“What on earth are you talking about?” demanded the duke, violently.

“It’s quite simple,” said Fisher.  “When you went across he was either alive or dead.  If he was alive, it might be you who killed him, or why should you have held your tongue about his death?  But if he was dead, and you had a reason for killing him, you might have held your tongue for fear of being accused.”  Then after a silence he added, abstractedly:  “Cyprus is a beautiful place, I believe.  Romantic scenery and romantic people.  Very intoxicating for a young man.”

The duke suddenly clenched his hands and said, thickly, “Well, I had a motive.”

“Then you’re all right,” said Fisher, holding out his hand with an air of huge relief.  “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t really do it; you had a fright when you saw it done, as was only natural.  Like a bad dream come true, wasn’t it?”

While this curious conversation was passing, Harker had gone into the house, disregarding the demonstrations of the sulky nephew, and came back presently with a new air of animation and a sheaf of papers in his hand.

“I’ve telephoned for the police,” he said, stopping to speak to Fisher, “but I think I’ve done most of their work for them.  I believe I’ve found out the truth.  There’s a paper here—­” He stopped, for Fisher was looking at him with a singular expression; and it was Fisher who spoke next: 

“Are there any papers that are not there, I wonder?  I mean that are not there now?” After a pause he added:  “Let us have the cards on the table.  When you went through his papers in such a hurry, Harker, weren’t you looking for something to—­to make sure it shouldn’t be found?”

Harker did not turn a red hair on his hard head, but he looked at the other out of the corners of his eyes.

“And I suppose,” went on Fisher, smoothly, “that is why you, too, told us lies about having found Hook alive.  You knew there was something to show that you might have killed him, and you didn’t dare tell us he was killed.  But, believe me, it’s much better to be honest now.”

Harker’s haggard face suddenly lit up as if with infernal flames.

“Honest,” he cried, “it’s not so damned fine of you fellows to be honest.  You’re all born with silver spoons in your mouths, and then you swagger about with everlasting virtue because you haven’t got other people’s spoons in your pockets.  But I was born in a Pimlico lodging house and I had to make my spoon, and there’d be plenty to say I only spoiled a horn or an honest man.  And if a struggling man staggers a bit over the line in his youth, in the lower parts of the law which are pretty dingy, anyhow, there’s always some old vampire to hang on to him all his life for it.”

“Guatemalan Golcondas, wasn’t it?” said Fisher, sympathetically.

Harker suddenly shuddered.  Then he said, “I believe you must know everything, like God Almighty.”