing whatever to do with her, any idea of her complicity becomes absurd. Perhaps I advised her badly in the first place, but it struck me that her statement of having paid this man money to suppress the letters, simply as a whim, might take a bit of believing.”

“It might, by a jury,” agreed Battle. “Juries never have any imagination.”

“But you accept it quite easily?” said Anthony, looking curiously at him.