"Come in here, Mr. Clifford; it's a very fortunate chance your dropping in on us like this; you couldn't have arranged it better if you'd tried. I've no doubt Mr. Nash is glad to see you, and I'm quite sure I am."  
As Clifford followed Morgan into the sitting-room he eyed him a little askance.
 
"To whom have I the pleasure of speaking?"
 
"I'm Mr. Oldfield's most intimate friend; I know more about his affairs than any man living."
 
"May I ask your name?"
 
"Morgan; Stephen Morgan."
 
"Are you also a solicitor?"
 
"Not yet, exactly; I think I may describe myself as Mr. Oldfield's confidential agent. Come in, Nash; don't stop out there; then we can have the door closed--it'll be snugger."
 
Mr. Nash had stayed in the hall, as if unwilling to associate himself with Morgan's reception of the new-comer; indeed from his bearing one might almost have suspected him of an inclination to march out of the flat, and leave Morgan to deal with Mr. Clifford; possibly he was deterred by the prosaic accident that his hat was in the sitting-room. When Morgan bade him go in he went in, and Morgan closed the door behind him. Clifford looked from one to the other, as if there was something in the attitude of the two men which he could not make out.
 
"May I ask what you gentlemen are doing here?"
 
"You may ask; but, so far as I can see, it's no business of yours."
 
"Quite so; still--at the same time----"
 
"Yes, Mr. Clifford; at the same time?"
 
"I wondered."
 
"There's no harm in your wondering, Mr. Clifford; none at all."
 
Mr. Clifford turned to Nash, as if he preferred his appearance to Morgan's.
 
"Can you tell me, Mr. Nash, where Mr. Oldfield is? or how I can place myself in communication with him? As you are possibly aware, he has not been at the office now for some time, and his continued absence--and I may add, silence, because I have heard nothing from him--is occasioning much inconvenience."
 
"To whom?"
 
This was Morgan. Clifford seemed to hesitate, then replied--"To me."
 
"To you? Mr. Oldfield hasn't been in the habit of studying your convenience, has he, Mr. Clifford?"
 
The new-comer flushed, as if he felt that the other's words were meant unpleasantly. When he answered he looked the speaker straight in the face.
 
"Mr. Oldfield has been in the habit of studying not only my convenience, but every one's convenience, Mr. Morgan; if you suppose the contrary, I know him better than you do. And, just now, the circumstances are peculiar. I am to be married next week, and I can hardly carry out in their entirety the arrangements I have made unless I know what Mr. Oldfield's movements are likely to be."
 
"I see; you are to be married next week?"
 
"Mr. Oldfield knows that I am to be married next week."
 
"Does he? What's the lady's name?"
 
"Mr. Oldfield also knows the lady's name; I told him."
 
"Did you? Then I fancy he's forgotten."
 
"I never knew Mr. Oldfield forget anything that was of importance to any one in whom he was interested; so I take leave to doubt your fancy, Mr. Morgan."
 
Mr. Morgan looked at the speaker, for some moments, in rather a peculiar way; then he thrust his hands deeper into his trousers pockets, leaned back his head, and laughed. Clifford flushed again.
 
"What is the jest, Mr. Morgan?"
 
"Jest? Clifford, you're a funny one! you're all the jest I want."
 
"Sir!"
 
"I give you my word, my dear fellow--" Morgan advanced, with the apparent intention of laying his hand upon the other's shoulder; Clifford retreated; Morgan stared. "What's the matter? Why do you draw back?"
 
Clifford's manner was courteously frigid.
 
"You will be able to say anything you wish to say to me from where you are."
 
"Oh yes, I'm quite able to say to you all I wish from where I am; or from anywhere. Don't you think, Mr. Clifford, you're cutting it a trifle fine?"
 
"I don't understand."
 
"No? Surely you're not dull. I beg you to believe I'm not. Haven't I told you I'm Mr. Oldfield's confidential agent?"
 
"You have, sir; though what especial interest that fact should have for me I still fail to understand; and yet I believe that I am not dull beyond the average man. Mr. Nash, while Mr. Morgan is endeavouring to find words with which to convey his meaning to my comprehension, may I again ask you how I can place myself in immediate communication with Mr. Oldfield?"
 
Before Nash could answer, Morgan made a hasty movement towards the speaker, crying--
 
"You miserable hypocrite! trying to play the innocent with us! asking how you can place yourself in communication with Mr. Oldfield, when you know he's dead!"
 
