Harry could not help looking up; and there sat Scrafton in his mother's chair, his head thrown sublimely back, a grin of exultation amid the rank hair upon his face, and the light of drunken genius in his fiery blue eyes. There was something arrestive about the man; a certain vile distinction; a certain demoniac fascination, which diverted Harry's attention in spite of himself. It was with an effort that he shook the creature from his brain, and asked how all this affected his poor father's fate.
"There is a weak point common to every system," replied Scrafton, "and want of money was the one weak point of mine. Without capital it was no use."
"Well?"
"With a thousand I'd have backed myself to bring it off; with five it was a moral certainty; with ten a dead certainty. Now do you see where your father came in?"
"It was ten thousand pounds Lowndes got him!"
"And twenty I'd have handed him, cent. per cent., on what he put in."
"Go on," said Harry, hoarsely.
Scrafton grinned until his yellow fangs gleamed through their snuffy screen; he took another pinch before complying. "It's waste of breath," said he, "for you must see for yourself what happened next. Lowndes knows I've been waiting all my life for a man with ten thousand pounds and the nerve to trust me, but he comes to make sure of me before going down to your father with the ten thousand and the dodge of making it twenty. I'm his man, of course; but your father won't listen to it; as good as shows our friend the door, but keeps the money, and says he'll pay it back himself, and then fail like an honest man. Back comes old Lowndes to Richmond, with his tail between his legs, on the Thursday night. Next day's Good Friday, and your father spends it at home—thinking about it—thinking about it—saying good-bye to everything—making up his mind to fail next day. All right, I'll stop if you like; he couldn't do it, that's all; and on the Saturday evening, just as I was going to ask Lowndes if the crash had come, and if we couldn't run down together and try again before it did, who should I meet coming out of the gate but Lowndes and the man himself! He'd caved in of his own accord. I was the very man they wanted, and in five minutes we were all three on our way to the station. It was then after eight, I recollect, but we just caught a fast train to Waterloo, and from there we galloped to London Bridge, and jumped into the boat-train as she was moving out of the station at nine sharp."
"Which boat-train?" asked Harry suspiciously. It was his first chance of cross-examination. Up to this point every statement tallied with the statements of Fanny Lowndes, made now nearly four years ago, but unforgettable in the smallest detail. And for an instant he was back in the little room at Richmond, the bright fire within, the white fog without, and the face of his beloved red with shame and wet with agony. Good God, what a barrier it had been! Her father the murderer of his! He remembered that the thought had occurred to him, but only in his wild moments, never seriously. And she must have suspected—might even have known it—at the time!
"What did you say?" said Harry, for, in the sudden tumult of his thoughts, Scrafton's answer had been lost upon him.