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When Mortmain was able to reappear in society he was astonished to find that the murder of Lord Russell was no longer a matter of interest or of discussion. The temporarily shocked and horrified community had apparently within a short time placidly accepted it, and apart from occasional references in the newspapers, it was rapidly becoming a mere matter of history, taking its proper chronological place in the long list of London's unsolved mysteries. It had been given out at the time that the horrible death of his old friend had so prostrated the baronet that he had been threatened with total collapse, and had only been restored to health by remaining in bed under the constant care of a certain distinguished physician. At times Mortmain was almost inclined to believe this himself, for the ghastly night at the lonely farmhouse, his ensuing illness and slow recovery, seemed, in the full swing of the London season and contrasted with the brilliant colors of its festivities, less actuality than a dreadful nightmare which continually obtruded itself upon his recollection. He had resumed his place in fashionable life with his old assurance, picking up his cards where he had left them lying face downward upon the table. Within a week he was again "among those present" at every gathering of note, and he had dropped hints of his intention to give a new and unique musical entertainment which was to surpass anything of the kind theretofore attempted. He had also resumed his attentions to Lady Bella Forsythe with a definite purpose—that of rendering himself financially impregnable.

But Sir Richard was not the same. His glass showed him to be paler than of yore, his eyes more deeply sunken, his hair touched at the edges with a ghost of white, the lines of his mouth more firmly marked. His friends jokingly told him that he was growing old. He had paid a heavy price for what he had bought, yet it was not loss of vitality, not physical shock alone that had thus aged him, but a ghastly, damning fact that never left him for an instant, waking or sleeping: the fact that the man had died. They had not told him at first—it might have affected his cure. The result upon his spiritual being when he learned of it had been no less disastrous. The man had died. There was no longer any pensioner to claim his annuity; no creditor even to demand the price of his awful bargain; no witness to testify to its hideous terms—he had fled the jurisdiction of all earthly courts. Sir Richard was free. But the thought of that life forfeited to his own egotism was a millstone about his neck, bowing him forever to the ground.

He intentionally talked frankly of Lord Russell. The old man had been highly respected and, indeed, moderately prominent in philanthropic circles. Mortmain had made a point of going personally to see the bas-relief erected to his memory. He learned that the next of kin was a Devon man who never came up to town, and that the executors had taken possession almost immediately and disposed of the house to an American millionaire, who was even now remodeling the historic mansion, inserting Grecian columns and putting on a Château de Nevers roof. Of course he inspected this with friends, was properly disgusted, and seized the opportunity to gratify his curiously morbid hunger for the details of the murder. He learned that, though few of the facts were known to the public, opinion had crystallized into a settled acceptance that the murderer had made good his escape and that the identity of the murderer was known. In fact, the silence of Scotland Yard was rendered nugatory by the reward of £1,000 offered by the County Council for the apprehension of Saunders Leach, the recently discharged secretary of the philanthropist. Nothing had been heard of him since Lord Russell's butler had admitted him to the house, an hour or two before the murder, upon his representation that he had come to look over some papers at the request of his erstwhile master. The butler, a most respectable person, had introduced him into the library, where Lord Russell was, and departed. He had recalled afterwards—it had come out at the hearing at the Central Criminal Court—that he had heard the sound of voices raised at a high pitch, but, as his master was at times somewhat querulous, this had not particularly attracted his attention. An hour later, when he had brought the evening papers, he had discovered the aged man lying face downward upon his desk, and a window, bearing the bloody traces of the assassin, open to the night. And Leach had vanished—as if he had never lived.

The thing most puzzling to Sir Richard, as to everybody else, was the failure of any apparent motive for so ghastly a deed. Leach, according to old Floyd the butler, had been a very decent sort of fellow, rather sickly Floyd took him to be, without any particular faults or virtues. It seemed to outrage reason to suppose that an anæmic little clerk could have murdered a helpless old man simply out of revenge for having lost his place. And then nothing had been stolen—that is, nobody but Sir Richard knew that anything had been stolen. Yet the public and the London County Council pronounced unhesitatingly as established fact that Saunders Leach was the assassin, and that he should be hunted down to the very ends of the world and, if need be, followed into the next. Only Scotland Yard remained silent after annexing the contents of the room, the windows, the carpet, and even portions of the faded paper from the very walls themselves. Then Parliament went into a convulsion over a proposed excise alteration and London forgot the murder of Lord Russell in its feverish interest in the expected legislative abortion. There was an appeal to the country; a premier retired to Italy; some few thousands were added to the credit column of the national ledger at the expense of a ministry, and once more the advent of royalty at St. James's dazzled the cockney eye and filled the cockney mouth to the stultification of the cockney brain. Lord Russell was forgotten—as completely as Saunders Leach—as totally as an isle sunk beneath the waters of oblivion.

