Inspector Queen said nothing. Ellery was leaning far back in his chair, watching Morgan with gloomy eyes. Morgan swallowed hard and went on. “That’s why I didn’t say anything. Can you blame a man for keeping quiet when his legal training warns him so decisively of the net of circumstantial evidence he is helping to manufacture?” Queen was silent for a moment. Then—“We’ll let that pass for the moment, Morgan. Why did you go to see Field Sunday night?” “For a very good reason,” answered the lawyer bitterly. “On Thursday, a week ago, Field called me up at my office and told me that he was making a last business venture that entailed his procuring fifty thousand dollars at once. Fifty thousand dollars!” Morgan laughed dryly. “After he had milked me until I was as flabby financially as an old cow.... And his ‘business venture’—can you imagine what it was? If you knew Field as well as I did, you would find the answer on the race-tracks and the stock-market.... Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps he was hard pressed for money and was cleaning up his old ‘accounts.’ At any rate, he wanted the fifty thousand on a brand-new proposition—that he would actually return the original documents to me for that sum! It was the first time he had even suggested such a thing. Every time—before—he had insolently asked blackmail for silence. This time it was a buy-and-sell proposition.” “That’s an interesting point, Mr. Morgan,” put in Ellery, with a flicker of his eyes. “Did anything in his conversation definitely lead you to suspect that he was ‘cleaning up old accounts,’ as you phrase it?” “Yes. That is why I said what I did. He gave me the impression that he was hard up, meant to take a little vacation—vacation to him would be a three-year jaunt on the Continent, nothing less—and was soliciting all his ‘friends.’ I never knew that he was in the blackmailing business on a large scale; but this time—!” Ellery and the Inspector exchanged glances. Morgan forged ahead. “I told him the truth. That I was in a bad way financially, chiefly through him, and that it would be absolutely impossible for me to raise the preposterous amount he demanded. He merely laughed—insisted on getting the money. I was most anxious to get the papers back, of course....” “Had you verified from your cancelled vouchers the fact that some were missing?” asked the Inspector. “It wasn’t necessary, Inspector,” grated Morgan. “He actually exhibited the vouchers and letters for my benefit in the Webster Club two years ago—when we had the quarrel. Oh, there is no question about it. He was top man.” “Go on.” “He hung up on me with a thinly veiled threat last Thursday. I had tried desperately during the conversation to make him believe that I would in some way meet his demands, because I knew that he would have no scruples at all about publishing the papers once he realized he had sucked me dry....” “Did you ask him if you could see the documents?” asked Ellery.