"If so there can be no question that Mr. Brander had some very strong reason indeed for preventing the knowledge of this transfer having ever been made from being known; but in any case it must have come out when the bank failed and of course he must have had a pretty accurate knowledge of the state of its affairs." "Yes, but it man be that he had an equally accurate knowledge of the state of my father's health. That would account for what Cumming says as to his offer to bolster up the bank for a time, and for a retraction of that offer within a few days after my father's death." "But why on earth should he have run all this risk merely to ruin you? He had no cause of enmity against you, had he, sir?" "None, so far as I knew but now we come to the other document where you witnessed the signature without having seen it signed. If the signature on the transfer was a forgery, why not that on the mortgage, if it was the mortgage. If so you see the motive of the transfer. The smash of the bank brought a good many estates into the market and they would consequently go cheap. Not only would he get it far below its value, but by reason of this pretended mortgage he would get a further drawback of L15,000 from the price he would pay as its purchase." "Good heavens, Mr. Hartington! You take my breath away! Have you any reason whatever for believing that the mortgage was a bogus one?" "None, beyond the fact that I was ignorant of its existence. I was so surprised that I not only wrote to Brander himself but to the official liquidator. The former said he had advanced the money at the urgent request of my father, who told him he wished to settle a very long standing claim upon him, and that he desired that the transaction should be kept an absolute secret. The official liquidator said he had gone carefully into the question of the mortgage, that it was of three years, standing, that the receipts Mr. Brander had given my father for the half-yearly interest on the money had been found among my father's papers, and that Brander had moreover produced a document, showing that he had sold securities to that amount, and had drawn the money from his bankers in town by a singled check for L15,000. Do you remember whether such a deed was ever drawn up in the office?" "Certainly it was not, but you see that proves nothing, for it was to be kept a secret. Brander might have had it drawn up by some solicitor in London." "I see that. Well, then, this deed, whatever it was that you witnessed, was that drawn up in the office?" "No. I remember Levison and I talked it over and said it was curious that a deed between Brander and Mr. Hartington should not have been given to us as usual to be drawn up." "You witnessed his signature then as well as that of my father?"