Boyce retreats precipitately to London.

Gedge in his cups tells a horrible scandal with a suggestion of blackmail to Randall Holmes.

What else could he have divulged save the Vilboek Farm affair?
My nimble wit had led me a Jack o' Lantern dance to nowhere.
"Why South Africa ?" he repeated.
I replied with Macchiavellian astuteness, so as to put him on a false scent: "A stupid slander about illicit diamond buying in connection with a man, now dead, who used to live here some years ago." "Oh, no," said Randall, with a superior smile "Nothing of that sort." "Well, what is it ?" I asked.
He helped himself to another cigarette.

"That," said he, "I can't tell you.

In the first place I gave my word of honour as to secrecy before he told me, and, in the next, even if I hadn't given my word, I would not be a party to such a slander by repeating it to any living man." He bent forward and looked me straight in the eyes.