"Of course the moment one understands that one set of papers was spurious, it is easily concluded that all the others were forgeries. And the late Sir Alfred Carysfort, anxious only to obliterate every vestige of that early marriage of his, unwittingly played into the hands of those two scoundrels by destroying all the correspondence that he had ever had with Shap. "Think it all over, you will see that I am right. Look at this paragraph again in the _Evening Post_, does it not bear out what I say?" The paragraph in the evening paper to which the Old Man in the Corner was pointing read as follows: "Among the passengers on the Dutch liner _Stadt Rotterdam_ is Mr. Felix Shap, the hero of a recent celebrated case. He is returning to Batavia, having, through a misadventure which has remained an impenetrable mystery to this day, been deprived of all the proofs that would have established his claim to a substantial share of the profits in the Shap Fuelettes Company. Fortunately Mr. Shap had enlisted so many sympathies in England that his friends had no difficulty in collecting a considerable sum of money which was presented to him on his departure in the form of a purse and as a compensation for the ill-luck which has attended him since he set foot in this country. Mr. Shap will now be able to take abroad with him the assurance that British public opinion is always on the side of the victims of an adverse and unmerited fate." "Yes!" the funny creature concluded with a cackle, "until the victims are found out to be rogues. Mr. Felix Shap and his friend, Mr. Julian Lloyd, will be found out some day." The next moment he had gone with that rapidity which was so characteristic of him, and I might have thought that he was just a spook who had come to visit me whilst I dozed over my cup of tea, only that on the table by the side of an empty glass was a piece of string adorned with a series of complicated knots. VIII THE MYSTERY OF BRUDENELL COURT §1 "Did you ever make up your mind about that Brudenell Court affair?" the Old Man in the Corner said to me that day. "No," I replied. "As far as I am concerned the death of Colonel Forburg has remained a complete mystery." "You don't think," he insisted, "that Morley Thrall was guilty?" "Well," I said, "I don't know what to think." "Then don't do it," he rejoined, with a chuckle, "if you don't know what to think, then it's best not to think at all. At any rate wait until I have told you exactly what did happen--not as it was reported in the newspapers, but in the sequence in which the various incidents occurred.