Downie's steel-gray eyes stared coldly, glassily, and spitefully at Sharkley. He longed for the power to pulverise, to annihilate him by a glance. He loathed and hated, yet feared this low-bred legal reptile, for he felt that he, and all his family, were somehow in his power. Yet he could not quite abandon his first position of indignant denial and proud incredulity. He spread a sheet of foolscap paper before him, and making a broad margin on the left side thereof, an old office habit that still adhered to him, like many more that were less harmless, he dipped a pen in the inkstand, as if to make memoranda, and balancing his gold glasses on the bridge of his sharp slender nose, said, while looking keenly over them, "Attend to _me_, sir--please. When was this pretended discovery made?" "Some nine months ago." "Where--I say, where?" "At Montreal, in the chapel where this Latour, of whom we have heard so much, was curate." "A rascally scheme--a forgery in which you have a share." "Take care, my lord--I'll file a bill against you." "You forget, scoundrel, that we are without witnesses." "Well--there are a pair of us," was the impudent rejoinder; "but what good might such a scheme ever do an old pensioner like Derrick Braddon?" "I do not pretend to fathom--for who can?--the secret motives of people of that class," said Downie, haughtily. "Ay--or for that of it, any class," added Sharkley, as he shrugged his high bony shoulders. "Relate to me, succinctly and clearly, all that this man has told you," said Downie Trevelyan, dipping his pen again in the silver inkstand; and as Sharkley proceeded, he listened to the narrative of his brother's sufferings and terrible death with impatience, and without other interest than that it served to prove his non-existence by a competent witness, who, were it necessary, might bring others of the crew who were present on the wreck, and had escaped in a boat. Ere the whole story was ended, Downie was ghastly pale, and tremulous with the mingled emotions of rage and fear, doubt and mortification. He felt certain that in all this there must lie something to be laid further open, or be, if possible, crushed; and on being reassured by Sharkley that Derrick Braddon would "surrender the documents only with his life----" "We must not think of violence, Mr. Sharkley," said he, coldly and mildly. "Well, it ain't much in my line, my lord--though I have more than once got damages when a client struck me." "We must have recourse to stratagem or bribery. For myself, I cannot, and shall not, come in personal contact with any man who is so insolent as to mistrust me, nor is it beseeming I should do so. To you I shall entrust the task of securing and placing before me those alleged papers, for legal investigation, at your earliest convenience. For this, you shall receive the sum of two thousand pounds; of this," he added, lowering his voice, "I shall give you, in the first place, a cheque for five hundred."