The old clerk pulled out all the papers in the safe and laid them in a great pile on the table. When there was nothing left in the safe, they began systematically to go through the whole. When they had finished, they looked at each other blankly. Everything was there except the certificates and scrip representing the investment of thirty-eight thousand pounds. These alone could not be found. They examined every packet: they opened every bundle of papers: they looked into every folded sheet of parchment or foolscap. The certificates were not in the safe. 'Well,' said the clerk at last, 'they're not here, you see.--Now then!' In the midst of their perplexity happened a thing almost as surprising and quite as unexpected as the loss of the certificates. Among the papers was a small round parcel tied up with red tape. Checkley opened it. 'Bank-notes,' he said, and laid it aside. They were not at the moment looking for bank-notes, but for certificates. When he was satisfied that these were not in the safe, and had thrown, so to speak, the responsibility of finding out the cause of their absence upon his master, he took up once more this bundle. It was, as he had said, a bundle of bank-notes rolled up and tied round. He untied the knot and laid them flat, turning up the corners and counting. 'Curious,' he said; 'they're all ten-pound notes--all ten-pound notes: there must be more than fifty of them. And the outside one is covered with dust. What are they?' 'How should I know?' said Mr. Dering irritably. 'Give them to me. Bank-notes? There are no bank-notes in my safe.' 'Forgotten!' the clerk murmured. 'Clients' money, perhaps. But the client would have asked for it. Five or six hundred pounds. How can five hundred pounds be forgotten? Even a Rothschild would remember five hundred pounds. Forgotten!' He glanced suspiciously at his master, and shook his head, fumbling among the papers. Mr. Dering snatched the bundle from his clerk. Truly, they were bank-notes--ten-pound bank-notes; and they had been forgotten. The clerk was right. There is no Firm in the world where a bundle worth five hundred pounds could be forgotten and no inquiry made after it. Mr. Dering stared blankly at them. 'Notes!' he cried--'notes! Ten-pound notes. What notes?--Checkley, how did these notes come here?' 'If you don't know,' the clerk replied, 'nobody knows. You've got the key of the safe.' 'Good Heavens!' If Mr. Dering had been twenty years younger, he would have jumped. Men of seventy-five are not allowed to jump. The dignity of age does not allow of jumping. 'This is most wonderful! Checkley, this is most mysterious!' 'What is it?' 'These notes--the Devil is in the safe to-day, I do believe. First the certificates are lost; that is, they can't be found--and next these notes turn up.' 'What notes are they, then?'