“Doing me well for our farewell dinner, Dad,” Gregory murmured appreciatively, as he set down his glass with a little gesture of reverence. “’70 Port.”

Sir Bertram smiled pleasantly. It was not for the two footmen standing motionless at either end of the magnificent sideboard, or even for Rawson behind his master’s chair, to know that this was anything but an ordinary function. Conversation throughout the meal had taken no account of possible catastrophe. They had talked of the sporting side of Gregory’s expedition; Sir Bertram himself had shot big game in Canada more than once.

“There are only a few bottles left, I regret to say,” Sir Bertram remarked. “We started on the last bin at the commencement of the year.”

“This is the Cockburn’s shipping,” Henry put in. “We have always considered it the finer wine. If you will pass the decanter, Bertram, I will indulge in my second glass.”

Before the decanter was finished Rawson and his satellites had departed. Sir Bertram glanced at his watch.

“You have nearly an hour,” he said. “What time did you tell Holmes you would leave?”

“At ten o’clock,” Gregory replied. “The train leaves Norwich at eleven-thirty.”

Sir Bertram rose from his place. They strolled into the library, drank coffee and liqueurs, and lit cigarettes. There was still nothing in their conversation to indicate the great crisis. Henry was the first to introduce a note of unexpectedness.

“If I may claim ten minutes of your time, Gregory,” he said, “it would gratify me if you would pay a visit to my room. You too, I trust, Bertram,” he added.

“Why, of course, Uncle,” Gregory acquiesced. “I’ll just fill my case with these cigarettes, if you don’t mind, Dad. May save me opening my travelling bag.”

“By all means,” his father begged.

They ascended the great staircase, Gregory pausing every now and then to look at one of his favourite pictures. Henry led the way to his own room with its quaint air of monasticity and severity, accentuated by the oriel-shaped windows. He closed the door carefully behind him.

“I should like before you depart, Gregory,” he began, “to assure you that my sympathies have been entirely with you in your gallant but non-successful attempt to restore the fortunes of our family. I may, or may not agree with you in your decision that these”—he waved his hand towards the two Images—“should remain unbroken. There are times,” he went on, “when I fancy that our friend there with the very evil and mocking leer is trying to boast of the treasures he possesses, and with which he refuses to part. That, however, is an effort of the imagination in which I seldom indulge. It occurred to me further that I should like, before you leave, to prove to you that my sympathy with your enterprise was not confined to a merely passive attitude. My actions may not have been entirely judicious, but they were well-intentioned. It was I who on a certain night made use of your key, entered the Great House in, I must confess, a surreptitious manner, relieved myself of interference on the part of Mr. Johnson, I am afraid in somewhat inconsiderate fashion, and purloined the manuscripts, which I had hoped might help us towards the discovery of the treasure.”

The cigarette which Sir Bertram had been holding between his fingers slipped on to the carpet and lay there almost unnoticed. He gazed at his brother with a great astonishment in his face. Gregory, taken even more by surprise, stared at him, speechless and open-mouthed. Neither of them said a word. Henry stooped down, picked up the lighted cigarette, and threw it into the fireplace.

“Henry, you’re crazy!” Sir Bertram exclaimed at last.

“Uncle Henry!” Gregory cried.

Something which was finally a smile parted Henry’s lips, as he pointed to a neat package upon the table.

“These are the manuscripts,” he said. “I regret to say that my expedition was a failure. Nothing there helps us in any degree.”

“But how the devil do you know?” Gregory demanded. “Whom did you get to read them?”

“During the last few months,” his uncle confided, “with a view to making this enterprise a success, I have studied and read Chinese.”

“God bless my soul!” Sir Bertram gasped.

“The language presented its difficulties,” Henry admitted. “During my last visit to London in January I consulted a Chinese scholar who put me in the right way, and I have attained to a certain proficiency—enough, at any rate, for the purpose. It struck me that Major Holmes’s enquiries into the matter were becoming somewhat unpleasant, and I thought, therefore, that I would confide the truth to you, in case at any time suspicion should fall upon another person. This parcel containing the documents contains also a letter from me acknowledging my exploit and a letter of apology to Miss Endacott, whose property I suppose they must be considered. They are undamaged and, except for the slight injury to Mr. Johnson, which I regret was necessary, the affair seems to me to be trivial.”

Gregory clasped his forehead.

“Trivial!” he groaned.

“There will, I fear, be a certain loss of dignity should I be called upon to answer for my misdoing,” Henry concluded, “but I can assure you that I shall take no steps to evade any action which may ensue. That, I think, is all. It only remains for me, Gregory, to wish you success abroad. Of our own future here, we will not speak. Whilst the Ballaston treasures and heirlooms remain intact my place is with them. A pleasant voyage, Gregory!”

He shook hands and conducted them courteously to the door. His little pat on his nephew’s shoulder was the nearest approach to affection he had ever shown. Gregory and his father descended the stairs almost in silence. When they reached the hall, Gregory sank into a chair and held his head in his hands.

“Dad, was that a dream?” he demanded. “I can’t conceive it. Uncle Henry, of all men in the world!”

“It is the Ballaston spirit concealed,” Sir Bertram murmured.

For a quarter of an hour or so father and son sat in the great hall without speech. There was a curiously intense silence, broken only by the ticking of a large clock, and, through the wide-flung window, the twittering of a nightingale preparing for his aftermath of song. Sir Bertram rose at last to his feet.

“Let us walk on the terrace, Gregory,” he suggested. “The car will be round in a few minutes.”

