"Steady, Ringrose, steady. I have given you provocation in the past, but I am not provoking you now. That your father's fate was different from what I led you to believe it would be idle to deny any longer, especially as I am here to clear up the mystery once and for all. Take me upstairs and you shall know the truth." "What! Trust myself to the two of you?" Lowndes pointed to the shadowy figure across the road. "And to the man who is with me." "Who is he?" "The first detective in London," whispered Lowndes, in his pat, decisive way. "Now, will you take me up to bowl out Scrafton, or shall I call to him to come down, and make a scene here in the street? My dear Ringrose, I may have my faults, but do you seriously mean to take his word before mine?" "Come up if you like," said Harry, shortly; and Lowndes turned to the man in the shadow. "When I throw up a window," Harry heard him say, and he led the way upstairs, feeling once more as though he were walking into a trap with his eyes open. "Leave the key in the door," whispered Lowndes again as they stood on the mat. "Then he will be able to come and help us if necessary." There was something strangely trustworthy in his face and his voice; something new in Harry's knowledge of the man. He left the key in the door, and he felt next moment that he had done right. Scrafton had leapt to his feet with fear and ferocity in his face, and the empty spirit-bottle caught up in his hand. "What do _you_ want?" he roared. "What are _you_ doing here? You fool, I've told him everything! Shut the door, you, young fellow; now he's come we won't let him slip." Harry humoured him by shutting it. He had only to look on their two faces to see which was the villain now. "I've told him!" repeated Scrafton, in a loud, jeering voice. "I told you I'd round on you if ever you went back on me, and I've been as good as my word. He knows now who persuaded his father to go abroad, and he knows why. He knows who went with him. He knows who pushed him overboard and took the money." "It's pretty plain, isn't it?" said Lowndes to Harry. "Be prepared to close with him the moment he lifts that bottle higher than his shoulder, and I'll tell you honestly what I did do. It will save time, however, if you first tell me what this fellow says I did." Harry did so in the fewest words, while they both stood watching Scrafton, grinning in their faces as he held the empty bottle in rest. His grin broadened as the tale proceeded. And so strange was the growing triumph in the fierce blue eyes, if it were all untrue, that at the end Harry turned to Lowndes and asked him point-blank whether there was any truth in it at all.