"You believe him?" screamed Scrafton.
"Certainly—before you."
"After all the lies he's owned up to?"
"After everything!"
Scrafton gnashed his teeth, and his bloodshot eyes blazed again.
"You had my version first, you blockhead!" he burst out. "You never would have had his otherwise. Can't you see he's only trying to turn the tables on me? I tell you he threw your father into the sea, so he turns round and says I did it! Let him prove a word of it. Do you hear, you lying devil? Prove it; prove it if you can!"
Lowndes stepped over to the window and threw up the centre sash very casually.
"It's a warm night for this sort of thing," he remarked. "Prove it, do you say? That's exactly what I'm going to do, if you'll give me time. Steady with that bottle, though—watch him, Ringrose—that's better! So you still insist on having a proof, eh? Do you think I'd have refused your demands this evening if I hadn't had one? My good fellow, there was a man in my house at the time who is in a position to convict you at last. He has been on your track for years—and here he is!"
As the door opened, Harry kept his eyes on Scrafton, and on the empty bottle he still gripped by the neck. Instead of being raised, it slipped through his slackened fingers and fell upon the hearthrug. A moment later Scrafton himself crashed in a heap where he stood.
Harry turned round; a bronzed gentleman with snow-white whiskers had entered the room and was holding out his arms to him, the tears standing thick in his eyes.