“Now, had he defied me,” continued the Professor, “I really know not how I should have proceeded. I lacked all power to enforce my directions, as you will perceive. I could only haunt the man--and that temporarily during my leave of absence--a proceeding perhaps more painful for myself than for the criminal. But the wretch was overborne by the nameless horror of a visit from the grave. His guilty conscience reeled before me, and he was physically and mentally prostrated. He had barely strength to promise faithfully upon his oath that he would do all I bid him; and then he lost consciousness. “He was suffering from acute nervous excitation upon the following morning. He took his first meal in bed and it consisted solely of ardent spirits. I limned before his eyes while he was shaving and he shrank back and dropped his razor and screamed. Pointing to his writing-desk, I spoke: “‘Delay not a moment, or the consequences will be beyond my power to describe to you.’ “This I am willing to admit was a prevarication of the truth, but it may perhaps be pardoned. “He tottered to his writing-desk and anon I dictated a letter to the Editor of the _Morning Post_, which he wrote with trembling fingers. “‘_Dear Sir_,-- “‘_I desire through the medium of your journal to declare to the world that my recent biography of the late Professor Peter Parkinson is a deliberate and calculated tissue of fraud and falsehood. I have twisted and turned the truth into a malignant fable and, upon the foundation of much private and secret work, undertaken by my benefactor in the interests of humanity, I have erected a shameful structure of mendacity. My sole reason was the desire to create a sensation and acquire wealth by it. The truth is that Professor Parkinson left with me his autobiography and directed me to see it through the press. This work would have explained all that unknown labour on behalf of mankind which I so shamefully distort into an attack upon him. I have destroyed this book. I also desire to say that I have directed my bankers in London (Messrs. Dunster and Boyle, of Lombard Street, E.C.) to pay to the Peter Parkinson Institute at Glasgow ten thousand pounds, a sum representing the amount of my royalties on the biography I concocted and dared to publish. My publishers did not know the truth and are, to that extent, blameless._’ “Then,” continued Parkinson, “I bid the knave send for two witnesses and, myself invisible, saw them attest the signature of Thomas Gridd. “Having observed him post this confession in a public letter-box, I next directed him to visit a house of business. Into this he paid the mass of gold and notes won at his infamous pastime overnight, and then commissioned the banking people to convey the money by cable to the firm of Dunster and Boyle in London.