“Jarvice, for some reason unknown, pays Walter Hine an allowance.  Walter Hine gives it out that he receives it from his grandfather, whose heir he undoubtedly is, and being a vain person much exaggerates the amount.  He falls into Garratt Skinner’s hands, who, with the help of Barstow and others, proceeds to pluck him.  Walter Hine loses more than he has and applies to Jarvice for more.  Jarvice elicits the facts, and instead of disclosing who Garratt Skinner is, and the obvious swindle of which Hine is the victim, takes Garratt Skinner into his confidence.  What happened at the interview between Mr. Jarvice and Garratt Skinner in London the subsequent facts make plain.  At Jarvice’s instigation the plot to swindle Walter Hine becomes a cold-blooded plan to murder him.  That plan has been twice frustrated, once by me in Dorsetshire, and a second time by Sylvia.”

So far the story worked out naturally, logically.  But there remained two questions.  For what reason did Mr. Jarvice make Walter Hine an allowance?  And how would Walter Hine’s death profit him?  Chayne pondered over those two questions and then the truth flashed upon him.  He remembered how the subaltern had been extracted from his difficulties.  Money had been raised by a life insurance.  Again Chayne ranged his facts in order.

“Walter Hine is the heir to great wealth.  But he has no money now.  Mr. Jarvice makes him an allowance, the money to be repaid with a handsome interest on the grandfather’s death.  But in order to insure Jarvice from loss, if Walter Hine should die first, Walter Hine’s life is insured for a large sum.  Thus Mr. Jarvice makes his position tenable should his conduct be called in question.  Having insured Walter Hine’s life, he arranges with Garratt Skinner to murder him.  The attempt failed the first time, the slower method is then adopted by Garratt Skinner, and as a result comes the impatient telegram:  ’What are you waiting for?  Hurry up!’”

The case was thus so far clear.  But anxiety remained.  Was the plan abandoned altogether, now that Sylvia had stood bravely up and warned her father that she would not keep silent?  So certainly Sylvia thought.  But then she did not know all that Chayne knew.  It seemed that she had not understood the incident of the lighted window.  Nor was Chayne surprised.  For she was unaware of what was in Chayne’s eyes the keystone of the whole argument.  She did not know that her father had worked as a convict in the Portland quarries.

“So they are abroad together, your father and Walter Hine,” said Chayne, slowly.

“Yes!” replied Sylvia, with a smile.  “Guess where they are now!” and she turned to him with a tender look upon her face which he did not understand.

“I can’t guess.”

“At Chamonix!”