Mr. Petherton, who frowned very much and appeared to be greatly disturbed by these irregularities, twisted sharply round on the visitor. "Where is your father?" he demanded. "Where you can't find him!" retorted Addie, with a flash of the eye that lit up her whole face. "So's Andrius. They're off, my good sir!--both of 'em. Neither you nor the police can lay hands on 'em now. And you'll do no good by laying hands on me. Come now," she went on, "I said I'd come to ask for mercy. But I came for more. This game's all over! It's--up. The curtain's down--at least it's going down. Why don't you let me tell you all about it and then we can be friends?" Mr. Petherton gazed at Addie for a moment as if she were some extraordinary specimen of a new race. Then he took off his glasses, waved them at Sir Cresswell and dropped into a chair with a snort. "I wash my hands of the whole thing!" he exclaimed. "Do what you like--all of you. Irregular--most irregular!" Vickers gave Addie a sly look. "Don't incriminate yourself, Miss Chatfield," he said. "There's no need for you to tell anything against yourself, you know." "Me!" exclaimed Addie. "Why, I've been playing good angel all day long--me incriminate myself, indeed! If Miss Greyle there only knew what I'd done for her!--look here," she continued, suddenly turning to Sir Cresswell. "I've come to tell all about it. And first of all--every penny of that money that my father drew from the bank has been restored this afternoon." "We know that," said Sir Cresswell. "Well, that was me!--I engineered that," continued Addie. "And second--the _Pike_ will be back at Scarhaven during the night, to unload everything that was being carried away. My doing, again! Because, I'm no fool, and I know when a game's up." "So--there was a game?" suggested Vickers. Addie leaned forward from the chair which Sir Cresswell had given her at the end of the table and planting her elbows on the table edge began to check off her points on the tips of her slender fingers. She was well aware that she had the stage to herself by that time and she showed her consciousness of it. "You have it," she answered. "There was a game--and perhaps I know more of it than anybody. I'll tell now. It began at Bristol. I was playing there. One morning my father fetched me out from rehearsal to tell me that he'd been down to Falmouth to meet the new Squire of Scarhaven, Marston Greyle, and that he found him so ill that they'd had to go to a doctor, who forbade Greyle to travel far at a time. They'd got to Bristol--there, Greyle was so much worse that my father didn't know what to do with him. He knew that I was in the town, so he came to me. I got Greyle a quiet room at my lodgings. A doctor saw him--he said he was very bad, but he didn't say that he was in immediate danger. However, he died that very night." Addie paused for a moment, and Copplestone and Gilling exchanged glances. So far, this was all known to them--but what was coming?