ow, mind you, every one knows Smethurst, the Siberian millionaire.
Kershaw's story that he had once been called Barker, and had committed a
murder thirty years ago, was never proved, was it? I am merely telling
you what Kershaw said to his friend the German and to his wife on that
memorable afternoon of December the 10th.

"According to him Smethurst had made one gigantic mistake in his clever
career--he had on four occasions written to his late friend, William
Kershaw. Two of these letters had no bearing on the case, since they
were written more than twenty-five years ago, and Kershaw, moreover, had
lost them--so he said--long ago. According to him, however, the first of
these letters was written when Smethurst, alias Barker, had spent all
the money he had obtained from the crime, and found himself destitute in
New York.

"Kershaw, then in fairly prosperous circumstances, sent him a L10 note
for the sake of old times. The second, when the tables had turned, and
Kershaw had begun to go downhill, Smethurst, as he then already called
himself, sent his whilom friend L50. After that, as Mueller gathered,
Kershaw had made sundry demands on Smethurst's ever-increasing purse,
and had accompanied these demands by various threats, which, considering
the distant country in which the millionaire lived, were worse than
futile.

"But now the climax had come, and Kershaw, after a final moment of
hesitation, handed over to his German friend the two last letters
purporting to have been written by Smethurst, and which, if you
remember, played such an important part in the mysterious story of this
extraordinary crime. I have a copy of both these letters here," added
the man in the corner, as he took out a piece of paper from a very
worn-out pocket-book, and, unfolding it very deliberately, he began to
read:--

"'Sir,--Your preposterous demands for money are wholly unwarrantable. I
have already helped you quite as much as you deserve. However, for the
sake of old times, and because you once helped me when I was in a
terrible difficulty, I am willing to once more let you impose upon my
good nature. A friend of mine here, a Russian merchant, to whom I have
sold my business, starts in a few days for an extended tour to many
European and Asiatic ports in his yacht, and has invited me to accompany
him as far as England. Being tired of foreign parts, and desirous of
seeing the old country once again after thirty years' absence, I have
deci