The first time Sir Richard had essayed to write he had been deliciously horrified at the ease with which his pencil had followed the pressure of his new fingers. His recent clothes added an extra inch to his sleeves, and his broad cuffs fully concealed the white seam that ran around his wrist. The hand itself served his purposes well enough, but unmistakably it was not his own. He never laid the two together—never let his eyes fall upon the vicarious fingers if he could avoid it, for inevitably a sickening sensation of repulsion followed. His own fingers were long and tapering, the nails fine with pronounced "crowns," the back of the hand slender and smooth; the new one was broader and hairy, the fingers shorter and square at the ends, the nails thick and dull with no "crowns," and the veins blue and prominent. There were too many pores!

He loathed the thing, tell himself as often as he would that it was nothing but a mechanical device to supplement Nature. Physically he felt as if he were wearing a glove that was too small for him, into which he had been forced to stuff his hand. This seemed to produce a tight, swollen sensation which was the only indication of his abnormal condition. He ate, drove, used his keys, articulated his fingers, and even wrote with the same muscular freedom as before. His chirography actually and undeniably exhibited the same general characteristics, only intensified and with less certainty of stroke and pen-pressure. The letters which had previously been merely somewhat original in structure as suited a man of fashion, now became humpbacked and deformed. It was as though the spiritual qualities of Sir Richard's penmanship had shrunk away, leaving only the grotesque residue of a dwarfed and evil nature.

But apart from the question of chirography one other manifestation constantly reminded Mortmain of his crime. This was an itching in the grafted hand whenever its possessor became angry or excited. Even hard physical exercise produced the same phenomenon. It seemed as if Nature, having provided for the circulation of a certain amount of blood, found on reaching this particular extremity that the supply exceeded the power of reception. If angered, he found himself indulging in ungovernable fits of passion, with his eyes suffused and his head buzzing. At times he experienced an almost irresistible impulse to throttle somebody. On the slightest provocation the fingers of his right hand would curve and clutch, and a fierce longing seize him to compass the extinction of life in some animate being—to feel the slackening of the muscles in some victim—an emotion elemental, barbarous, cruel, but keen, masterful and pervading. He had an exhilarating sensation of strength and vitality new to him. Moreover, his attitude toward his fellow-men had imperceptibly altered. Before his operation he had hated all evil doers and been strongly loyal to government and law; now he sympathized with the lawbreakers. In defying society and deliberately violating its statutes, he had allied himself with its enemies.

This he realized and accepted. At any moment he might be called upon to face a criminal prosecution for the felony of mutilation; and there was still the peculiar and inexplicable silence of Flaggs in regard to the papers which he had taken away with him on the morning after the murder. No word had ever passed between them on the subject, and yet the notes were outstanding and in the hands of a more dangerous holder than even Lord Russell himself. By merely handing them to the executors, Flaggs could not only throw Sir Richard into bankruptcy, but could place him in the awkward position of having suppressed the notes at the time of Lord Russell's death. That, too, would lead to a still further and more delicate complication. He would naturally be asked how he had secured possession of the notes. It would be clear that they were in Lord Russell's hands at the time of the murder. Flaggs would explain that he had procured them from Sir Richard. So far as he was concerned, he had been safely "jugged" at the time of the murder. He could call a score of sergeants, matrons, and bobbies to prove that, and establish it by the police records themselves. Where, then, people would want to know, had Sir Richard obtained them? It would be a hard question to answer in such a way that the answer would carry any sort of conviction with it.

No one, of course, would believe that he had found them, as in fact was the case. Any such explanation would excite instant suspicion. If he should say that he had paid them and had received the notes from Lord Russell's lawyers, inquiry would at once demonstrate that the lawyers had never had possession of the notes, or received any money from Sir Richard. If he said that he had taken the money to Lord Russell and received the notes from him, his own evidence would place him upon the scene of the murder at approximately the moment of it. Further, no draft in payment of the notes would be found among Lord Russell's papers, and the suspicion would immediately arise that he had proffered a forged draft to secure possession of the notes, and then murdered the old man to get it back.

