"'Oh, you do, do you?' he snarled. 'Very good, mate. We'll see about that!' He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after night I heard him pacing his room, and it was just as he was recovering his confidence that the blow did at last fall. "'And how?' I asked, eagerly. "'In a most extraordinary fashion. A letter arrived for my father yesterday evening, bearing the Fordingbridge postmark. My father read it, clapped both his hands to his head and began running round the room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I saw that he had a stroke. Dr. Fordham came over at once, and we put him to bed; but the paralysis has spread, he has shown no sign of returning consciousness, and I think that we shall hardly find him alive.' "'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What, then, could have been in this letter to cause so dreadful a result?' "'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!' "As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue, and saw in the fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a gentleman in black emerged from it. "'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor. "'Almost immediately after you left.' "'Did he recover consciousness?' "'For an instant before the end.' "'Any message for me?' "'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet.'