Penhallow thought. "Wonder what has heated up the
old gentleman so. Find out quick enough, for he always goes straight to
business."

"Mr. Penhallow," Mr. Gridley began at once, "I have come on a very grave
matter, in which you are interested as well as myself, and I wish to lay
the whole of it before you as explicitly as I can, so that we may settle
this night before I go what is to be done. I am afraid the good standing
of your partner, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, is concerned in the
matter. Would it be a surprise to you, if he had carried his acuteness
in some particular case like the one I am to mention beyond the
prescribed limits?"

The question was put so diplomatically that there was no chance for an
indignant denial of the possibility of Mr. Bradshaw's being involved in
any discreditable transaction.

"It is possible," he answered, "that Bradshaw's keen wits may have
betrayed him into sharper practice than I should altogether approve in
any business we carried on together. He is a very knowing young man, but
I can't think he is foolish enough, to say nothing of his honesty, to
make any false step of the kind you seem to hint. I think he might on
occasion go pretty near the line, but I don't believe he would cross
it."

"Permit me a few questions, Mr. Penhallow. You settled the estate of the
late Malachi Withers, did you not?"

"Mr. Wibird and myself settled it together."

"Have you received any papers from any of the family since the
settlement of the estate?"

"Let me see. Yes; a roll of old plans of the Withers Place, and so
forth,--not of much use, but labelled and kept. An old trunk with
letters and account-books, some of them in Dutch,--mere curiosities. A
year ago or more, I remember that Silence sent me over some papers she
had found in an odd corner,--the old man hid things like a magpie. I
looked over most of them,--trumpery not worth keeping,--old leases and
so forth."

"Do you recollect giving some of them to Mr. Bradshaw to look over?"

"Now I come to think of it, I believe I did; but he reported to me, if I
remember right, that they amounted to nothing."

"If any of those papers were of importance, should you think your junior
partner ought to keep them from your knowledge?"

"I need not answer that question, Mr. Gridley. Will you be so good as to
come at once to the facts on which you found your suspicions, and which
lead you to put these questions to me?"

Thereupon Mr. Gridley