It was indeed a predicament of the worst sort. In Sir Richard the horrible unfairness of it bred a hatred for a society in which such things were possible. He looked at any moment to find himself made the defendant in a criminal prosecution, just or unjust—the unjust the more difficult of the two to escape. He needed money—money to fight with, money to live on, money to keep up his hollow pretense of respectability. And as his attitude toward society gradually changed, the dead-alive thing at his wrist with the white seam throbbed and itched until Mortmain longed fiercely to tear it off. At night he would dream—and this dream repeated itself over and over again—that he was fastened to some miserable convict, shackled by the wrist in such a way that somehow they two had grown together, and as he struggled in his sleep his fellow would turn into the grinning, jeering image of Flaggs—Flaggs fastened to him by a bond of burning, itching flesh—Flaggs joined to him like a Siamese twin, flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood—until by some unnatural evolution he became Flaggs and could see his own wretched shape writhing at the other end of their mutual arm. Then shaking, chilled, and covered with perspiration he would awake and look for Flaggs beside him, and hold his hand to the blue night-light only to find the seam about his wrist and the dead-white hand throbbing until he thought he should go mad.

By day he was haunted by the vision of Flaggs watching his house and following him along the streets. He could not get the fellow out of his mind. This terror of the drunken clerk became a positive obsession. As he walked the streets or drove in his brougham through the park he was constantly planning out what he should say when they should finally come together—when Flaggs should call for him, summon him as his own. Could he defy him? Could he palliate him? The hand twitched at the thought of it. He fancied that Flaggs followed him everywhere in various disguises, running swiftly behind, dodging into doorways and up side streets when he turned around. And this habit of turning around and glancing furtively up and down grew on Sir Richard, and with it grew the itching in his hand, until he suspected that people shook their heads and said that his illness had undermined his health more than they had supposed.

It was no bodily illness that thus affected Sir Richard, but spiritual degeneration. He went from dinner party to dinner party and from musicale to musicale, paying court to Lady Bella Forsythe as if no grotesque face were peering from behind the arras of his brain. Yet in reality he was preparing to meet Flaggs in the final struggle for supremacy. Flaggs, like death and the tax man, was coming—when? He could not tell, but inevitably. And he must be ready, armed cap-a-pie to meet him on every ground. He had at last resolved to marry Lady Bella. It was an essential in his campaign to defeat Flaggs. There must be plenty of money—money, that was what he needed, what he wanted. It was partly for Lady Bella that he had planned his musical entertainment, for, in addition to its practical desirability, if he purposed to retain his position in the social world, it would afford an excellent opportunity for presenting himself to her as a person worthy of her own high station and acquaintance. His own music—! Alas! the brain was willing, but the fingers were powerless. Where before he had produced the most delicate of harmonies there now resulted nothing but harsh discords. The hand would not stretch an octave!

The Milbank Street house blazed into the early evening with a thousand lights. All day long wagons of roses and asters had stood before the doors, and aproned men had staggered into the hall with pots of flowers and stands of palms. Confectioners' wagons, loads of camp chairs, and now a large awning were the indubitable evidences of what was afoot. Night came on. The white cloth on the carpet across the sidewalk was trampled to a dirty gray. The orchestra began to arrive, and, shedding their coats in the servants' entrance, toiled up the back stairs and tentatively made their way through the flower-banked halls to the conservatory. Sir Richard sitting in his den and awaiting the arrival of his first guests could hear the musicians tuning their basses and testing the wood winds. But there was no music in Sir Richard's soul. All day long he had been haunted by the ghost of Flaggs scuttling behind him, and his hand had seemed swollen and discolored. Well, if he could but get through the night, could succeed in his suit with Lady Bella, he would go away and rest. Perhaps he would leave London forever—Lady Bella was very fond of Rome. The sounds of the instruments grew more confused and louder, the violins mingling with the others. Occasionally the trombones would boom out and the kettles rumble ominously. Outside splashes of rain began to fall against the windows, and the wind, catching in the hollow column of the awning, swept into the halls and through the open door into the den. Mortmain looked at his watch and found it was ten o'clock. People would be arriving soon. His hand twitched and he lighted a cigarette. There was a great deal of traffic in the front hall—too much. He closed the door and poured out a thimbleful of brandy. Well, a day or two and he would be rid of Flaggs forever! Then he heard a low knock. He tried to cheat himself into the belief that it was Joyce.

