"Under forty thousand pounds; and I may tell you that it was well under forty thousand pounds." "What's become of the rest?" "That's the mystery which we should like to solve--which she especially would like to solve; and what she's subjected us to in her efforts to arrive at a solution no language at my command is adequate to describe. She's a remarkable woman--a very remarkable woman. Because she has long since passed the limits of our endurance is one reason why I am rounding on her to you. It is not often that I am conscious of such a yearning, but we have arrived at a position in which I should actually like to have your advice. That's why I asked you here tonight." "Then it wasn't just for old friendship's sake." The doctor glowered from the recesses of the huge chair, expelling the smoke of his cigar from his lips and nostrils. Mr. McTavish laughed. "Well--in a measure. Did you ever think he was romancing when he talked about his moneys?" "I did not--and I don't. He was in earnest. I never knew him tell a lie when he was in earnest. I'd match his veracity against my own." "Then it's queer--it's queer. At the time of his death we held securities for him representing some ten thousand pounds lent on mortgage; the bankers held about as much more. His widow turned into cash everything that there was to turn, with the exception of the house, which she will neither sell nor let." "I know. It's going to rack and ruin; they say no one's set foot in it since the day he was buried." "I daresay--it's one of her notions--she'll let no one even talk of it; it's her bogey. Altogether she's had scarcely thirty thousand pounds." "It's in the house." "Not it. It's been thoroughly searched by competent hands; she herself has overhauled it more than once." "The money must be somewhere; I'm convinced he had it." "Have you any notion where it is? Can you give me any sort of clue as to its possible whereabouts?" "Not I. I know no more about it than--this cigar. Is it likely? I wasn't his man of business--you were." "She says we have it." "No!" "Yes. She says we have it, or that we know where it is, and are joined in a conspiracy to keep it out of her possession. The way she's talked--and treated us! David, she's a remarkable woman." "She is that. Don't I know it?--to my cost!" "We've had to change the lock on our office door. She let herself into it with a pass-key--my own, I fear, for I lost it, though I don't know how; I've never seen it since. She ransacked everything the place contained. Got into the safe. By some extraordinary mischance, in which it is quite possible she had a hand, that night it wasn't locked. She went right through it. She saw a good deal we had rather she hadn't seen, but she saw nothing of Grahame's money." "Did you catch her in the act?"