"Dead! Mr. Oldfield dead, Mr. Morgan!"
 
"Stop that game of pretending, or I shan't be able to keep my hands off you! Not only is Mr. Oldfield dead, and you know it, but you killed him!"
 
"Killed him! I! Mr. Nash, is your friend sane?"
 
"Did ever rogue play the hypocrite so brazenly? and actually I've one of the weapons with which he killed him on me! and here it is. You killed him, Mr. Clifford, with that."
 
Morgan held out a slip of blue paper on which there was some writing.
 
"With that? And what is that? It looks to me rather a singular weapon with which to commit murder."
 
"Does it? you sneering villain! When Brown does all in his power to make of Smith an honest man, and Smith turns out to be a blackguard and a thief, do you think that isn't a blow to Brown? It was that kind of blow killed Joseph Oldfield; it was the shock of learning that you were a forger."
 
"Learning that I was a forger! Mr. Morgan, you--you said just now that you found it difficult to keep your hands off me; now I'm finding it difficult to keep mine off you. What justification have you for the statement you have just made, that I am a forger?"
 
"Isn't that justification enough?"
 
Again Morgan held out the slip of paper.
 
"I repeat the question I put to you just now--what is that?"
 
"It's news to you that it's one of the bills you forged?"
 
"One? Do you charge me with forging others?"
 
"I don't know what you got for them, Mr. Clifford, but you forged bills to the face value of over forty thousand pounds. Are incidents of the kind of such frequent occurrence in your career that it is necessary to recall this one to your recollection?"
 
"And do you seriously accuse me of forging bills for more than forty thousand pounds? Was ever anything heard like it?"
 
"Often; there have been plenty of scoundrels before you, if you find that any consolation."
 
"Don't imagine that because I endeavour to retain my self-control in the midst of this--this sudden nightmare that I am incapable of showing resentment; if that is what you imagine, you are wrong, Mr. Morgan. What grounds have you for asserting that I forged that bill, or any bill?"
 
"Mr. Clifford, drop the mask; the time for bluff has gone; try to be candid. You see, Mr. Nash and I know all about it."
 
"Do you? It so happens that I don't. I ask you again, what grounds have you for asserting that I've committed forgery? Don't be vague; be specific."
 
"I happen to know the man to whom you gave the bills."
 
"Do you? What's his name?"
 
"Sir Henry Trevor."
 
"Sir Henry Trevor? Harry Trevor? Do you venture to affirm that Harry Trevor says he got forged bills from me, or any bills?"
 
"He took them to the discounters; when they asked where he got them from, he said they came from you. What he got for them, or what share you had of the plunder, I can't say; at present I'd rather not know; these are details which may come out at the Old Bailey."
 
Up to then Frank Clifford had kept his countenance to a wonderful degree; but when Mr. Morgan spoke of the Old Bailey his lips flickered, as they might have done had he been suddenly attacked by St. Vitus' Dance; the movement passed, he was calm again.
 
"Will you let me look at that bill you're holding? I'll not touch it; I merely want to look."
 
"I'll take care you don t touch it. You can look at an old friend.
 
"What is the signature it bears?"
 
"Don't know? I'll tell you. Donald Lindsay, of Cloverlea."
 
"Donald Lindsay, of Cloverlea? And who is Donald Lindsay, of Cloverlea?"
 
"Really, Mr. Clifford, when you didn't become an actor what the stage lost! and now-a-days there are so few actors who are to the manner born. It's the very gist of your offending, you sly scamp, that you made such use of the knowledge you had surreptitiously obtained that Joseph Oldfield, of Peter Piper's Popular Pills, was Donald Lindsay, of Cloverlea."
 
Clifford stared, as if the other had been speaking in a foreign language.
 
"What's that? Would you mind saying that again?"
 
"I'll not say it again; I'll not pipe to your dancing, you brazen vagabond!"
 
"Are you hinting that Joseph Oldfield is, or was, I don't know which it ought to be, a pseudonym? that he had, or has, another name?"
 
"Is that the trick you're trying to play? You wish it to be believed that you didn't know there was such a person as Donald Lindsay; that he and Joseph Oldfield were one and the same; and that in putting the name upon a bill stamp you did it innocently, in ignorance that was childlike and bland. The idea is ingenious; as, I fancy, Mr. Clifford, most of your ideas are; but you won't find a judge or jury quite so simple."............