Nothing could be solved until this question got out of the fog.

Even now he might risk the whole truth; but the lie he had woven appeared too good to waste.
Human frailty.

The most accomplished human being is the finished liar.
Never to forget a detail, to remember step by step the windings, over a ticklish road.

And Cutty, for all his wide newspaper experience, was a poor liar because he had been brought up on facts.

Perhaps his lie might have passed had he not been so fagged.