“To prove a theory that I had formed, and which I have mentioned in a vague sort of way,” went on Ashton-Kirk, “I asked Sagon why he had used a bayonet.  And it turned out as I had thought.  Sagon and Hume had first met at Bayonne; the greater part of their operations had been carried on there; the band had been finally rounded up and convicted there.  The bayonet, so legend has it, was first made in Bayonne, and Sagon conceived that it would be a sort of poetic justice if the traitor were to die by a weapon so closely connected with the scene of his treachery.”

There was a pause after this, and then young Morris got up slowly and painfully.

“I don’t want it to be thought,” said he “that I was directly responsible for Miss Vale’s adventure of last night—­or for any of the others, for the matter of that.  If I had known at the time that she proposed visiting Locke’s, or Hume’s, either upon the night of the murder, or last night, I would have prevented it.”

Ashton-Kirk nodded kindly; the young man’s position evidently appealed to him.  But Pendleton sat rather stiffly in his chair and his expression never changed.

“I will now come into possession of whatever value there is in my father’s invention,” went on Morris, “and added to that, it turns out that the—­the other thing, of which I stood so much in fear, has turned out favorably.  But,” in a disheartened sort of way, “I don’t care much, now that my engagement with Miss Vale is broken.”

“Broken!” exclaimed Pendleton.

“I saw her this morning,” said Morris.  “During the past week,” he continued, “it gradually came to me that I was not the sort of man to make her a fitting husband.  I hid like a squirrel while she faced the dangers that should have been mine.  I knew that she realized the situation as well as I, and I did what I could by making it easy for her.”

He paused at the door.

“If there is anything that I can do, or say in the final settlement of this case,” he added, to Ashton-Kirk, “I will gladly place myself at your services, sir.  Good-bye.”

CHAPTER XXVI

THE FINISH

“For the first time,” said Pendleton, as the door closed upon Allan Morris, “I can feel sorry for him.  To lose a girl like Edyth Vale is indeed a calamity.  Think of the courage she’s shown—­of what she was willing to do.  Why, Kirk, she’s one in ten thousand.”

But Ashton-Kirk only nodded; he had arisen upon the departure of Morris, and was now drawing on a pair of gloves.  The splendid qualities of Miss Vale apparently had little appeal for him at that moment.

“Are you ready?” he asked, in a business-like way.

“Ready?” repeated Pendleton, surprised.

“To be sure.  We can scarcely call this case complete until something has been done in the matter of Locke.”

“That’s so.  But, somehow, I had the notion that your men had already attended to him.”