Abou! And now the shadow lifted further. The whole mystery lay bare to me, except indeed the motive which had driven him to kill my father. For now I knew how it was that Dirk had made that mistake at Sunset Towers. It was Abou he had been stalking that night. It was Abou who had been crouched in the darkness of the archway beside me. It was Abou who in the person of Picardino had told of the haunted house, hoping that my father would be led into the trap, thinking the mysterious mansion a good hiding-place. It might even have been Abou who impersonated the landlord; and it was certainly he who knew the secret of the passage, and whose reflection in the mirror I had fired at that night. It was Abou, too, who had deceived even Jenny, when as Picardino he had promised to find me and deliver her message. It was Abou who had taken the manuscript to Sunset Towers where Worthing or his uncle had found it. Indeed it must have been one of them I had heard that evening in Jenny's room. Worthing must have guessed something of the bond that united the Captain's story with my father's, and with the clue I had given him of the opening of the secret passage he had been able to search for the connecting link at Sunset Towers. Either he or his uncle; which, I should never know. But the card with the Captain's address had been discovered, and so they had been able to trace Abou in London. And lastly I remembered it was Abou who had asked to be sent back to his own people, because of the persecution of Dirk, I assumed; and it was in pursuit of him that we had sailed away to the East. But in his amazing intuition he had felt his master needed him again, and he had turned back on his journey; and it was his trail we had followed to such a tragic end at Naples. Yes, it was all quite clear except for the motive. Again I told myself that Abou loved me, though he had hated my father. It was he who had been the go-between when Jenny and I had quarrelled; it was he who had smoothed over the angry passages by his calm voice and gentle manner. And I had killed him! Yet it was some consolation to know that at least I had saved him from a death far more horrible than the one I had dealt him. Abou! Picardino! They had both loved me, and I could have loved them well, had not this thwart and evil destiny set us as enemies against each other.