"Mr. Minchin, as you are aware," resumed Langholm, "was, like his wife, an Australian by birth. Had he many Australian friends here in London?" "None at all," replied Mr. Crofts, "that I am aware of." "Nor anywhere else in the country, think you?" "Not that I remember." "Not in the north of England, for example?" Thus led, Mr. Crofts frowned at his desk until an enlightened look broke over his florid face. "By Jove, yes!" said he. "Now you speak of it, there _was_ somebody up north--a rich man, too--but he only heard of him by chance a day or so before his death." "A rich man, you say, and an Australian?" "I don't know about that, but it was out there they had known each other, and Minchin had no idea he was in England till he saw it in the paper a day or two before his death." "Do you remember the name?" "No, I don't, for he never told it to me; fact is, we were not on the best of terms just at the last," explained Mr. Crofts. "Money matters--money matters--they divide the best of friends--and to tell you the truth he owed me more than I could afford to lose. But the day before the last day of his life he came in and said it was all right, he'd square up before the week was out, and if that wasn't good enough for me I could go to the devil. Of course I asked him where the money was coming from, and he said from a man he'd not heard of for years until that morning, but he didn't say how he'd heard of him then, only that he must be a millionaire. So then I asked why a man he hadn't seen for so long should pay his debts, but Minchin only laughed and swore that he'd make him. And that was the last I ever heard of it; he sat down at that desk over yonder and wrote to his millionaire there and then, and took it out himself to post. It was the last time I saw him alive, for he said he wasn't coming back till he got his answer, and it was the last letter he ever wrote in the place." "On that desk, eh?" Langholm glanced at the spare piece of office furniture in the corner. "Didn't he keep any papers here?" he added. "He did, but you fellows impounded them." "Of course we did," said Langholm, hastily. "Then you have nothing of his left?" "Only his pen, and a diary in which he hadn't written a word. I slipped them into a drawer with his papers, and there they are still." Langholm felt disappointed. He had learnt so much, it was tantalizing not to learn a little more. If he could only make sure of that millionaire friend of Minchin! In his own mind he was all but sure, but his own mind was too elastic by half. Crofts was drumming on the blotting-pad in front of him; all of a sudden Langholm noticed that it had a diary attached. "Minchin's diary wasn't one like yours, was it?" he exclaimed. "The same thing," said Mr. Crofts. "Then I should like to see it." "There's not a word written in it; one of you chaps overhauled it at the time." "Never mind!"