Hoyting looked surprised. “I can’t do anything with it. I don’t know that sort of person. Can’t you look up the man Beckwith? I never heard of him, but he ought to be easy to find. I could tell all this to you, but I couldn’t go over to London and tell it to a court of inquiry. I don’t hold you responsible in any way, of course, but something ought to be done. I’m taking the night express to Genoa.” “If you imagine I’m going to drop down from the blue on Sir James Beckwith--” I began. Hoyting shrugged his shoulders. “You at least know who he is, apparently. That in itself is a sign.” “But no one will read the tragic stuff,” I cried. “And yet you place Paramore’s reputation in my hands. You _do_ make me responsible.” Hoyting looked at me across the table, smiling faintly and shaking his head. “Didn’t I tell you that I don’t believe we can rehabilitate him? But we owe it to him to put his papers in the right hands. Beckwith couldn’t refuse to take them, at least; and then our duty would be done.” I took the “our” without flinching. The tale of Paramore had weighed on me. “I’ll do it,” I said at last--“but never again, Hoyting.” “Have I ever made such a request before?” he interrupted sharply. “No, never.” “Then, in God’s name, take it!” With his strong hand he made a gesture as if to sweep it all away from him. The liqueur glasses fell with a broken tinkle to the floor. Hoyting bit his lip. “I wouldn’t have the things back in my fingers again for anything under heaven. Good-bye.” I started to my feet, but he had reached the door. He had the luck to step into a taxi the next instant with an indescribable farewell gesture. It was part of Paramore’s persistent bad luck--the devil that pursued him was not put off by change of scene--that Sir James Beckwith died before I could make an appointment with him. From all I have heard of him, he certainly was the man to go to. Paramore’s note-books were coldly accepted in the quarters to which I finally took them; and I have always suspected that if my mien had been less desperate, they would have been politely handed back to me. No faintest echo of their reception has ever come to me, though I have, entirely on their account, subscribed to a dozen learned journals. I do not expect anything to happen, at this late date, in Paramore’s favor.