Thorndyke looked doubtfully at the pleasant-faced, athletic-looking clergyman who had just come in, bearing Mr. Brodribb’s card as an explanatory credential. “I don’t quite see,” said he, “why Mr. Brodribb sent you to me. It seems to be a purely legal matter which he could have dealt with himself, at least as well as I can.” “He appeared to think otherwise,” said the clergyman. (“The Revd. Charles Meade” was written on the card.) “At any rate,” he added with a persuasive smile, “here I am, and I hope you are not going to send me away.” “I shouldn’t offer that affront to my old friend Brodribb,” replied Thorndyke, smiling in return; “so we may as well get to business, which, in the first place, involves the setting out of all the particulars. Let us begin with the lady who is the subject of the threats of which you spoke.” “Her name,” said Mr. Meade, “is Miss Millicent Fawcett. She is a person of independent means, which she employs in works of charity. She was formerly a hospital sister, and she does a certain amount of voluntary work in the parish as a sort of district nurse. She has been a very valuable help to me and we have been close friends for several years; and I may add, as a very material fact, that she has consented to marry me in about two months’ time. So that, you see, I am properly entitled to act on her behalf.” “Yes,” agreed Thorndyke. “You are an interested party. And now, as to the threats. What do they amount to?” “That,” replied Meade, “I can’t tell you. I gathered quite by chance from some words that she dropped, that she had been threatened. But she was unwilling to say more on the subject, as she did not take the matter seriously. She is not at all nervous. However, I told her I was taking advice; and I hope you will be able to extract more details from her. For my own part, I am decidedly uneasy.” “And as to the person or persons who have uttered the threats. Who are they? and out of what circumstances have the threats arisen?” “The person is a certain William Ponting, who is Miss Fawcett’s step-brother--if that is the right term. Her father married, as his second wife, a Mrs. Ponting, a widow with one son. This is the son. His mother died before Mr. Fawcett, and the latter, when he died, left his daughter, Millicent, sole heir to his property. That has always been a grievance to Ponting. But now he has another. Miss Fawcett made a will some years ago by which the bulk of her rather considerable property is left to two cousins, Frederick and James Barnett, the sons of her father’s sister. A comparatively small amount goes to Ponting. When he heard this he was furious. He demanded a portion at least equal to the others, and has continued to make this demand from time to time. In fact, he has been extremely troublesome, and appears to be getting still more so. I gathered that the threats were due to her refusal to alter the will.”