"Begin at the other end," answered Humphrey. "Whether he was responsible or not won't help us now. And it won't prevent honest men spurning his grave, I fancy." Mr. Popham collected his papers and read a long and dismal statement. His client had always kept his affairs closely to himself, and such was the universal trust and confidence that none ever pressed him to do otherwise. He had been given a free hand in the administration of considerable sums; he had invested where he pleased, and for many years had enjoyed the best of good fortune, despite the hazardous character of the securities he affected. "No man was ever cursed with such an incurable gift of hope," explained the lawyer. "All along the line you'll find the same sanguine and unjustifiable methods exhibited. The rate per cent was all he cared about. His custom was to pay everybody four and a half, and keep the balance. But when companies came to grief nobody heard anything about it; he went on paying the interest, and, no doubt, went on hoping to make good the capital. This, however, he seldom appears to have done. There are about forty small people who deposited their savings with him, and there is nothing for any of them but valueless paper. He was bankrupt a dozen times over, and the thing he'd evidently pinned his last hope to--a big South American silver mine--is going the way of the others. Had it come off, the position might have been retrieved; but it is not coming off. He put five thousand pounds into it--not his own money--and hoped, I suppose, to make thirty thousand. It was his last flutter." "Where did he get the money?" "By mortgaging Cadworthy and by using a good deal of his late brother's capital. I mean the estate of Mr. Vivian Baskerville." "He's a fraudulent trustee, then?" "He is. He had already mortgaged all his own property. He was in a very tight place about the time of Mr. Vivian's death, and the money he had to handle then carried him on." "What did he do with his own money? How did he spend that?"