"Come in," he cried, but his voice was husky.

Flaggs stood before him.

"I have been expecting you," said Mortmain. It did not seem strange that he should make this declaration.

"Yes?" queried Flaggs.

"What do you want?" demanded the baronet.

"Ten thousand pounds," answered the clerk. "To-morrow."

Mortmain broke into a harsh laugh.

"Ha! my good fellow! What do you think I am—a Crœsus? Come, come, I'll give you fifty—and I get the notes, eh?"

"Ten thousand pounds," repeated Flaggs stubbornly, "by to-morrow noon, or I hand you over to the police."

The blood jumped into Sir Richard's face and his dexter hand throbbed and tingled.

"You miserable rascal!" he cried. "You wretched blackmailer! How dare you come into my house? Do you know that I could kill you? And no one would ever be the wiser! Take a few pounds and be off with you or I'll summon the police myself."

"Not so fast, not so fast, Sir Richard," muttered Flaggs. "I don't think you'll call the police."

The look on the white scowling face before him told Sir Richard that the fellow meant to do his business. A haunting fear seized hold upon him like that which he had experienced in the depot wagon—a feeling that behind this grotesque, dwarfed figure of a man lurked the hand of Fate.

"That's right. Be reasonable," said Flaggs soothingly. "Some folks would think ten thousand pounds was cheap to escape the gallows," he added in lower tones.

"Gallows!" cried Sir Richard, his anger rising. He knew the fellow's game now. He was being lied to. Flaggs was trying to frighten, to bully him. "The gallows, my friend, ceased to be the punishment for felony in 1826—even for blackmail!"

"But not for murder," retorted Flaggs with a ghastly smile. "Not for murder!"

"Enough of this!" exclaimed Sir Richard, but his knees were trembling. "Here are a hundred pounds. Go!" He put his hand to his breast pocket.

Flaggs laughed.

"Look!" he cried, pulling from the lining of his hat a printed slip which he unfolded and handed to the baronet.

Mortmain took it in dread and held it to the light.

"Murder in the first degree defined.

"The taking of the life of a human being by another with malice prepense or in the commission of a felony."

The last six words were underlined in red ink.

"Well?" he asked, but the word stuck in his throat.

"Well?" returned the other. "It's plain enough, isn't it? What more do you want?"

"It is not plain, you blackguard."

"Maiming is a felony. You know that. Amputation is maiming. Flynt told you so. The fellow that sold you that hand of yours died of it, didn't he?"

Mortmain uttered an exclamation of horror. He looked down at the fearful thing and it seemed to him to be the color of death. "They can never prove it!" he cried faintly. "They can't prove it! They cannot!"

"Yes, they can! I saw it done," remarked Flaggs. "I saw him buried in the garden. He is there yet—minus his hand."

"You villain!" gasped Mortmain. The room reeled, and Flaggs danced before him, gibbering with glee. The light darkened and brightened again and seemed to swing in circles.

"Pull yourself together, Sir Richard!" remarked Flaggs mockingly. "Pull yourself together! Isn't it worth ten thousand pounds or one hundred thousand pounds? But I'm reasonable. Only ten thousand pounds! Come, come! Let me have it!"

"No!" shouted Mortmain. "Not if I die for it."

"Then you will die for it," said Flaggs.

The sound of the fiddles came through the closed door of the study. The cries of the lackeys and the roll of carriages arriving and departing could be heard in the front.

"You will die for it, as there is a God in heaven, if I choose!"

Mortmain stood silent. He had a presentiment of what Flaggs was going to say.

"A word from me," continued the clerk, "and you hang for the murder of Lord Russell. Everyone knows you hated him. Flynt, Joyce, and I heard you say you would kill him. You owed him seventy-five thousand pounds and it was two days overdue. He would have ruined you next day. The officer saw you outside his window within five minutes of the murder, and so did I. There was nothing taken but the notes—nothing. They were found in your possession the next morning. How did they get there? The case is complete. The notes convict you. I've got them. They are yours for ten thousand pounds—only ten thousand pounds."

"You villain," shouted Mortmain, springing toward him.

