"It depends," he answered. "I don't suppose your brother would have found it so. A bachelor can do himself pretty well on two thousand a year." "I only hope I get hold of it," Mr. Sydney Barnes declared fervently. "This is the way I should like to live, this is." "I hope you will," Wrayson answered. "An income of that sort could scarcely disappear into thin air, could it? By the bye, Mr. Barnes, that reminds me of a very important circumstance which, up to now, we have not mentioned. I mean the way your brother met with his death." The young man nodded thoughtfully. "Ah!" he remarked, "he was murdered, wasn't he? Some one must have owed him a nasty grudge. Morris always was a one to make enemies." "I don't know whether the same thing has occurred to you," Wrayson continued, "but I can't help wondering whether there may not have been some connection between his death and that mysterious income of his." "I've thought of that myself," the young man declared. "All the same, I can't see what he could have carried about with him worth two thousand a year." "Exactly," Wrayson answered, "but you see the matter stands like this. He was in receipt of about £500 every three months, as his bank-book proves. This sum would represent five per cent interest on forty thousand pounds. Now, considering your brother's position when he left you at Cape Town, and the fact that you cannot discover at his bankers or elsewhere any documents alluding to property or shares of any sort, one can scarcely help dismissing the hypothesis that this payment was the result of dividends or interest. At any rate, let us put that out of the question for the moment. Your brother received five hundred pounds every three months from some one. People don't give money away for nothing nowadays, you know. From whom and for what services did he receive that money?" Mr. Sydney Barnes looked puzzled. "Ask me another," he remarked facetiously. "You do not know of any secrets, I suppose, which your brother may have stumbled into possession of?" "Not I! He went about with his eyes open and his mouth closed, but I never heard of his having that sort of luck." "He could not have had any adventures on the steamer, for he came back steerage," Wrayson continued thoughtfully, "and he was in funds almost from the moment he landed in England. I am afraid, Mr. Barnes, that he must have been deceiving you in Cape Town." "If I could only have a dozen words with him!" the young man muttered savagely. "It would be useful," Wrayson admitted, "but, unfortunately, it is out of the question. Either he was deceiving you, or he was in possession of something which turned out far more valuable than he had imagined." "If so, where is it?" Mr. Sydney Barnes demanded. "If it was worth that to him, it may be to me."