The report of the inquest came a few days after the news of Mirlees' death. Nothing had been found to account satisfactorily for this, and the medicos were obliged to wrap their ignorance in a few foggy generalities regarding obscure affections of the heart. The finding would have far from satisfied public opinion at Home. It left me distinctly sceptical even in so raw and haphazard a region as the Far East. There was something hidden, some mystery left unravelled. Mirlees' age had been correctly stated in the newspaper report as only thirty-six years; he was, moreover, of that "hard-bitten" type which, if it dies young, does so only by a violent or unnatural death. I was still pondering the melancholy problem a week later when I received from a firm of solicitors in Shanghai a letter stating that in pursuance of the request made to them some days before by their client, the late Ronald Mirlees, they were forwarding to me, separately, a parcel which he had left in their charge. The lawyers added that while respecting the promise Mirlees had extracted from them not to reveal this matter to any third party, they relied on my honour to make public any evidence the parcel might contain which would help the authorities to arrive at some conclusion regarding Mr. Mirlees' mysterious death. Of the contents of the package they themselves were totally ignorant. A day after that the parcel arrived. I tore off the outer covering and found inside it a bundle wrapped in stout oilskin, sealed at every point and so enmeshed in cords that I could scarcely read the legend on the two labels. They were addressed to me in a curiously scrawled writing, and when I had taken off this cover, there dropped out a small fat envelope in the same hand, but more recognisable to my eye. It was, so far as I could remember, the writing of Ronald Mirlees. "Dear Hugh Jevons" (ran the missive)-- "It becomes necessary that you should step in to help me a second time--and a last time--in my life. I have not forgotten how you helped me before. You were a solid man to me then, and it is proof enough. I believe you a solid man still that I have picked upon you to be custodian of my confidences now that I can no longer hold them myself. You will understand what I mean, as you read on.