They strolled out together, Sir Bertram correct and debonair, from the polish of his well-brushed hair to the pearl studs in his shirt and his scrupulously cut dinner clothes; Gregory in travelling tweeds, prepared for his journey. Sir Bertram took his son’s arm as they commenced their leisurely promenade.

“I am afraid,” he said, in a tone of very rare gravity, “that it’s all up with us Ballastons, Gregory. You’re young and fit though, and I’ve got quite enough to amuse myself with—it will have to be France, I suppose, or Spain. It’s all a compromise, of course, and a cursed compromise. There’s only one place for an Englishman to live, and that’s on his own land. It’s the devil’s own luck to lose Ballaston, but we’ve gone the limit, eh, Gregory, to try to keep it?”

“Yes,” Gregory admitted. “We made a bid for it, at any rate—even Uncle Henry!”

His tone had grown more serious. The shadow of something unspoken seemed to be lying between them.

“Personally,” Sir Bertram continued, “I regret nothing, I blame nobody for anything. I consider that everything was justified. You have to make a fresh start, Gregory. Don’t do so with that somewhat bourgeois impediment—a slurred conscience. What has been done has been done, and is finished with.”

Gregory for a moment did not reply. His puzzled eyes sought his father’s, but sought them in vain.

“For my part,” Sir Bertram repeated steadily, “I regret nothing. It was worth the effort. And as for Henry—God bless him!”

The lights of the car flashed from the stable yard.

“And so, my dear boy,” his father concluded, in his ordinary tone, “you swing your bundle, figuratively speaking, at the end of your stick, and set out on your allegorical journey. Only, for God’s sake, don’t come back Lord Mayor of London!”

Gregory had already taken his seat, the chauffeur’s hand was upon the change speeds gear, when Rawson hurried forward.

“There is another car coming up the avenue, sir,” he announced. “Would it be as well to wait for a moment?”

Gregory looked out of the window. He could see the twin lights flashing in the distance, gleaming slantwise through the trees, then again pools of light in the semi-darkness. For only a moment he hesitated, but, during that moment, it seemed to him that he was taking leave of much that was dear in life. Then he stepped out of the car and stood upon the edge of the terrace.

“It might be as well, Rawson,” he agreed, with somewhat elaborate casualness.

“I wonder who the devil it can be at this time of the night?” Sir Bertram speculated.

The car resolved itself into shape. Its very crudity, its ugliness, seemed symbolic. The driver was in plain clothes, but he sat stiffly and there was something official about his appearance. By his side was Major Holmes. Behind sat Inspector Cloutson. The two latter descended as the car drew up.

“Well, Major?” Sir Bertram exclaimed. “What new thunderbolt are you going to launch?”

The Chief Constable rather avoided his eyes.

“We want a word with you, please,” he confided, laying his hand lightly upon Gregory’s arm.

They all entered the house together. Sir Bertram led the way to the library, thrust open the door and closed it again when they had all entered.

“Now what the devil is it this time, Holmes?” he asked, a little testily. “You mustn’t be annoyed with me if I say that I am getting rather tired of these visitations.”

“I deeply regret the necessity for the present one,” was the grave reply. “Gregory Ballaston, I am sorry to tell you that Inspector Cloutson here has a warrant for your arrest. I should strongly advise you to make no reply to the charge and to come with us to Norwich.”

“What is the charge?” Gregory demanded.

“A very serious one, I am afraid,” Major Holmes announced. “I have, as a matter of fact, two warrants; the first charging you, Gregory Ballaston, with assault on one Peter Johnson, and burglary at the Great House on the night of July 28th, and the second by which you stand charged with the murder of Ralph Endacott at the Great House on June 30th of last year. There is nothing to be gained by denial or comment or anything else, at the present moment. I beg you, Gregory, not to attempt any reply but to come with us.”

The door behind had been opened so softly that no one heard it. They were all standing motionless when Henry, with a brown paper parcel under his arm, entered.

“But that is ridiculous, Major Holmes,” he said quietly. “You must have been very greatly misled. It was I who was guilty of the burglary. Here, in this parcel, you will find all the documents I purloined, or I might say borrowed, the instrument with which I cut out the panel of the door, another with which I picked the lock—instruments, I may say, obtained with the greatest possible difficulty from an establishment in London.”

There was a moment’s blank silence. Major Holmes’s expression, after the first shock of surprise, was one of complete incredulity.

“This is a very remarkable statement on your part, Mr. Ballaston,” he observed. “I presume you wish us to take note of what you say. At the same time I have, I am sorry to remind you, a warrant against your nephew on a more serious charge.”

Henry Ballaston apologised with dignity.

“I regret,” he said, “not to have mentioned the two affairs together. I, also, on June 30th of last year, after a few words of unpleasant discussion with Mr. Endacott, shot him through the head.”

Once more there was a brief spell of breathless silence. Henry Ballaston was entirely master of the situation, perfectly self-possessed, slightly apologetic. Father and son were gazing into each other’s eyes with mutual and amazed interrogation.

“You see,” Henry continued, in explanatory fashion, “Mr. Endacott was a very unreasonable man. He admitted that he had made a translation of the manuscript, but he refused to give it to me. He desired his niece to profit by it. I suppose I must have lost my temper. I shot him and secured the other Image, but could find no trace of the manuscript. Hence my second effort within the last few days. Have I made myself quite clear?”

Sir Bertram’s fingers upon his son’s arm had grown like the grip of a vice. He leaned forward.

“Do you mean to say that you didn’t do it, Greg?” he whispered hoarsely.

“Before God, I didn’t!” was the passionate reply. “I thought it was you.”