"It's the absolute truth!" she answered, regarding him steadily. "I'm not altogether a good sort, nor a very bad sort, but I'm telling you the real truth in that. It was a sheer accident-he stepped off the parapet and fell. Martin went into the base of the tower and came back saying he was dead. We were both dazed-we separated. He went off to the house-I went to my father by a roundabout way. We decided to let things take their course. You all know a great deal of what happened. But-later-my husband and Martin began to take certain things into their own hands. They put me on one side. To this minute, I don't quite know how much my father got into their secrets or how little, but I do know that they determined to make what you might call a purse for themselves out of Scarhaven. Martin left certain powers in his brother's hands and went off to London. He was there, hidden, until Andrius got all ready for a flight on the Pike. Then he set off to Scarhaven, to join her. But he didn't join her, and none of us knew what had become of him until today, when we heard of what had been found at Scarhaven. That explained it-he had taken that short cut from the Northborough road through the woods behind the Keep, and fallen over the cliff at the Hermit's steps. But that very night, you, Mr. Vickers, and Mr. Copplestone and Miss Greyle, nearly stopped everything, and if Andrius and Chatfield hadn't carried you off, the scheme would have come to nothing. Well-you know what happened after that-"

"But," interjected Vickers, quickly, "not your share in the last development."

"My share's been to see that the thing was up, and that if I wanted to save them all, I'd best put a stop to it," rejoined Addie, with a grim smile. "I tell you, I didn't know what they'd been up to until today. I was in England-never mind where-wondering what was going on. Yesterday I got a code message from my husband. When he fetched my father away from you, he forced him to tell where that gold was-then he wired to me-by wireless-full instructions to recover it during last night. I did-never you mind the exact means I took nor who it was that I got to help-I got it-and I took good care to put it where I knew it would be safe. Then this morning I went to meet the two of them at Scarvell's Cut. And I took the upper hand then! I got them away from that sail-loft-safely. I made my husband give me a code message for the man in charge of the Pike, telling him to return at once to Scarhaven; I made my father write a note to Elkin at the bank, telling him to place the gold which I sent with it to the credit of the Greyle Estate. And when all that was done-I got them away-they're gone!"

Vickers, who had never taken his eyes off Addie during her lengthy explanation, gave her a whimsical smile.

"Safely?" he asked.

"I'll defy the police to find 'em, anyway," replied Addie with a quick response of lip and eye. "I don't do things by halves. I say-they're gone! But-I'm here. Come, now-I've made a clean breast of it all. The thing's over and done with. There's nothing to prevent Miss Greyle there coming into her rights-I can prove 'em-my father can prove them. So-is it any use doing what that old gentleman's just worrying to do? You can all see what he wants-he's dying to hand me over to the police."

Sir Cresswell Oliver rose, glanced at Audrey and her mother, received some telepathic communication from them, and a.s.sumed his old quarter-deck manner.

"Not tonight, I think, Petherton," he said authoritatively.

"No-certainly not tonight!"

Some months later, when Audrey Greyle had come into possession of Scarhaven, and had married Copplestone in the little church behind her mother's cottage, she and her husband, to satisfy a mutual and long-cherished desire, visited a certain romantic and retired part of the country. And in the course of their wanderings they came across a very pretty village, and in it a charmingly situated retreat, which looked so attractive from the road along which they were walking that they halted and peered at it through its trimly-kept boundary hedge. And there, seated in the easiest of chairs on the smoothest of lawns, roses about him, a cigar in his mouth, the newspaper in his hand, a gla.s.s at his elbow, they saw Peter Chatfield. They looked at him for a long moment; then they looked at each other and smiled delightedly, as children might smile at a pleasure-giving picture, and they pa.s.sed on in silence. But when that village lay behind them, Copplestone gave his wife a sly glance, and permitted himself to make an epigram.

"Chatfield!" he said musingly. "Chatfield! sublimely ungrateful that he isn't in Dartmoor."

THE END