re was the
man in the middle, with a kind of black sneering coolness--frightened,
too, I could see that--but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan. 'If
you choose to make capital out of this accident,' said he, 'I am
naturally helpless. No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,' says he.
'Name your figure.' Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the
child's family; he would have clearly liked to stick out; but there was
something about the lot of us that meant mischief, and at last he
struck. The next thing was to get the money; and where do you think he
carried us but to that place with the door?--whipped out a key, went in,
and presently came back with the matter of ten pounds in gold and a
cheque for the balance on Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer and signed
with a name that I can't mention, though it's one of the points of my
story, but it was a name at least very well known and often printed. The
figure was stiff; but the signature was good for more than that, if it
was only genuine. I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman
that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in
real life, walk into a cellar-door at four in the morning and come out
of it with another man's cheque for close upon a hundred pounds. But he
was quite easy and sneering. 'Set your mind at rest,' says he, 'I will
stay with you till the banks open and cash the cheque myself.' So we all
set off, the doctor, and the child's father, and our friend and myself,
and passed the rest of the night in my chambers; and next day, when we
had breakfasted, went in a body to the bank. I gave in the cheque
myself, and said I had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a
bit of it. The cheque was genuine."

"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.

"I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield. "Yes, it's a bad story. For
my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really damnable
man: and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the
proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your
fellows who do what they call good. Blackmail, I suppose; an honest man
paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth. Black Mail
House is what I call that place with the door, in consequence. Though
even that, you know, is far from explaining all," he added, and with the
words fell into a vein of musing.

From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather suddenly: "And
you don't know if