“The matter is ended, Mr. Donnington,” said Barosa. “And you have as much reason as we have to be glad the result is what it is.” “And if it had gone the other way?” He shrugged his shoulders and replied very drily: “You had better not ask perhaps. At such a crisis our methods with those who betray us cannot be--pleasant.” “Which reminds me,” I said, turning to the man who had played the magistrate--whose real name I learnt was Sebastian Maral--“you’ve asked me plenty of questions and there are one or two I should like to ask you. How did you get that spurious letter I was supposed to write to M. Volheno?” “I think we had better discuss those matters alone,” interposed Barosa; and then all but we three left the room. “Was such a letter really written?” I asked. “Certainly. That which you received was M. Volheno’s reply to it.” “Then some one did give away that Rua Catania house? Who is it? Do you suspect any one in particular?” “No,” said Barosa, his look darkening as he added: “But we shall of course find out.” “I think you can help us, Mr. Donnington,” said Maral. “The writer is obviously an enemy of yours. Can you make a suggestion?” I was fairly confident that I knew, but it did not suit me to say so. “I have not had time yet to make any enemies unless some one is after the Beira concessions and thought this an easy way of getting rid of a competitor. Will you show me the original of that letter you dictated to me?” He glanced at Barosa who nodded, and it was given to me. I made a discovery then. Either from inadvertence or as a proof of confidence in me, Maral left on the letter, where it was pinned to the top, a strip of paper with half a dozen words followed by the numerals “134.” I compared the handwriting of the letter with my own copy of the dictated part and saw at once how clumsy a forgery it was. My signature was done well enough; the writer probably had a signature of mine and had practised it until the resemblance was striking. But the attempt to write an entire autograph letter was a conspicuous failure. Then while pretending to continue my examination of the writing, I worried over the curious superscription, and it dawned upon me at length that it was a message of some sort in cypher. As the other two had their heads together in a very earnest discussion, I unpinned the cypher message and rolled it up in my palm. Its nature convinced me that it was inadvertence not confidence which had led Maral to let me see it, and I took the risk of his not noticing its absence even if I could not do what I now very much wished--retain the letter itself for a time. “I wish to keep this letter, Dr. Barosa,” I said presently. “I am afraid that is not possible. It has to be returned.” “We can get over that easily enough. You are probably as eager as I am to know who wrote it. As for returning it, I’ll write out another in my own hand, and that one can be returned.”