You came home covered with slurry, marked with blood, and very frightened.

Your mother admits that, and we have found your footprints in the clay of the Silver Stream drives at both levels.

Besides, the man says you were there.

Now, tell me this, and I will let you go free: who has the key of the grating over the mouth of the old Red Hand ?' 'Oh! Dickie, my boy, my poor boy--why don't you answer ?' sobbed Mrs.
Haddon.
The detective tried again, threatened, pleaded, and cajoled, and Mrs.
Haddon used all her motherly artifices; but not one word came from the boy's locked lips.

Dick was possessed by a vivid hallucination; he seemed to be standing in the centre of a whirlwind.