The door from the hall opened and Joyce entered letting in the warm breath of roses and the loud strains of a waltz.

"Lady Bella has arrived, Sir Richard," he announced.

"Tell her I am coming," said Mortmain, starting for the door.

"Wait!" shrieked Flaggs, his face horribly distorted. "Wait!" Joyce had retired.

Mortmain paused with clinched fists.

"Isn't it worth ten thousand pounds to save a guilty man—a man who can't escape?"

"Why, you fool!" cried Mortmain, suddenly regaining his self-control. "Such evidence is valueless. My word is worth yours ten times over, and I deny that you found the notes in my house. I say that you are the murderer. And I believe you are!"

"Not so fast! Not so fast!" leered Flaggs. "You know I was 'in quod' at the time. Don't forget that! And there's one more bit of evidence that nails you. You can't escape. You're done. I've got you—the murderer's thumb marks on the glass!"

"The devil take you!" yelled Mortmain, the blood suffusing his eyes.

"The devil has you already!" retorted Flaggs. "He's part of you. You are the devil. Whose hand is that? Tell me that! Whose hand is that?"

Mortmain turned an agonized face toward his tormentor. His spirit was gone. He was ready to fall upon his knees, but he could not move. He raised his left hand pitifully as if to shield himself from the coming blow, and yet his parched lips uttered the soundless word:

"Whose?"

Flaggs gave a dry laugh.

"It belonged to Saunders Leach!"

With a sickening of the heart the baronet realized for the first time the terrible alternative which confronted him.

His selfish willingness to violate the law and mutilate a fellow human being merely to gratify his own vanity had plunged him into an abyss from which there seemed no escape. "Murder in the first degree defined: the taking of the life of a human being by another with malice prepense or in the commission of a felony." By a cruel yet extraordinary chance he, the needless yet deliberate lawbreaker, had purchased the very hand which had slain his enemy—from the murderer himself, who was only too anxious to get rid of it. By an equally hideous but astonishing coincidence this devil's contract had proved in fact the death warrant of the murderer, and Mortmain had been his involuntary executioner. Saunders Leach had paid the penalty of his crime, but Mortmain carried dangling at the end of his dexter forearm the living evidence that he, and not Leach, was the assassin. The coil of the rope of fate, at one end of which hung the limp body of the common criminal, had fallen upon the neck of his aristocrat brother, and it needed but a word from Flaggs to send him spinning from the gallows. Should he seek to show that the finger prints upon the window of Lord Russell's library were not his own, and by this means to creep from beneath the meshes of the net of circumstantial evidence in which he was entangled, he would, in the same breath, be forced to confess that he was guilty of the murder of Saunders Leach—murder, as the result of the latter's mutilation—murder under the literal interpretation of the statute. Was ever rat so nicely trapped? The horror of the thing turned Mortmain into a madman. He sprang at the clerk in a delirium of rage, his right hand clutched Flaggs tightly by the throat, and its blunt fingers twisted into the flesh deeper and deeper. It was done so quickly that the clerk was unable to escape. His eyes started forward, his tongue protruded, and his mouth frothed as he made ineffectual attempts to break the baronet's hold.

"You've got me, eh?" muttered Mortmain, gritting his teeth. "I think not, Mr. Flaggs!"

The door opened and Joyce entered in much agitation. The orchestra had burst into a triumphant march and the sounds of many footsteps echoed in the hall outside.

"Everybody is arrivin', Sir Richard!" exclaimed the butler, "an' Lady Bella has gone into the music room. His Grace of Belvoir was just askin' for you. Here are two gentlemen who wish to see you important, sir." He held the door open and two men in Inverness coats entered and stood irresolutely near the door.

Mortmain released his grasp upon the neck of Flaggs, who lurched toward the corner and fell motionless behind a table.

"Sir Richard Mortmain?" inquired the taller of the two, a man of massive build and with iron-gray mustache and hair.

"The same," replied Mortmain, his fingers still twitching from the ferocity of his clutch upon the clerk.

The two strangers bowed.

"We have a card to you from Lieutenant Foraker—a friend of yours, I believe. Permit me," and the tall man stepped forward and extended a card to the baronet.

Mortmain mechanically took it between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. It felt like celluloid and a trifle slippery. But the stranger did not release his own hold upon it.

