"'Mind you have that codicil ready, on the lines I have given; I will call in on my way back from the office and sign. I know you do not touch criminal business as a rule, but you will have to make an exception in my case. I want you to instruct counsel in the matter of Master Elmore, for reasons which I will make clear to you when we meet. Sincerely yours, "'GRAHAM PATTERSON.'" When the lawyer had done reading he lowered the letter and glanced up at the young man, who still stood towering above him. If he expected to find on his face any signs of confusion, still less of guilt or shame, his expectation was not realised. There was a look rather on Rodney's countenance of scorn, of confidence in himself, of contempt for whoever might speak ill of him, which became him very well. His remarks, when they came, possibly scarcely breathed the spirit the solicitor had looked for. "Have you read that letter to Mr. Andrews?" "I have not." "Have you made him acquainted with its contents?" "I have dropped no hint to him of its existence." "I have no pretensions to knowledge of the law of libel, but it is pretty clear that no action can be brought against the man who wrote that letter. With you the case is different. It was written, I presume, in confidence to you. If you bring it to the notice of anybody else you make yourself responsible for the statements it contains--you publish them. If you call my honour in question by publishing such a farrago of lies about me I will first of all thrash you, as they have it, to within an inch of your life, and then, if needs be, I will spend my last penny in calling you to account in a court of law. You shall not shelter yourself behind a dead man." "You use strong language, Mr. Elmore." "Could I use stronger language than that letter?" "I understand that you deny the statements it contains?" "Do I understand that you associate yourself with your correspondent so far as to require a denial?" "You misapprehend the situation; whether wilfully or not I don't know. I have no personal concern in this matter at all; eliminate that idea from your mind. Graham Patterson was my client living; in a sense he is still my client dead. I have no option but to continue to do my duty to him without fear or favour." "I presume in return for a certain fee, Mr. Wilkes?" "You forget yourself, sir." "In this room, Mr. Wilkes, eliminate from your mind all legal fictions. Don't, for your own sake, drive the fact that you are acting as my uncle's bravo too far home. In the face of that letter I begin to understand why he committed suicide. He was either drunk or mad when he wrote it. When sobriety or sanity returned, realising the situation in which he had placed himself, rather than face the consequences of what he had done, he took his own life. Don't you show yourself to be in possession of the dastard's courage which he lacked." "You take up an extraordinary position, Mr. Elmore."