“She, like Miss Gabrielle, has only been your tool,” Hamilton declared.  “It was she who, under compulsion, has furnished you with means for years, and whose association with you has caused something little short of a scandal.  Times without number she has tried to get rid of you and your evil influence in this household, but you have always defied her.  Now,” he said firmly, looking the other straight in the face, “you have upon you those stolen documents which you have, by using an assumed name and a false address, offered to sell back to their owner, Sir Henry.  You have threatened that if they are not purchased at the exorbitant price you demand you will sell them to the Russian Ministry of Finance.  That is the way you treat your friend and benefactor, the man who is blind and helpless!  Come, give them back to Sir Henry, and at once.”

“You must ask Krail,” stammered the man, now so cornered that all further excuse or denial had become impossible.

“That’s unnecessary.  I happen to know that those papers are in your pocket at this moment, a fact which shows how watchful an eye we’ve been keeping upon you of late.  You have brought them here so that your friend Krail may come to terms with Sir Henry for their repossession.  He arrived from London with you, and is at the ‘Strathavon Arms’ in the village, where he stayed before, and is well known.”

“Flockart,” demanded the blind man very seriously, “you have papers in your possession which are mine.  Return them to me.”

A dead silence fell.  All eyes save those of Sir Henry were turned upon the man who until that moment had stood so defiant and so full of sarcasm.  But in an instant, at mention of Krail’s presence in Auchterarder, his demeanour had suddenly changed.  He was full of alarm.

“Give them to me and leave my house,” Sir Henry said, holding up his thin white hand.

“I—­I will—­on one condition:  if I may be allowed to go.”

“We shall not prevent you leaving,” was the Baronet’s calm reply.

The man fumbled nervously in the inner pocket of his coat, and at last brought out a sealed and rather bulgy foolscap envelope.

“Open it, Gabrielle, and see what is within,” her father said.

She obeyed, and in a few moments explained the various documents it contained.

“Then let the man go,” her father said.

“But, Sir Henry,” cried Hamilton, “I object to this!  Krail is down in the village forming a plot to make you pay for the return of those papers.  He arrived from London by the same train as this man.  If we allow him to leave he will inform his accomplice, and both will escape.”

Murie had his back to the door, the long window on the opposite side of the room being closed.

“It was a promise of Sir Henry’s,” declared the unhappy adventurer.

“Which will be observed when Krail has been brought face to face with Sir Henry,” answered Murie, at the same time calling Hill and one of the gardeners who chanced to be working on the lawn outside.