"Heaps," was the reply. "It's nothing but the truth up to a certain point. I am not here to exonerate myself from fault, Ringrose, and not even altogether from crime. It is perfectly true that it was at my instigation your father consented to go abroad and put his faith in this fellow's system. It was a wild scheme, if you like, but it was either that or certain ruin, and I'd have risked it myself without the slightest hesitation. I firmly believe, too, that it would have come off if we'd kept cool and played well together--for make no mistake about the mere ability of our friend with the bottle--but it never came to that. Your father weakened on it halfway across the Channel, and vowed he'd go back by the next boat and fail like a man. That's true enough, and it's also true that after reasoning with him in vain I went to send Scrafton to reassure him about the system; and here's where the lies begin. I didn't go back with him to the empty cabin. I followed him in a few minutes, and there he was alone, and there and then he started accusing me of what he'd obviously done himself." "Obviously!" jeered Scrafton. "So obviously that he made no attempt to prove it at the time!" "I stood no chance of doing so. It would have been oath against oath. And meanwhile, Ringrose, there were the two of us in a tight place together--and the French lights in sight! There was nothing for it but to pull together for the time being, and to avoid discovery of your father's disappearance at all costs. What was done couldn't be undone; and discovery would have meant destruction to us both, without anybody else being a bit the better. So Scrafton went ashore muffled up in your father's ulster, as he has told you himself; and, indeed, the rest of his story is--only too true." "You consented to this?" cried Harry, recoiling from both men, as one stood shamefaced and the other took snuff with a triumphant flourish. "Consented to it?" roared Scrafton. "He proposed it, bless you!" "That's not true, Lowndes?" "I'm ashamed to say it is, Ringrose. We were in a frightful hole. Something had to be done right there and then." "So you went ashore together?" "No; we arranged to meet." "To concoct the forgery I've been shown to-night? You had a hand in that, had you?" "I had a voice." "Yet none of the guilt is yours!" The tone cut like a knife. Lowndes had been hanging his head, but his spectacles flashed as he raised it now.