"Well," he went on, "ingeniously as did Harford endeavour to cover his connection with the bogus promotions--of which the Britannia Banking Corporation, which you will remember, perhaps, was one--yet the Public Prosecutor, after the accounts and books had been examined, decided that he was also a culprit, and two months after his partner's disappearance a warrant was also issued for his arrest. Harford, always wary, had, however, on the day previously, taken little Asta with him and left for Greece, with which country we have no treaty of extradition. Meanwhile, Edgecumbe had a younger sister who had married a man of bad character, an expert forger of banknotes, named Earnshaw, and who sometimes went in the name of King, and the pair had, to a great extent, assisted Harford in his fraudulent schemes entirely unknown to Edgecumbe. The woman and her husband were adventurers of the most ingenious class, and with Harford, reaped a golden harvest in the circulation on the Continent of the clever imitations of Bank of England notes. Edgecumbe was all unconscious of this, and, indeed, only became aware of the transactions by accident. It seems that on the night of his flight from England he went to the office after it had been locked up, in order to get some cash for his journey. There was only forty pounds in the safe, but on breaking open a drawer in his partner's table he found a big roll of new notes. He took them, and left on the table a memorandum of what he had done. Ere he arrived at Dover, however, suspicion grew upon him that the notes were not genuine. So he kept them, and said nothing. It was his first suspicion that Harford was playing a double game. Through all the years that elapsed from that day till his death they remained in his possession as evidence against Earnshaw and his accomplice, but in order that after his death they should not be found in his possession, he apparently got you to destroy them." "But this man Harford--or Shaw? Who was he?" I inquired eagerly.