"That gave you a jolt, I'll bet!" Storm continued. "I guessed when I saw you in Raegenssen's house the night I burgled it. I was sure when I found you were the man who'd raked Mattock and Joan Sands into the Triangle. Gosh! you're so easy, I wonder you've got this far! Right. Let's get on. Three: given the first two scoops I've mentioned they can prove you were the man who directed the sticking up of Moraine's. Four: they won't be bothered much with proving you ordered Miss Hawthorne to be killed by Morini after she'd seen you that night in Hamilton Place and your Raegenssen costume. Five: Raegenssen was the registered owner of the Billingsgate sawmill. Bad break of yours, by the way, forgetting to sign the Deed of Sale in the Raegenssen handwriting. I suppose you bought the place before you'd fixed up what handwriting Oscar was to have. Six: Prester John's evidence that you murdered, with typhus bugs, a man who wanted to know too much about you. Seven: having proved you _are_ the Big Triangle, you're therefore responsible for the deaths of several people in the Piccadilly Circus beanfeast. I guess that little bunch'll weigh heavy enough in the scales to send you to Hell express, as soon as they can get you convicted and string you up. Now crow!" Storm paused and reached for his cigarette case. He gave one glance at Morini, and saw that the gunman was leaning against the door again with his automatic directed straight at his, Storm's, heart. Storm lighted a cigarette and splintered the match between his fingers, watching Surcon intently for every sign of the effect his incisive sentences had had. Surcon's head was bent forward, so that he looked at Storm from under the rim of his prominent brows. "Understand me?" asked Storm softly. "Got that little mouthful under your hat? Is it walking around squeaking at you? ... It's your cue. Do you kill me and Miss Hawthorne--and hang? Do you lock us up and try making a bolt for it--and hang? Or do you walk out into the next room and shoot yourself without any fuss? Once upon a time your family name must've meant something to you. D'you want the initials on a prison wall, just over an inconspicuous grave, and your own life history minutely recorded in every book on crime that's written from now onwards? Or have you got a spark of decency left in you? Have you got guts enough to stay dead like a gentleman? It's your shout. Pay up, and nobody'll ever see the bill. Don't square it my way, and you go to Tophet through a mud bath." It seemed for a moment as if Surcon was searching his son's face for any trace of relenting, but Storm's features were set in a granite, ruthless, inexorable mask. And then the burning rage crept back into Surcon's eyes. "Are you much better than a parricide?" demanded Surcon fiercely, literally shaking with passion. "Isn't your idea just to shelve the responsibility for the act--and be the cause of it just the same?"