"Fortunately for Carysfort, his solicitors had been successful in finding two witnesses, Miriam Page and Arthur Ormeley, who had seen Mr. Allan Carysfort, whom they knew by sight, strolling by the river at a quarter to eleven. They--like the hall-porter of the County Club--remembered the circumstance very clearly, because they did not know that Mr. Allan was home from abroad, and were astonished to see him there. "The point of the evidence of these witnesses was that the river where they had seen Allan Carysfort strolling at a quarter to eleven is at the diametrically opposite end of the town to that where lies the Great West Road. Now the hall-porter had seen Allan Carysfort outside the County Club at half-past ten and again at eleven. If Carysfort was strolling by the river at a quarter to eleven, and there was no reason to impugn the credibility of the witnesses, he could not possibly have been the man whom Mr. Shap and Mr. Lloyd saw ringing the bell of Mr. Stonebridge's house at about that same hour. "Allan Carysfort was discharged by the magistrates, as you know. There was no definite proof against him. But public opinion is ever an uncertain quantity, and it is still dead against the Carysforts. In the public mind two facts have remained indelibly fixed: firstly, that the Carysforts had everything to gain by the destruction of Felix Shap's papers and, secondly, that there was nobody else who could possibly have benefited by it. "Since then also Mr. Stonebridge has made a declaration that nothing was stolen out of his safe and pocketbook except the papers and letters belonging to Felix Shap. So what would you? Although Allan Carysfort was discharged by the magistrates, really because there was no tangible evidence against him, he did not leave the court without a stain on his character. The stain was there, and there it is to this day. It will take the Carysforts years to live the scandal down; though some friends have remained loyal, there are always the enemies, the envious, the uncharitable, and they insist that the two witnesses--the only two, mind you, whose evidence did clear Allan Carysfort of suspicion--had been bought and should not be believed, while others simply declare that Sir David and his son employed some ruffian to do the dirty work for them." He gave a dry cackle, and contemplated me through his huge horn-rimmed spectacles. "And you are of that opinion, too, I imagine," he said. "Well, it seems the only likely explanation," I replied guardedly. "Surely you don't suppose," he retorted, "that a business man like David Carysfort would place himself so entirely in the hands of a ruffian that he would for ever after be the victim of blackmail! Why, it would have been cheaper to buy off Felix Shap!" "But," I rejoined, "I don't see who else had any interest in doing away with those documents." "I'll tell you," he rejoined dryly. "Felix Shap himself."