"So far you are quite correct," the lawyer said drily. "Pray proceed." "I must ask you to help me a little," Field cried. "Let me tell you that Carl Sartoris was in the scheme to obtain possession of the body of Sir Charles Darryll. He was the lame man who was in the black hansom. I have been in that fellow's house, and I have seen the body of Sir Charles, unless I am greatly mistaken." "Then, why don't you arrest that man?" the lawyer asked. "Because I want the whole covey at one bag," Field said coolly. "Now, sir, will you let me see the deed that Carl Sartoris brought here to-day? Yesterday he did not know of your existence." "He has been going to write to me for a long time," Fleming said. "I am prepared to stake my reputation that Carl Sartoris never heard your name till this morning," Field said coolly. "I can produce a witness to prove it if you like. My witness is Miss Violet Decie, only daughter of Lord Edward Decie of that ilk." The lawyer's dry, cautious manner seemed to be melting. He took up a sheet of parchment and read it. It was a deed of some kind, in which the names of Charles Darryll and Carl Sartoris figured very frequently. Field asked to be told the gist of it. "An assignment of mining rights," Fleming explained. "A place in Burmah. It was a dangerous place to get at some time ago, but things have changed recently. At one time certain Burmese followed Sir Charles about and threatened his life unless he promised to let the thing drop. But Sir Charles had assigned all his interest for the sum of five hundred pounds paid to him by Mr. Carl Sartoris. Here is the signature." The deed looked regular enough. Field looked closely at the signature of Sir Charles. "Of course it would be easy to get the body of the deed written by a clerk," he said with a thoughtful air. "If there was anything wrong about the thing, the false note would ring out in the signature. Are you sure that it is genuine?" "Quite," the lawyer said with conviction. "I'll show you some old letters of poor Sir Charles if you like. The signature is a little peculiar in the respect that it has a long loop to the first l, and a short loop to the second. That appears in every signature. Besides there is that little flourish over the C. The flourish really forms the initials 'C. D.' Can't you see that for yourself? Leave out ever so little of the flourish, and the 'C. D.' disappears." Field was fain to be satisfied, though he was a little disappointed too. The pretty little theory that he had been building up in his mind had been shattered. "I suppose I shall have to give way on that point," he said. "Only it strikes me as strange that a man should have allowed this matter to lie for three years without making use of it. Unless, of course, Sir Charles's death made all the difference. Allow me."