“I say, you know,” he said ingratiatingly, “I think it’s bally marvelous the way you’ve deduced everything, and so on.”

“Well?”

“But I believe you would chuck it if you heard my side of the case.”

“I know your side of the case.  You think you are being blackmailed by a Miss Valentine for some letters you once wrote her.  You are not.  Miss Valentine has destroyed the letters.  She told the man Jones so when he went to see her in London.  He kept your five hundred pounds and is trying to get another thousand out of you under false pretenses.”

“What?  You can’t be right.”

“I am always right.”

“You must be mistaken.”

“I am never mistaken.”

“But how do you know?”

“I have my sources of information.”

“She isn’t going to sue me for breach of promise?”

“She never had any intention of doing so.”

The Honorable Freddie sank back on the pillows.

“Good egg!” he said with fervor.  He beamed happily.  “This,” he observed, “is a bit of all right.”

For a space relief held him dumb.  Then another aspect of the matter struck him, and he sat up again with a jerk.

“I say, you don’t mean to say that that rotter Jones was such a rotter as to do a rotten thing like that?”

“I do.”

Freddie grew plaintive.

“I trusted that man,” he said.  “I jolly well trusted him absolutely.”

“I know,” said Ashe.  “There is one born every minute.”

“But”—­the thing seemed to be filtering slowly into Freddie’s intelligence “what I mean to say is, I—­I—­thought he was such a good chap.”

“My short acquaintance with Mr. Jones,” said Ashe “leads me to think that he probably is—­to himself.”

“I won’t have anything more to do with him.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Dash it, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.  The very next time I meet the blighter, I’ll cut him dead.  I will!  The rotter!  Five hundred quid he’s had off me for nothing!  And, if it hadn’t been for you, he’d have had another thousand!  I’m beginning to think that my old governor wasn’t so far wrong when he used to curse me for going around with Jones and the rest of that crowd.  He knew a bit, by Gad!  Well, I’m through with them.  If the governor ever lets me go to London again, I won’t have anything to do with them.  I’ll jolly well cut the whole bunch!  And to think that, if it hadn’t been for you . . .”

“Never mind that,” said Ashe.  “Give me the scarab.  Where is it?”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Restore it to its rightful owner.”

“Are you going to give me away to the governor?”

“I am not.”

“It strikes me,” said Freddie gratefully, “that you are a dashed good sort.  You seem to me to have the making of an absolute topper!  It’s under the mattress.  I had it on me when I fell downstairs and I had to shove it in there.”