arrived since he left the office on Saturday afternoon. But it is
said that drowning men clutch at straws, and the metaphor might be
applied to Verity with peculiar aptness. He was sinking in a sea of
troubles, sinking because the old buoyancy was gone, sinking because
many hands were stretched forth to push him under, and never one to
draw him forth.

There was no cablegram, of course. Dickey Bulmer, who had become a
waking nightmare to the unhappy shipowner, had said there wouldn't
be--said it twelve hours ago, after wringing from Verity the astounding
admission that Iris was on board the _Andromeda_. It was not because
the vessel was overdue that David confessed. Bulmer, despite his
sixty-eight years, was an acute man of business. Moreover, he was
blessed with a retentive memory, and he treasured every word of the
bogus messages from Iris concocted by her uncle. They were lucid at
first, but under the stress of time they wore thin, grew disconnected,
showed signs of the strain imposed on their author's imagination.
Bulmer, a typical Lancashire man, blended in his disposition a genial
openhandedness with a shrewd caution. He could display a princely
generosity in dealing with Verity as the near relative and guardian of
his promised wife; to the man whom he suspected of creating the
obstacles that kept her away from him he applied a pitiless logic.

The storm had burst unexpectedly. Bulmer came to dinner, ate and drank
and smoked in quiet amity until David's laboring muse conveyed his
niece's latest "kind love an' good wishes," and then----

"Tell you wot," said Dickey, "there's another five thousand due
to-morrow on the surveyor's report."

"There is," said Verity, knowing that his guest and prospective partner
alluded to the new steamer in course of construction on the Clyde.

"Well, it won't be paid."

David lifted his glass of port to hide his face. Was this the first
rumbling of the tempest? Though expected hourly, he was not prepared
for it. His hand trembled. He dared not put the wine to his lips.

"Wot's up now?" he asked.

"You're playin' some underhand game on me, David, an' I won't stand
it," was the unhesitating reply. "You're lyin' about Iris. You've bin
lyin' ever since she disappeared from Bootle. Show me 'er letters an'
their envelopes, an' I'll find the money. But, of course, you can't.
They don't exist. Now, own up as man to man, an' I'll see if this
affair can be settled w