ame. I may also say, Mr. Hartington, that I had the highest respect for
your father. He always had a kind word when he came into the office, and
regularly at Christmas he handed Levison and myself a check for ten
pounds each, for, as he said, the trouble his business gave us. I tell
you this in order that you may feel you can safely repose any confidence
in me, and that my advice will be wholly at your service if you should
think fit to give me your confidence in this matter, whatever it may
be. But at the same time I must say it would be still better if you put
yourself in the hands of some respectable firm of solicitors. I do not
suggest my own principals more than others, although few men stand
higher in the profession."

"There are reasons against my laying the matter before any firm of
solicitors, and the chief of these is that my hands are tied in a
peculiar manner, and that I am unable to carry it through to its natural
sequence, but I will very thankfully accept your offer and will frankly
tell you the nature of my suspicions, for they are nothing more than
suspicions. I may first say that the news that my father was a
shareholder in the Abchester Bank astounded me. For a time, I put it
down to one of those sudden impulses that are unaccountable, but I may
tell you, and here my confidence begins, that I have come across
Cumming, the bank manager, and from him have obtained some curious
particulars of this transaction--particulars that have excited my
suspicions.

"You wondered why I asked you those questions. I will tell you. You did
not see my father affix his signature to either of those documents. The
one being certainly the transfer of some of Cumming's shares to him. The
other being, as I believe, the mortgage that, as you doubtless heard,
Mr. Brander held over my father's estate. How could you tell those two
signatures were not clever forgeries?"

Mr. Harford gave a start of surprise.

"God bless me, sir," he exclaimed, "such an idea never entered my mind."

"That I can quite understand," Cuthbert said, quietly, "but you must
admit it is possible."

"But in that case," the clerk said, after a pause, "Brander himself must
have been the forger, and surely that is not possible. I fancy I know
Mr. Brander pretty well, but I should never have dreamt him capable of
forgery. Not because I have a high opinion of his honesty, but because I
believe him to be a cautious man, and besides I do not see what possib