"I was at the hotel punctually at the time agreed upon, and on asking for Mr. Melray was at once ushered into his room. I found the shipowner, whom I had never seen before, to be a thin, grey-haired man, somewhat prim and old-fashioned in his attire, and wearing smoke-tinted spectacles. After a brief greeting we at once entered on the business which had taken me there. The evening was closing in and the room was in semi-darkness. I thought Mr. Melray would have rung for lights, but he did not. There were pen and ink on the table. At his request I stationed myself by him, and pointed out the particular spot on the assignment and other documents where his signature was required. That done, I folded up the papers and handed him a cheque for three hundred pounds; he, in return, presented me with the policy, which, till the sum lent should be repaid, together with interest as agreed on, would remain in my custody. The whole affair was over in five or six minutes at the most. At this distance of time there can be no harm in my confessing that I thought it rather stingy treatment on the part of Mr. Melray not to offer me as much as a glass of wine. "Now, one of the two people who, twice every year, audit the Corporation's accounts and verify their securities, is Mr. Dunning, a lawyer well known both at Solchester and Merehampton, At the half-yearly audit, which took place about three weeks after my interview with Mr. Melray, the policy of assurance, together with other documents bearing on the transaction, came, in due course, under Mr. Dunning's inspection. You will readily imagine, then, that I was not a little surprised when he came to me with the papers in his hand and asked me to tell him all I knew of the transaction to which they referred. Taking into account his official connection with the Corporation, there was no breach of confidence in my complying with his request. It was then my turn to put certain questions to him, and the surprise I had felt before was in nowise lessened when he told me that he had been Mr. Melray's lawyer, and, in certain matters, his confidential adviser, for something like a quarter of a century; that, from his knowledge of that gentleman's affairs, he could aver that it was next to impossible that he should have been in need of such a sum as three hundred pounds; that, so far as he was aware, Mr. Melray, whose eyes were remarkably good for his age, had never worn spectacles in his life; and, finally, that he, Mr. Dunning, believed the signatures which I had witnessed to be neither more nor less than unblushing forgeries of his client's name. Thereupon it was agreed that he should take the suspected documents away with him and see Mr. Melray on the morrow.