The offices of Mr. Bentham were situated at the extreme end of a dingy, depressing looking street which ran from the Adelphi to the Embankment Gardens. It was a street of private hotels which no one had ever heard of, and where apparently no one ever stayed. A few cranky institutions, existing under the excuse of charity, had their offices there, and a firm of publishers, whose glory was of the past, still dragged out their uncomfortable and profitless existence in a building whose dusty windows and smoke-stained walls sufficiently proclaimed their fast approaching extinction. They found the name of Mr. Bentham upon a rusty brass plate outside the last building in the street, with the additional intimation that his offices were upon the first floor. There they found him, without clerks, without even an errand boy, in a large bare apartment overlooking the embankment. The room was darkened by the branches of one of a row of elm trees, and the windows themselves were curtainless. There was no carpet upon the floor, no paper upon the walls, no rows of tin boxes, none of the usual surroundings of a lawyer's office. The solicitor, who had bidden them enter, did not at first offer them any salutation. He paused in a letter which he was writing and his eyes rested for a moment upon Wrayson, and for a second or two longer upon his companion. "Good afternoon, Mr. Bentham!" Wrayson said. "My name is Wrayson--you remember me, I daresay." "I remember you certainly, Mr. Wrayson," the lawyer answered. His eyes were resting once more upon Sydney Barnes. "This," Wrayson explained, "is Mr. Sydney Barnes, a brother of the Mr. Morris Barnes, who was, I believe, a client of yours." "Scarcely," the lawyer murmured, "a client of mine, although I must confess that I was anxious to secure him as one. Possibly if he had lived a few more hours, the epithet would have been in order." Wrayson nodded. "From a letter which we found in Mr. Barnes' desk," he remarked, "we concluded that some business was pending between you. Hence our visit." Mr. Bentham betrayed no sign of interest or curiosity of any sort. "I regret," he said, "that I cannot offer you chairs. I am not accustomed to receive my clients here. If you care to be seated upon that form, pray do so." Wrayson glanced at the form and declined. Sydney Barnes seemed scarcely to have heard the invitation. His eyes were glued upon the lawyer's face. "Will you tell me precisely," Mr. Bentham said, "in what way I can be of service to you?" "I want to know where my brother's money is," Barnes declared, stepping a little forward. "Two thousand a year he had. We've seen it in his bank-book. Five hundred pounds every quarter day! And we can't find a copper! You were his lawyer, or were going to be. You must have known something about his position." Mr. Bentham looked straight ahead with still, impassive face. No trace of the excitement in Sydney Barnes' face was reflected in his features.