tant part of the story," he
continued. "But Brake had other associations with Barthorpe--a bit
later. He got to know--got into close touch with a Barthorpe man who,
about the time of Brake's marriage, left Barthorpe end settled in
London. Brake and this man began to have some secret dealings together.
There was another man in with them, too--a man who was a sort of partner
of the Barthorpe man's. Brake had evidently a belief in these men, and
he trusted them--unfortunately for himself he sometimes trusted the
bank's money to them. I know what happened--he used to let them have
money for short financial transactions--to be refunded within a very
brief space. But--he went to the fire too often, and got his fingers
burned in the end. The two men did him--one of them in particular--and
cleared out. He had to stand the racket. He stood it--to the tune of ten
years' penal servitude. And, naturally, when he'd finished his time, he
wanted to find those two men--and began a long search for them. Like to
know the names of the men, Mr. Folliot?"

"You might mention 'em--if you know 'em," answered Folliot.

"The name of the particular one was Wraye--Falkiner Wraye," replied
Bryce promptly. "Of the other--the man of lesser importance--Flood."

The two men looked quietly at each other for a full moment's silence.
And it was Bryce who first spoke with a ring of confidence in his tone
which showed that he knew he had the whip hand.

"Shall I tell you something about Falkiner Wraye?" he asked. "I
will!--it's deeply interesting. Mr. Falkiner Wraye, after cheating
and deceiving Brake, and leaving him to pay the penalty of his
over-trustfulness, cleared out of England and carried his money-making
talents to foreign parts. He succeeded in doing well--he would!--and
eventually he came back and married a rich widow and settled himself
down in an out-of-the-world English town to grow roses. You're Falkiner
Wraye, you know, Mr. Folliot!"

Bryce laughed as he made this direct accusation, and sitting forward in
his chair, pointed first to Folliot's face and then to his left hand.

"Falkiner Wraye," he said, "had an unfortunate gun accident in his youth
which marked him for life. He lost the middle finger of his left hand,
and he got a bad scar on his left jaw. There they are, those marks!
Fortunate for you, Mr. Folliot, that the police don't know all that I
know, for if they did, those marks would have done for you days ago!"
For a minute o