"Oh, yes," he heard himself saying. "That ticket. Quite so, of course. Bolt left a bag for me at Shrub Hill Station." "He did." "Give me the ticket." "Later," said John, and put it back in his pocket. Mr. Carmody's elation died away. There was no question now about the peculiar look in his companion's eye. It was a grim look. A hard, accusing look. Not at all the sort of look a man with a tender conscience likes to have boring into him. "What--what do you mean?" John continued to regard him with that unpleasantly fixed stare. "I hear you have offered a reward of a thousand pounds for the recovery of those things that were stolen, Uncle Lester." "Er--yes. Yes." "I'll claim it." "What!" "Uncle Lester," said John, and his voice made a perfect match for his eye, "before I left Healthward Ho I had a little talk with Mr. Twist and his friend Mr. Molloy. They told me a lot of interesting things. Do you get my meaning, or shall I make it plainer?" Mr. Carmody, who had bristled for a moment with the fury of a parsimonious man who sees danger threatening his cheque book, sank slowly back into his chair like a balloon coming to rest. "Good!" said John. "Write out a cheque and make it payable to Colonel Wyvern." "Colonel Wyvern?" "I am passing the reward on to him. I have a particular reason for wanting to end all that silly trouble between you two, and I think this should do it. I know he is simply waiting for you to make some sort of advance. So you're going to make an advance--of a thousand pounds." Mr. Carmody gulped. "Wouldn't five hundred be enough?" "A thousand." "It's such a lot of money." "A nice round sum," said John. Mr. Carmody did not share his nephew's views as to what constituted niceness and roundness in a sum of money, but he did not say so. He sighed deeply and drew his cheque book from its drawer. He supposed in a vague sort of way that he ought to be feeling grateful to the young man for not heaping him with reproaches and recrimination, but the agony of what he was about to do prevented any such emotion. All he could feel was that dull, aching sensation which comes to most of us when we sit down to write cheques for the benefit of others. It was as if some malignant fate had brooded over him, he felt, ever since this business had started. From the very first, life had been one long series of disbursements. All the expense of entertaining the Molloy family, not to mention the unspeakable Ronnie Fish.... The car going to and fro between Healthward Ho and Rudge at six shillings per trip.... The five hundred pounds he had had to pay to get Hugo out of the house.... And now this appalling, devastating sum for which he had just begun to write his cheque. Money going out all the time! Money ... money ... money ... And all for nothing! He blotted the cheque and held it out. "Don't give it to me," said John. "You're coming with me now to Colonel Wyvern's house, to hand it to him in person with a neat little speech."