Neither Zillah nor Purdie made any comment on this, and the solicitor, with a meaning look at Purdie, went on. "Not that Daniel Multenius revealed any of them to me!" he continued. "I have acted for him in legal matters for some years, but only in quite an ordinary way. He was a well-to-do man, Mr. Purdie--a rich man, in fact, and a considerable property owner--I did all his work of that sort. But as regards his secrets, I know nothing--except that since yesterday, I have discovered that he certainly had them. I have, as Miss Wildrose knows--and by her instructions--been making some enquiries at the bank where Mr. Multenius kept his account--the Empire and Universal, in Lombard Street--and I have made some curious unearthings in the course of them. Now then, between ourselves--Mr. Purdie being represented to me as in your entire confidence--I may as well tell you that Daniel Multenius most certainly had dealings of a business nature completely outside his business as jeweller and pawnbroker in this shop. That's positively certain. And what is also certain is that in some of those dealings he was, in some way or another, intimately associated with the man whose name has already come up a good deal since Monday--Mr. Spencer Levendale!" "S'elp me!" muttered Melky. "I heard Levendale, with my own two ears, say that he didn't know the poor old fellow!" "Very likely," said Mr. Penniket, drily. "It was not convenient to him--we will assume--to admit that he did, just then. But I have discovered--from the bankers--that precisely two years ago, Mr. Spencer Levendale paid to Daniel Multenius a sum of ten thousand pounds. That's a fact!" "For what, mister?" demanded Melky. "Can't say--nobody can say," answered the solicitor. "All the same, he did--paid it in, himself, to Daniel Multenius's credit, at the Empire and Universal. It went into the ordinary account, in the ordinary way, and was used by Mr. Multenius as part of his own effects--as no doubt it was. Now," continued Mr. Penniket, turning to Zillah, "I want to ask you a particular question. I know you had assisted your grandfather a great deal of late years. Had you anything to do with his banking account?" "No!" replied Zillah, promptly. "That's the one thing I never had anything to do with. I never saw his pass-book, nor his deposit-book, nor even his cheque-book. He kept all that to himself." "Just so," said Mr. Penniket. "Then, of course, you don't know that he dealt with considerable sums--evidently quite outside this business. He made large--sometimes very heavy--payments. And--this, I am convinced, is of great importance to the question we are trying to solve--most of these payments were sent to South Africa." The solicitor glanced round his audience as if anxious to see that its various members grasped the significance of this announcement. And Melky at once voiced the first impression of, at any rate, three of them.