'No--no. It is useless. Why--I have had no dividends. The shares were all transferred, and nothing has been paid for them. The shares have been stolen. Checkley, I can't think. For the first time in my life, I can't think--I want some one to advise me. I must put the case in somebody's hands.' 'There's your young partner--a chance for him to show that he's worth his pay. Why don't you consult him, and then come back to the old plan of you and me? We're knocked a bit silly just at first; but the case will come to us in the long run. You would have a partner--nothing would do but a partner. The boy's in his own room now, I suppose, with a crown upon his head and the clerks kneelin' around--as grand as you please. Send for him.' Mr. Dering nodded. The partner, when he arrived a few minutes later, found the Chief walking about the room in uncontrollable agitation. On the table lay piled the whole contents of the safe. In front of it stood the ancient clerk, trembling and shaking--head, hands, knees, and shoulders--following the movements of his master with eyes full of anxiety and terror. This strange fit, this forgetfulness, this rambling talk about another man, this new restlessness, frightened him. 'You are come at last.' Mr. Dering stopped and threw himself into his chair. Now, my partner, hear the case and resolve the difficulty for us, if you can.--Tell him, Checkley--or--stay; no. I will tell it myself. Either I have lost my reason and my memory, or I have been robbed.' George stood at the table and listened. Something of the utmost gravity had happened. Never before had he seen his Chief in the least degree shaken out of his accustomed frigidity of calm. Now he was excited; his eyes were restless; he talked fast, he talked badly. He made half a dozen attempts to begin: he marshalled his facts in a slovenly and disorderly manner, quite unlike his usual clear arrangement: for fifty years he had been marshalling facts and drawing up cases, and at his own he broke down. 'I think I understand the whole,' said George, when his Chief paused and Checkley ceased to correct and to add. 'You had certificates representing investments to the amount of 38,000_l_.: these are gone, unaccountably gone: no dividends have been paid for some months, and your broker speaks of large transfers.' 'That's not all,' said Checkley. 'Tell him about the notes.' 'Yes. The fact may have some bearing upon the case. While we were looking for the certificates, and in order, I suppose, to complicate things and to bewilder me the more, we found in the safe the very notes--give me the bundle, Checkley--there they are--that were paid over the Bank counter to the man who forged my name eight years ago.' 'What? The case in which Athelstan Arundel was accused?'