In an aimless kind of way Speed stepped into the street and turned his steps in the direction of the City. It had occurred to him almost in the light of an inspiration that Horace Mayfield might be of use at this juncture. Mayfield's office was full of clients; the place had an air of prosperity. But the head of the firm looked tired and jaded as Speed came into his private room; the fingers on his cigarette shook terribly.

"Sit down," Mayfield said curtly, "I have been wondering what had become of you. I have been expecting to hear about that sum of money we spoke of. Now that you have come so easily into the estate there can be no difficulty. The man who calls himself Ralph Darnley evidently is not aware of his own identity."

"Oh, isn't he?" Speed sneered, "that's just where you make the mistake. I have had no end of an eye-opener this morning, in fact, what you might call a regular staggerer. It came from my mother. I wish that I had taken her into my confidence from the first. But perhaps I had better tell you all about it."

"It would perhaps be as well," Mayfield said grimly. "Go on."

Speed proceeded to tell his story. Long before he had finished Mayfield's grey face became still more ashen and the fingers on his cigarette trembled visibly.

"So the ship has foundered," he said. "I've got a shrewd idea as to the game that Darnley is playing. I took that man for a fool. As a matter of fact, he is the cleverest chap I ever came across. To be candid, I did his father out of a lot of money. I played much the same game with Sir George Dashwood. And it seemed to me that Ralph Darnley was going to take it lying down. He made no face; he took no proceedings. And then it came upon me like a thunderbolt. At the time he was working up a case against me. He put it into the hands of the cleverest firm of criminal lawyers in London. He arranged such a damning lot of facts before me that I was bound to sacrifice everything to save a prosecution. I scraped the money together from all kinds of sources. I robbed other clients to get it. At the moment all my speculations go wrong, of course. I'm in a desperate hole, Speed; there isn't a man in London who is in such a hole today. If I don't get ￡30,000 by Monday I shall have to bolt--and there is no safe place to bolt to nowadays. You will have to get me this money on mortgage."

"But I can't," Speed protested. "I went to the family lawyers just now, and they refused to have anything to do with it. Said they were by no means satisfied as to my legal position. They went so far as to declare they not only decline to raise money on the estate, but they refuse to give up the deeds."

Something like a groan came from Mayfield's lips, but his busy brain was working all the time. He saw where the difficulty lay. With Ralph out of the way he could, and would, crush Speed like a fly. He would expose the impostor without mercy, and then things would revert to the old order as they were before Ralph Darnley appeared.

An accident to Ralph Darnley! The real owner of the estate out of the way! Properly manipulated, this might mean the recovery of that money from Darnley's solicitors. It would at any rate mean the return of George Dashwood to his own once more, the putting of the screw on Mary. The idea whirled in Mayfield's mind like a dazzling wheel. He did not dare to look at Speed; he was afraid of the tale his eyes might tell.

"I must have time to think this over," he said. "Meanwhile, you had better return to Dashwood as if nothing out of the common had happened. I'll come down and dine with you tomorrow night and stay till the morning. Then get hold of this so-called Darnley, and see if you can pump any further information out of him. If you could possibly induce him to dine with us so much the better. Only, if I were you, I should not say that you had asked me. I've got a scheme working in my mind, but it is not quite safe as yet, so we need not discuss it."

"All right," Speed said moodily, "you are a much cleverer chap than I am, and I shall rely on you to find some way out of the trouble. When I think what is slipping through my fingers like this, I could commit murder."

Speed spoke vehemently, with a voice that rasped hoarsely. Mayfield started, to find that his thoughts and Speed's were running in such parallel grooves. He made a gesture of impatience, indicating that he should like to be alone. Speed lounged out, lunched freely, and, with the courage that is born of wine, took his way to the station with a resolve to return to Dashwood without delay.

Everything seemed just the same there; there was no suggestion that anybody knew of the deceit which had been practised on the old house. Even Slight appeared to be ............