"Pardon me, I have given you the wrong card," he exclaimed apologetically, and withdrawing the bit of board from Mortmain's fingers he opened a wallet and fumbled with the contents. As he did so he handed the first card to his companion, who stepped into the light of the lamp, and examined it carefully through a small microscope which he drew from his pocket.

"His blunt fingers twisted into the flesh deeper and deeper."

"They are the same," remarked the stranger of the microscope to the iron-gray man.

"What is all this?" cried Mortmain in an unnatural voice. His head swam. On the mantel the verdigris-covered dragon's face grinned mockingly at him—it was the face of Flaggs.

"Sir Richard," replied the iron-gray man gravely, "I am Inspector Murtha, of Scotland Yard."

Mortmain started back and his right hand twitched again. Through the silence came the measures of "The Flower Song."

"I regret to say," continued the other, "that it is my most unpleasant duty to arrest you for the murder of Lord Gordon Russell."

At the same instant the veil of Sir Richard's mental temple was rent in twain; out of a blackness so intense that it seemed substantive he saw the two inspectors from Scotland Yard fleeing away and diminishing in size until they seemed but puppets gesturing at the edge of an infinity of white desert; then with equal velocity they were carried forward again, growing bigger and bigger until they loomed like giants in his immediate foreground swinging huge scimitars and waving their arms frantically; the strains of the violins changed to voices shouting so sharply that they pained his ears, and waves of light and cosmic darkness over which scintillated a dazzling aurora followed one another in startling succession, until suddenly his soul, shot out of a tunnel, as it were, landed abruptly in a warm meadow covered with daisies, which dissolved before his eyes into the familiar chamber on Milbank Street. A gray mist floated hissing up through the ceiling, the chairs rocked with a strange rotary swing, and the two inspectors smiled cheerfully at him through a broad and painful band of London sunshine. He swallowed rapidly, and a horrible faintness seized him which gave place to a queer sort of anger.

"There's—some—mistake!" he stuttered. The chairs anchored themselves and the ceiling assumed its normal tint.

"No mistake at all," replied Sir Penniston Crisp.

The problem was too much for the baronet and he gave it up. The murderer's hand no longer twitched, but it loomed white and loathsome from the bed before him, as if dead already, somehow—part of a—yes—what were those things? Bandages?

Crisp and Jermyn saw a look of agonized bewilderment pass over the baronet's face.

"Did they bring me here from the Old Bailey?" he asked. "Am I out on bail?"

Crisp laughed.

"That's one way of putting it," he remarked. "Yes, you're out on bail, and in another second or two you will be entirely free."

"I'm glad you're going to take that thing off again," said Mortmain. "How could you have done it?"

"It's all right," returned Crisp soothingly.

Then Mortmain suddenly understood. But he waited shrewdly.

"What day is this?" he asked in an innocent manner.

"December 5th," replied Jermyn.

"When did I have that fall; you know—the one that made it necessary for you to amputate?"

"Your accident happened yesterday evening, but there is no necessity for amputation," returned Crisp. "Now, my dear fellow, just lie back, will you?—and don't ask questions. That somni-chloride is still lingering in your head. I shall have to be going in a minute."

Mortmain obeyed the surgeon's instructions, but he was hard at work thinking the thing out logically. It was clear that there had been no amputation, no arrest, no inspectors from Scotland Yard. That scene with Flaggs, horribly distinct as it still was, had had no actuality. But where did fact end and illusion begin? Had the notes been taken? Had there been a murder? Was he a bankrupt? The different propositions entangled themselves helplessly with one another. At the end of a minute he asked deliberately:

"Miss Fickles, did a man take some papers from my table this morning?"

"Yes, Sir Richard," replied the nurse.

Mortmain's heart sank.

"Er—was—did anything happen to Lord Russell?" he asked the surgeon faintly.

"Yes. But don't talk or think of it, Mortmain. I order you! Do you understand?"

A ripple of perspiration broke out on his forehead and it seemed as if a film had rolled off his vision. Of course, he had taken the chloride just after Miss Fickles had gone downstairs for him, and then Crisp and Jermyn had come. He had felt so miserable! And now he felt so much better! He opened his eyes, the same Sir Richard that had inhaled the anæsthetic so obediently.

"I am quite myself now, Sir Penniston," he asserted quietly. "I want to ask one more question. Flynt was not here, was he?"

"No, of course not."

"And we have not left the room? No railroad trip, eh?"

