“Tobin advised me to come see you,” he said.  “I refused at first; but in view of what the newspapers contain this morning, I reconsidered it.”

Ashton-Kirk nodded.

“If you had, come to me in the first place,” said he, “you’d probably not have fallen into this mess, and you’d have saved yourself a great deal of suffering.”  He regarded the young man for a moment, and then went on.  “Miss Vale, I suppose, has told you of her dealings with me.”

“She has,” said Morris.  “She’s been very candid with me in everything.  If I had been the same with her,” bitterly, “I should have acted more like a natural human being.  You see, we were to be married; she was very rich, while I had comparatively nothing.  But this in itself would not have been sufficient to have prevented our wedding for so long.  The fact was that I had gotten myself into trouble through speculation; I had a fear that my position might even be considered criminal from some points of view.  And I allowed myself to get nervous over it.

“However, there was a way by which it was possible for me to extricate myself.  To explain this I’ll have to go back some years.”

“Take your own time,” said Ashton-Kirk.

“Well, my father had worked for years perfecting the plans of a heavier-than-air flying machine,” Morris resumed.  “At the time of his death he told me that it was all complete but the constructing, and that I had millions within my reach.  But Hume had the plans—­my father had borrowed money of him—­a considerable sum—­and had given him the plans as security.

“Hume had always derided the idea of the monoplane.  Tobin, who knew them both, tells me that he was forever mocking my father upon the subject.  And when the time came when the plans could be redeemed, Hume denied having them.  There was no receipt, nothing to show that the transaction had ever occurred.  The man declared that the whole thing was a drunken dream.  He had never seen any plans; he had never paid out any money; he knew nothing about the matter.  Time and again the man reiterated this; and each time, so I’ve heard, he would go off into gales of laughter.  I have no doubt but that the entire performance on his part was to afford himself these opportunities; he seemed to love such things.”

“Was it not possible for your father to duplicate the plans?”

“At an earlier time it would have meant but a few weeks’ application at most.  But at this period the thing was impossible.  The last long debauch seemed to have sapped his intellect; it also was the direct cause of his death.”

“I see,” said Ashton-Kirk.

“I took the matter up with Hume at once,” went on the young man.  “But I had no more success than my father.  In the man’s eyes, I had but replaced my father; I was another patient subject for his mockery, derision and abuse.

“There were some scattered drawings of the monoplane in father’s office; I began a study of these, thinking to chance upon the principal idea.  But I was unsuccessful.