"Not next door, I hope?" said Scrafton, tapping the wall to gauge its thickness. "No, at the other end of the flat; and she's used to late comers." Scrafton glanced at Harry obliquely out of his light-blue eyes. Then they fell on the whisky bottle, and he favoured Harry with a different look. "Help yourself." Scrafton did so with his left hand so clasped about the glass that it was impossible to see how much he took. His hand seemed bonier than formerly, but it was no less grimy, and the fingernails were still rimmed with black. He was dressed as of old, only better. It was a moderately new frock-coat, and as he sat down with his glass Harry saw that he did wear socks. His beard and moustache were whiter; they showed the snuff-stains all the more. It was the rocking-chair this man was desecrating with his pestilent person; while Harry, having shut the door, had reseated himself at his desk, but turned his chair so that he sat facing Scrafton, with an elbow on his blotting-pad. "I have come," said the visitor, putting his glass down empty, "to tell you the truth about your father." "I thought as much." "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," continued Scrafton, eying the bottle wistfully. "Do you suppose now that he is living or dead?" "I have no idea." "He is dead." Harry did not open his mouth. He could not appreciate the news of his father's death, but then he would have been equally slow to realise that he was alive. So completely had the missing ironmaster passed out of the world of ascertainable fact and of positive statement; so dead was he already to his son. "When did he die?" asked the latter presently; and his voice was unmoved. "On the night between Good Friday and Easter Day." "This year?" "No; over four years ago." Harry leapt to his feet. "Where was it he died?" "At sea----" "At sea!" "Between Newhaven and Dieppe." "But how--how?" "He was murdered." Harry seemed to have known it all along. He could not utter another syllable. But his wild eyes and his outstretched hands asked their question plainly. "By your friend Gordon Lowndes," said Scrafton coolly. Harry came down heavily in his chair, and his hands lay on the desk, and his face lay in his hands; but he was acutely conscious, and he heard the furtive trickle as Scrafton seized the opportunity of replenishing his glass. The man drank. To anybody but an innocent it might have been obvious four years ago. He was one of those whom drink made pallid and ferocious; to get more from him while still sober, Harry started up as suddenly as he had subsided, causing the other to spill some liquor in his beard. "Take all you want," cried Harry, "only tell me everything first. I must know everything now. I have suspected it so long."