"No."

"Thank you," said the baronet. "May I have a cup of coffee?"

What reply this preposterous demand would have invited will never be known, for at that moment a knock came upon the door and Joyce asked if Sir Richard could see Mr. Flynt.

"I must see him!" said Mortmain.

"Oh, very well!" laughed Crisp. "You're getting better rapidly."

Flynt entered with a breezy manner which he allowed himself to assume only when something really desirable had definitely occurred.

"Good morning, Sir Penniston! Good morning, Sir Richard!" he remarked without sitting down. "I really had to come in and tell you the good news. The executors have just read Lord Russell's will——"

"Mr. Flynt! Mr. Flynt!" interrupted Sir Penniston.

"Oh, it's all right!" continued Flynt with a laugh. "Better than a tonic. You see, Fowler, the only next of kin, was just sailing for New Guinea, and it had to be done at once. I really did Lord Russell an injustice. May I speak before these gentlemen?"

"Certainly," whispered Mortmain, his eyes fastened feverishly upon the lawyer.

"Well, to put it briefly, he has made you a great gift! Here, read it!" and he handed the baronet a typewritten sheet. Mortmain read it eagerly, although his eyes pained him somewhat:

"To my friend, Sir Richard Mortmain, I devise and bequeath the sum of five thousand pounds, and take it upon myself to express the earnest hope that he will before long publish his views upon art in such a form that the public at large may have the opportunity to profit by that which hitherto has been the privilege only of the few. I desire, moreover, to express my high personal regard for him and my admiration for his whole-souled devotion to the arts, and I hereby instruct my executors to cancel and destroy all evidences of indebtedness owing to me by said Mortmain and to treat said indebtedness as null, void and of no effect, provided, nevertheless, that within six months of my demise said Mortmain shall assign to the directors of the Corporation of the British Museum all his collections of ceramics, bronzes, china, chronometers, scarabs, including the Howard Collection, his cabinets of gems and cameos, including the famous head of Alexander on an onyx of two strata and the altissimo relievo on cornelian—Jupiter Ægiochus—the four paintings by Watteau in his music room, and the paintings by Corot and Whistler from his library. As the said moneys borrowed from me from time to time by said Mortmain were, to my knowledge, principally made use of by him for the purpose of purchasing and enlarging said collections, which have increased in value to no inconsiderable extent by virtue of his care and discrimination since he acquired them, I am prepared to regard said loans to him in effect as gifts impressed with a trust in favor of our National Museum, provided, however, that said Mortmain is willing to accept the same and execute the terms thereof as heretofore set forth within six months; but nothing herein shall be taken to affect the right of said Mortmain to take up and pay off said indebtedness within said time, if he shall see fit to do so, in which case the provisions of this codicil shall be without any force or effect whatsoever, save that I instruct my executors to receive said moneys and hold the same in trust, however, for such scientific and artistic uses as said Mortmain shall direct, preference being given to the needs of the British Museum along the lines of antique works of art and Egyptology."

As Sir Richard laid down the paper his eyes filled and he turned away his head.

"A good old man!" said Flynt reverently.

"Indeed he was!" assented Crisp.

"I must know one thing," whispered Mortmain after a few moments. "Did you send your clerk here this morning to get some papers?"

"Yes, to be sure. I had almost forgotten—I sent Flaggs after an envelope which I fancied I dropped last evening," answered the lawyer.

"Which you had dropped?" asked Mortmain stupidly.

"Why, certainly. I had the papers connected with Lord Russell's loans sent here. Flaggs brought 'em—and I dropped an envelope. I did drop it, because Flaggs found it here this morning."

"What was in it?" asked Sir Richard eagerly.

Flynt elevated his brows.

"Why, if you don't mind my speaking of it, there were some old notes of yours which had been renewed at various times. I make a practice of keeping the originals as a matter of precaution."

"Oh!" sighed Mortmain. "Old notes?"

"Old notes," answered Flynt. "Notes taken up and renewed by others."

"Ah!" sighed Mortmain again. "You did drop them, but not in the study. I found them on the street. They gave me quite a turn."

"Well, we will tear them up now," laughed Flynt.

"Pardon me, sir," said Joyce, opening the door and handing a long box to Miss Fickles; "some roses with Lady Bella Forsythe's compliments, and 'opin' as 'ow you'll soon be all right again, sir."