"It isn't--it isn't! You told me to get it--just how to get it. That it was lying upon the table-top; and so I slipped down in my stockinged feet, and waited in the passage until I saw Ross slip out of the room after everyone else had gone back to bed, and--and _you_ had come out, Mr. Cleek, and were talking to Maud in the ante-room. So I crept into the room--oh, it was dreadful, with Father lying there--like that--snatched it up and fled back to my bedroom in terror. Uncle Antoni was still waiting on the balcony, and when he got it he climbed down the balustrade again and--and--that is all I know. Oh, I wish--I wish I'd never had anything to do with it!" Cleek nodded. "I'm sure you do," he said quietly. "So it was really not your fault, Cyril. You acted under considerable pressure. That I'll admit. But it might have been better if you had confided in--someone else after the deed was done. It would have helped clear up the mystery sooner, at any rate. But that cannot be helped now. To proceed with the story. Here, by the way, is the missing will, Lady Paula. I found it muffling the clapper of Rhea's bell--a very ingenious hiding-place--and in the finding discovered your--er--worthy brother at the same time. That was how I happened to get hold of him. He gave me a few tips of quite useful information afterward, upon promise of a light sentence, and helped to lead me finally to the true murderer. So we will hold that in his favour, at any rate. Sir Ross, I'd prefer you to keep that document until it can be placed in the hands of your family lawyer. We don't want any more disappearing tricks for the present, do we?" "Hardly. Gad! it's amazing, positively extraordinary how you've found all this out!" threw in that gentleman with deep emphasis. "Please accept my apologies now for those unforgivable things I said to you, Mr. Cleek. But when a chap's just been practically accused of killing his own father----" "You must expect a little heat. That's all right, my friend. Don't bother about it further. Only, I was obliged to throw the scent upon someone other than the real man--or we'd have lost him. You understand that, of course?" "Certainly. Only tell us how you traced the murder to its proper source, and _why_ James Tavish should have done such a thing."