son, a solicitor; and, judging from the
name and other particulars given in the published account, that it must
be their Mr Cuthbertson, she had hurried up to town and called at
Cuthbertson's chambers, where her worst apprehensions had received
complete and terrible confirmation. From the particulars supplied by
Mr Herbert, Cuthbertson's chief clerk, it appeared that "Mr Jonas",
after walking worthily in his father's footsteps for two years, had
become infected with the gambling craze, and, first losing all his own
money, had finally laid hands upon as much of his clients' property as
he could obtain access to, until, his ill luck still pursuing him, he
had lost that also, and then had sought to evade the consequences of his
misdeeds by blowing out his brains with two shots from a revolver. This
final act of folly had been perpetrated two days before the account of
it in the papers had fallen under Mrs Maitland's notice, and in the
interim there had, of course, been time only to make a very cursory
examination into the affairs of the suicide, but that examination had
sufficed to reveal the appalling fact that every available security,
both of his own and of his clients, had disappeared, while sufficient
evidence had been discovered to show pretty clearly what had led to
their disappearance.

This was the sum and substance of Mrs Maitland's somewhat incoherently
told story, and when Dick had heard it through to the end he had no
reason to doubt its truth; but manifestly it was not at all the sort of
story to be taken upon trust, it must be fully and completely
investigated, if only for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not
anything, however small, was to be saved from the wreck; accordingly,
after partaking of a hasty lunch, young Maitland wended his way to the
City, and there had a most discouraging interview with Mr Herbert, who
was by this time busily engaged upon the preparation of a detailed
statement of the position of affairs, for the information of his late
employer's clients and creditors. This, Mr Herbert explained, was
proving a task of much less difficulty than he had anticipated, since
Cuthbertson had apparently kept an accurate account of all his gambling
transactions--some of which had, latterly, been upon a gigantic scale--
with the evidently desperate resolution of recovering his former losses,
or ruining himself in the attempt, while he had not destroyed any of his
papers, as so many suicides do