Maggie and Pete find a collection of newspaper clippings. These reveal that each of their fellow guests had been accused of high crimes or implicated in major scandals, yet always escaped punishment or censure thanks to Jason's intervention. Jason's mother was Lady Margaret Walsingham and his father was the Lord of Mountolive; both families included notorious practitioners of black magic and witchcraft. Lady Margaret and her husband were burned at the stake for heresy. Maggie realizes that she is Jason's great-granddaughter, and that the retainer was a ruse to lure her into the midst of Jason's other beneficiaries.