asn't therefore altogether responsible for his
actions."

He whipped round suddenly upon Cleek, his faded eyes, with their fringe
of almost white lashes, flashing like points of light from the seamed and
wrinkled frame of his face.

"If you want to hear that foolish part of the story, I can give it to
you," he said, sharply. "Because I happened to be there."

"_You!_"

"Yes--I, Mr.--er--Headland, isn't it? Ah, thanks. But the boy's unstrung,
nerve-racked. He's been through too much. The whole beastly thing has
made a mess of him, and he was a fool to meddle with it. Nigel Merriton
fired a shot that night when Dacre Wynne disappeared, Mr. Headland; fired
it after he had gone up to his room, a little over-excited with too much
champagne, a little over-wrought by the scene through which he had just
passed with the man who had always exercised such a sinister influence
over his life."

"So Sir Nigel was no good friend of this man Wynne's, then?" remarked
Cleek, quietly, as if he did not already know the fact.

The doctor looked up as though he were ready to spring upon him and tear
him limb from limb.

"No!" he said, furiously, "and neither would you have been, if you'd
known him. Great hulking bully that he was! I tell you, I've seen the man
use his influence upon this boy here, until--fine, upstanding chap that
he is (and I've known him and his people ever since he was a baby) he
succeeded in making him as weak as a hysterical girl--and gloated over
it, too!"

Cleek drew in a quiet breath, and gave his shoulders the very slightest
of twitches, to show that he was listening.

"Very interesting, Doctor, as psychological studies of the kind go," he
said, smoothly, stroking his chin and looking down at the bowed shoulders
of the man in the arm chair, with something almost like sorrow in his
eyes. "But we've got to get down to brass tacks, you know. This thing's
serious. It's got to be proved. If it can't be--well, it's going to be
mighty awkward for Sir Nigel. Now, let's hear the thing straight out from
the person most interested, please. I don't like to appear thoughtless in
any way, but this is a serious admission you've just made. Sir Nigel, I
beg of you, tell us the story before the constable comes. It might make
things easier for you in the long run."

Merriton, thus addressed, threw up his head suddenly and showed a face
marked with mental anguish, dry-eyed, deathly white. He got slowly to his
feet and went