'Referring to the acceptances of yours which we hold, and which fall due on the 7th inst., they reached us, in the ordinary course, through a client with whom we have done business before; who informed us that they came to him from Mr. Frank Clifford, of Marlborough Buildings, Farringdon Road, E.C., who, we presume, discounted them for you. We do not know that we are called upon to furnish you with this information, and, as your inquiry is an unusual one, we shall be glad to know why you make it. 'Your obedient servants, 'GULDENHEIM AND CO.' Now that, my dear Nash, is the letter which you found; I don't know if your memory will enable you to recognize the accuracy of the copy." Mr. Nash was silent, presenting a curious picture of indecision; of the man who lets "I dare not" wait upon "I would." Mr. Morgan went affably on, diplomatically ignoring the singularity of the other's attitude. "To the superficial eye there is nothing in that letter; it is a mere routine business communication; in fact, however, as matters were, you could scarcely have found anything more important. I take it that you recognized this, or you would hardly have appropriated it; but I fancy that you only recognized it dimly. Your whole after-behaviour seems to point to it." Mr. Morgan glanced round at the moment, in time to catch the ghost of a smile, which seemed to flicker across Mr. Nash's face; Mr. Morgan's comment on that flickering smile was characteristic. "Perhaps not so dimly as I supposed; the springs of human action do lie so deep. Perhaps, after all, it has occurred to you, as it has to me, that that letter killed Donald Lindsay. You remember where you found it? Lindsay's was a pedestal writing-table; it was on the floor, under one of the pedestals, with one corner of the paper just showing. I think that was the last letter Donald Lindsay ever read. He had read it again and again before, and was re-reading it; but that re-reading was just the one too many. The strain of that cumulative shock was greater than he could bear; something snapped; he fell forward; the letter slipped from his fingers, under one of the pedestals, where it might have remained but for your sharp eyes." Mr. Morgan held the paper out in front of him with the air of one who is explaining something which he desires to make quite plain. "Now what is there in this letter which could have produced so extraordinary an effect upon a person possessed of so much self-restraint as Donald Lindsay undoubtedly was? What does the letter itself tell us? It tells us that Messrs. Guldenheim, as is the custom, I have reason to know, of a certain type of usurer, had written to advise him that certain acceptances of his, which matured at a certain date, had come into their hands. I'll bet sixpence that Lindsay was a man who never in his life put his name on a piece of paper which was likely, in the ordinary course, as they put it, to