t last we were getting something positive, and yet it seemed a long gap
between an absconding banker and Captain Peter Carey pinned against the
wall with one of his own harpoons. We all listened intently to the young
man's words.

"It was my father who was really concerned. Dawson had retired. I was
only ten years of age at the time, but I was old enough to feel the
shame and horror of it all. It has always been said that my father stole
all the securities and fled. It is not true. It was his belief that if
he were given time in which to realize them all would be well and every
creditor paid in full. He started in his little yacht for Norway just
before the warrant was issued for his arrest. I can remember that last
night when he bade farewell to my mother. He left us a list of the
securities he was taking, and he swore that he would come back with his
honour cleared, and that none who had trusted him would suffer. Well,
no word was ever heard from him again. Both the yacht and he vanished
utterly. We believed, my mother and I, that he and it, with the
securities that he had taken with him, were at the bottom of the sea. We
had a faithful friend, however, who is a business man, and it was he who
discovered some time ago that some of the securities which my father
had with him have reappeared on the London market. You can imagine our
amazement. I spent months in trying to trace them, and at last, after
many doublings and difficulties, I discovered that the original seller
had been Captain Peter Carey, the owner of this hut.

"Naturally, I made some inquiries about the man. I found that he had
been in command of a whaler which was due to return from the Arctic seas
at the very time when my father was crossing to Norway. The autumn of
that year was a stormy one, and there was a long succession of southerly
gales. My father's yacht may well have been blown to the north, and
there met by Captain Peter Carey's ship. If that were so, what had
become of my father? In any case, if I could prove from Peter Carey's
evidence how these securities came on the market it would be a proof
that my father had not sold them, and that he had no view to personal
profit when he took them.

"I came down to Sussex with the intention of seeing the captain, but
it was at this moment that his terrible death occurred. I read at the
inquest a description of his cabin, in which it stated that the old
log-books of his vessel were preserved in it. It