"For a few moments I was afraid that Mr. Melray was about to have a seizure of some kind, so colourless was his face and so glassy were his eyes. He would not, however, let me ring for help, and gradually he came round. A careful examination of the envelope revealed the _modus operandi_ by which the fictitious contents had been substituted for the genuine. The large black seal, with its impression of Mr. Melray's monogram, had not been meddled with beyond the point of detaching it bodily, probably with the help of a sharp penknife, from the thick paper of the envelope. Then, after the substitution had been effected, the seal had been reaffixed in its place with the help of a little gum; and, finally, a thin rim of melted wax had been run round it so as completely to hide any evidence of the envelope having been tampered with. In the confidential position held by Dyson under his kinsman, he had free access to the safe and its contents. When once he had got the policy into his possession and had put everything in train with Mr. Noyes, it was a comparatively simple matter, with the aid of a wig and a few other accessories, to pass himself off in the half-light of the August evening for a man double his own age. What puzzled me then, and not only me, but Mr. Melray, and what puzzles me still, is, why he contented himself with the comparatively small sum of three hundred pounds, when he might have borrowed double that amount on the security of the policy had he been so minded. But it may have been that he saw, or thought he saw, the means of repaying a small sum, and so of redeeming the policy, while it might have been impossible for him to do so in the case of a more considerable loan.