wn impatient, had sent a sheriff for the usurer's soul....

With a dull crash the fire fell in, and the Judge started to his feet
with an oath.

The candles were gone.

The first thing which Mr. Justice Molehill did was to wipe the sweat
from his face, and the second, to mix himself and consume the strongest
whisky and soda he had swallowed for years. Then, being a man of stout
heart, he picked up the lamp and walked to the writing-table at the end
of the room. Here all was in order, and the closest scrutiny failed to
reveal any trace of the vision. The chair was there, certainly, but
its seat was dusty, and upon the table itself there was nothing at all.
The curtain behind the chair, when disarranged, disclosed a window,
heavily shuttered as usual, but nothing more.

Now, his lordship disliked defeat as much as anybody, but if there was
one thing which he detested more than another, it was an inability to
prove an excellent case. Looking at it from his point of view, he had
here a personal experience at once as interesting and incredible as a
man could fairly be expected to relate. The reflection was most
provoking. So much so, indeed, that, after a moment's hesitation, the
Judge picked up the chair and placed it upon the table. Then he bent
down and, thrusting his hands beneath the edge of the carpet, lifted
this up from the floor. The fabric was heavy, but he hauled with a
will, and a moment later he was standing upon the boards he had
uncovered. Thereafter, at the cost of a good deal of exertion, he
managed to roll it back from the window as far as the table itself.
Holding it in place with his knee, his lordship reached for the lamp....

It was his intention to discover whether the boards did not afford some
real evidence of the crime, and it is a matter for regret that, upon
perceiving that the floor had been diligently stained all over with
some coffee-coloured preparation, for the second time in the evening
his lordship swore. He was, in fact, in some dudgeon about to replace
the lamp, when the torn edge of paper, showing between two boards,
caught his observant eye....

The fine handwriting was faded, but still quite legible.

_10th Jan., 1789._

_SIR,_

_Your letter leaves me no hope but that you have been most grossly
betrayed. Should you so desire, I will render you indisputable proofs
that the Marquess of Bedlington hath no need of funds, much less hath
delivered in any's favour a