asked if he could
do anything--was his visit about banking business?

"Now I determined to settle at once the question as to Joseph's
participation in the affairs of the Conduit Street concern. Before
Hollis could reply, I spoke. I said, 'Mr. Hollis wishes to see your
uncle on the affairs of Lieutenant Lester and the Godwin Markham loans.'
I watched Joseph closely. The moonlight was full on his face. He
started--a little. And he gave me a swift, queer look which was gone as
quickly as it came--it meant 'So you know!' Then he answered in quite an
assured, off-hand manner, 'Oh, I know all about that, of course! I can
deal with it as well as my uncle could. Come back across the moor to my
house--we'll have a drink, and a cigar, and talk it over with Mr.
Hollis.'

"I nudged Hollis's arm, and we turned back with Joseph towards Scarnham,
crossing the Hollow in another direction, by a track which leads
straight from a point exactly opposite the Warren to the foot of
Scarnham Bridge, near the wall of Joseph Chestermarke's house. It is not
a very long way--half an hour's sharp walk. We did not begin talking
business--as a matter of fact, Hollis began talking about the curious
nature of that patch of moorland and about the old lead-mines. And when
we were nearly half-way, the affair happened which, I suppose, led to
all that has happened since. It--gave Joseph Chestermarke an opening.

"Having lost my pipe, and being now going in a different direction from
that necessary to recover it, I had nothing to smoke. Joseph
Chestermarke offered me a cigar. He opened his case. I was taking a
cigar from it when Hollis stepped aside to one of the old shafts which
stood close by, and resting his hands on the parapet leaned over the
coping, either to look down or to drop something down. Before we had
grasped what he was doing, certainly before either of us could cry out
and warn him, the parapet completely collapsed before him and he
disappeared into the mine! He was gone in a second--with just one
scream. And after that--we heard nothing.

"We hurried to the place and got as near as we dared. Joseph
Chestermarke dropped on his hands and knees, and peered over and
listened. There was not a sound--except the occasional dropping of
loosened pebbles. And we both knew that in that drop of seventy or
eighty feet, Hollis must certainly have met his death.

"We hastened away to the town--to summon assistance. I don't think we
had any very cle