"Well, Mr Kemball, as you seem to have been so intimately associated with the closing scenes of poor Melvill Arnold's career, I will explain the whole truth to you--even at the risk of a breach of professional confidence. My client is dead, but the dastardly attempt upon Miss Asta Seymour must be avenged--that man Harvey Shaw shall be brought to justice. Listen, and I will tell you a story stranger than most men have ever listened to--a romance of real life of which, however, every word is the truth." "The cylinder!" I cried. "Are you aware of what is contained in it?" "I have not the slightest knowledge," he declared. "That we will investigate together later--after you have heard the strange romance of the man whom you knew as Melvill Arnold." CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. THE TRUTH CONCERNING ARNOLD. "The real name of your friend was--as you have guessed from the threatening letters addressed to him at Kingswear, in Devon--Arnold Edgecumbe," the solicitor commenced, leaning his elbows upon his table and looking me straight in the face. "My firm acted for his father--a wealthy manufacturer in Bradford, who, upon his death, left his son an ample fortune. Twenty years ago he married an extremely pretty woman. It was purely a love-match, and one daughter was born. Six months after that event, however, poor little Mrs Edgecumbe died of phthisis, and her husband was inconsolable over his loss. He was devoted to his wife, and the blow proved a terrible one. Soon, in order to occupy his mind, he turned his attention to financial affairs in the City, and went into partnership with a man named Henry Harford." "Harford!" I ejaculated. "Why, that was the man against whom he warned me! The words he wrote down are still in my possession."