"I, at home in England, wondered how it was that the Belgian police had never discovered that the murdered man was named Philip de Mountford and that he claimed to be the heir to the earldom of Radclyffe. I expected paragraphs in the paper, some unpleasantness even, but none came. "I could not understand it, for I had forgotten the existence of the chance friend. "And then one day last April I understood. Once more I had letters from abroad, from a man who claimed to be my brother's son. At first I thought the whole thing a silly imposture, until the day when a man confronted me in my own house, armed with every proof that I had killed Philip de Mountford in Brussels. He had the latter's passports, his birth and marriage certificates, his letters of identification, all, all the papers that he had filched from among the dead man's things, and which he now flaunted before me, daring me to prove him an impostor. 'If I am not Philip de Mountford,' he said to me, 'then where is Philip de Mountford?' And from that hour, I was as wax in his hands. He held me and he knew it. I might have proved him an impostor, and he could prove me a murderer. "Heaven alone knows how I did not lose my reason then. I floundered in a sea of wild conjectures, wild projects, wild hopes of escape. But my tyrant held me, and I dared not rebel. "And once more I was obsessed with the awful certitude that Luke would never be Earl of Radclyffe after me, while this man lived. "He had so taken upon himself the personality of Philip, the evidences which went to prove his identity with the late Arthur de Mountford's son were so strangely circumstantial, that, short of my proclaiming loudly that I had killed my brother's son with my own hand, nothing could prevent the impostor from succeeding in filching Luke's inheritance. "And even if I had confessed then, it seemed to me that this man would still succeed in proving that I had murdered an unknown stranger--a chance friend, who was an English bricklayer's son--and that he and he only was Philip de Mountford, the late Arthur's son. "When did I first dream of killing him, as I killed the other? I could not tell you that. But it was some time ago, and I watched my opportunity with patience and perseverance. Then at last the opportunity came, following on terrible provocation. That dark, foggy November night that you all remember so well! I was to meet my tyrant at the Veterans' Club at nine o'clock. I drove up there and as I stepped out of the cab I came face to face with Luke. Something in the boy's manner told me what had happened. He didn't tell me, but I guessed. The two men had quarrelled and Luke had had to endure the other's arrogance.