When asked by the clerk for my name, I gave a card, adding that I had called in response to the advertisement, and a few moments later found myself in a comfortable private room with a thin, clean-shaven, thin-faced, alert-looking man of middle age, who introduced himself as Mr Cyril Fryer, the head of the firm. After thanking me for my call he said-- "Perhaps, Mr Kemball, I may tell you briefly what I know of our client Mr Melvill Arnold's rather eccentric action. He lived mostly abroad in recent years for certain private reasons, and one day, early this year, we received from him a somewhat curious letter upon the notepaper of the Carlton Hotel, saying that he had returned to England unexpectedly, and that he had entrusted a certain bronze cylinder, containing something very important, to the care of a friend. That friend was, curiously enough, not named, but he instructed us to advertise to-day--the third of November. We made inquiry at the Carlton, but he was unknown there. To-day we have advertised, according to our client's instructions, and you are here in response." "There is considerable mystery surrounding this affair, Mr Fryer," I exclaimed in reply. "I do not doubt it. Our client, whom I have known for a good many years, was a very reserved and mysterious man," replied the solicitor, leaning back in his padded chair. "Well," I said, "I met him on board ship between Naples and London," and then in detail described his sudden illness, how he had induced me to accept the trust, and his death, a narrative to which Mr Fryer listened with greatest interest. "Then the letter must have been written on the afternoon of his arrival in London. He probably wrote it in the smoking-room of the Carlton. But why he should seek to mislead us, I cannot imagine," exclaimed the solicitor. "I recollect," I said. "I was with him in a taxi, when he stopped at the Carlton and went inside, asking me to wait. I did so, and he returned in about a quarter of an hour. In the meantime he must have written to you. He was very ill then, and that same evening he died." "He did not mention us?" "He made no mention whatever of any friends, save one--a Mr Dawnay, to whom I afterwards delivered a note." "Dawnay?" repeated Mr Fryer. "You mean Harvey Shaw?" "Exactly. So you know him, eh?" The solicitor nodded in the affirmative, the deep lines upon his thin face becoming more accentuated. I then told him of his client's wilful destruction of a large quantity of English banknotes which he had compelled me to burn, whereat the man seated at his table laughed grimly, saying-- "I do not think we need regret their destruction. They were better burnt." "Why?" "Well--because they were not genuine ones." "But surely--your client was not a forger!" I cried.