know the truth
at last--the truth how my poor little daughter has been used as an
instrument by you in your nefarious operations."

"But----"

"Hear me, I say!" went on the old man. "I ask my daughter to forgive me
for misjudging her. I now know the truth. You obtained by some means a
false key to my safe, and you copied certain documents which I had
placed there in order to entrap any who might seek to learn my secrets.
You fell into that trap, and though I confess I thought that Gabrielle
was the culprit, on Murie's behalf, I only lately found out that you and
your accomplice Krail were in Greece endeavouring to profit by knowledge
obtained from here, my private house."

"Krail has been living in Auchterarder of late, it appears," Hamilton
remarked, "and it is evidently he who, gaining access to the house one
night recently, used his friend's false key, and obtained those
confidential Russian documents from your safe."

"No doubt," declared Sir Henry. Then, again addressing Flockart, he
asked, "Where are those documents which you and your scoundrelly
accomplice have stolen, and for the return of which you are trying to
make me pay?"

"I don't know anything about them," answered Flockart sullenly, his face
livid.

"He'll know more about them when he is taken off by the two detectives
from Edinburgh who hold the extradition warrant," Hamilton remarked with
a grim smile.

The fellow started at those words. His demeanour was that of a guilty
man. "What do you mean?" he gasped, white as death. "You--you intend to
give me into custody? If you do, I warn you that Lady Heyburn will
suffer also."

"She, like Miss Gabrielle, has only been your tool," Hamilton declared.
"It was she who, under compulsion, has furnished you with means for
years, and whose association with you has caused something little short
of a scandal. Times without number she has tried to get rid of you and
your evil influence in this household, but you have always defied her.
Now," he said firmly, looking the other straight in the face, "you have
upon you those stolen documents which you have, by using an assumed name
and a false address, offered to sell back to their owner, Sir Henry. You
have threatened that if they are not purchased at the exorbitant price
you demand you will sell them to the Russian Ministry of Finance. That
is the way you treat your friend and benefactor, the man who is blind
and helpless! Come, give them back to Sir Henry, a