"Then I'll write you a cheque at once," Sir William answered, getting up from his chair and going to the writing-table in the corner of the room. Charliewood's face cleared a little. Then he noticed his cigar had been burning all down one side. He dropped it into an ash-tray and put his hand in his coat pocket to find a cigarette. He took out an ordinary silver case, when his eye fell upon the crest engraved upon the cover. He started and looked again, turning it so that the light fell full upon it. The crest of the Charliewood family was a hand with a battle-axe and the motto, "Ne Morare," and in the usual custom it was engraved upon Charliewood's own case. But this was not the Charliewood crest. It was a wyvern charged on a shield, and the motto consisted of the single word "GARDEZ." He gave a startled exclamation. "What's the matter?" Sir William said, turning round sharply. "I've got some other fellow's cigarette-case," Charliewood answered in amazement, opening it as he did so. There was only one cigarette in the case, but there were several visiting-cards in one compartment, and moreover the name of the owner was cut in the inside of the lid. The case dropped from Charliewood's fingers with a clatter, and he grew quite pale. "What is it?" his host inquired again. "Have you been playing some infernal trick on me, Gouldesbrough?" Charliewood said. "No; why?" "Because this cigarette-case, by some strange chance, is the cigarette-case of the man we've been talking about, this Guy Rathbone!" He stood up, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of the fur coat as he did so. Then he pulled out a letter, stamped and addressed and obviously ready for the post. "Good heavens!" he said, "here's something else. It's a letter for the post." "Who is it addressed to?" Sir William asked in a curious voice. Charliewood looked at it and started again. "As I live," he answered, "it's addressed to Miss Poole, 100A, Curzon Street!" There was a curious silence for a moment or two. Both men looked at each other, and mingled astonishment and alarm were on the face of either. The whole thing seemed uncanny. They seemed, while concocting something like a plot, to have trodden unawares into another. Suddenly Charliewood stamped his foot upon the ground and peeled off his overcoat. "I've got it," he cried. "Why, of course I've seen the very man myself this morning. This is his coat, not mine. I went to a hairdresser's this morning and left my coat in the ante-room while I was going through a massage treatment. When I came out there was a man waiting there for his turn, and I must have taken his coat in exchange for mine. And the man was this Mr. Guy Rathbone, of course. You know these dark blue coats lined with astrachan are quite ordinary, everybody is wearing them this year. And I noticed, by Jove, that the thing seemed a little tight in the cab! It's about the oddest coincidence that I've ever come across in my life!"