with the other letters of the
day:

"Dear Sir. My senior partner, M. Defresnier, has been called away, by
urgent business, to Milan. In his absence (and with his full
concurrence and authority), I now write to you again on the subject of
the missing five hundred pounds.

"Your discovery that the forged receipt is executed upon one of our
numbered and printed forms has caused inexpressible surprise and
distress to my partner and to myself. At the time when your
remittance was stolen, but three keys were in existence opening the
strong-box in which our receipt-forms are invariably kept. My partner
had one key; I had the other. The third was in the possession of a
gentleman who, at that period, occupied a position of trust in our
house. We should as soon have thought of suspecting one of ourselves
as of suspecting this person. Suspicion now points at him,
nevertheless. I cannot prevail on myself to inform you who the person
is, so long as there is the shadow of a chance that he may come
innocently out of the inquiry which must now be instituted. Forgive
my silence; the motive of it is good.

"The form our investigation must now take is simple enough. The
handwriting of your receipt must be compared, by competent persons
whom we have at our disposal, with certain specimens of handwriting in
our possession. I cannot send you the specimens for business reasons,
which, when you hear them, you are sure to approve. I must beg you to
send me the receipt to Neuchatel--and, in making this request, I must
accompany it by a word of necessary warning.

"If the person, at whom suspicion now points, really proves to be the
person who has committed this forger and theft, I have reason to fear
that circumstances may have already put him on his guard. The only
evidence against him is the evidence in your hands, and he will move
heaven and earth to obtain and destroy it. I strongly urge you not to
trust the receipt to the post. Send it to me, without loss of time,
by a private hand, and choose nobody for your messenger but a person
long established in your own employment, accustomed to travelling,
capable of speaking French; a man of courage, a man of honesty, and,
above all things, a man who can be trusted to let no stranger scrape
acquaintance with him on the route. Tell no one--absolutely no
one--but your messen