LIONEL HARVEY TURNED OVER THE card with fingers that trembled slightly. There was nothing that he hated more than being disturbed in his study hours, when he was on one of his stories, and he had given strict orders that he was not to be disturbed.
The maid stammered something in the way of an apology. “I—I’m very sorry, sir,” she said. “But the lady seemed so disappointed when I told her that you never saw anybody in the morning. She said it was a matter of life and death, that she must see you, that you would be angry if she went away, and—and, sir, she is such a beautiful young lady.”
“I know that,” Harvey said, absently. “Seeing that—but no matter. Did she ask for me by name or under my pseudonym of Rodney Payne?”
“Well, sir, she called you Mr. Payne. And, of course, I knew she meant you. She said she had managed to get your address from the Daily Record Office. She said, too, that she would be quite a stranger to you.”
Lionel Harvey smiled grimly, yet his eyes were very sad. His hands were trembling again now as he pushed his copy-paper away from him. He half hesitated for a moment, as if struggling with some terrible emotion.
“Very well, Maria,” he said, curtly. “I’ll break my rule for once. Show the lady up.”
There was a timid tap at the door presently, and the slim figure of a girl entered. The maid had made no mistake, the intruder on the privacy of the novelist was certainly very beautiful. One might have called her expression very sweet and spiritual as a rule, but now she was pale and drawn with some great trouble. But nothing could detract from the perfect contour of the features, or dim the liquid blue of those eyes, or take the warm gleam of sunshine from the golden hair.
“I am sure I beg your pardon,” his visitor gasped. “My unaccountable intrusion—Lionel! Mr. Harvey! What does this mean? I imagined that I should find——”
The girl broke off and started back; she laid her hand on her heart; her breast heaved as if she had run fast and far. Then gradually the pink and white confusion of her face gave way to a frosty coldness and disdain. Harvey stood there like a statue. He had the advantage over the girl, for he had known what to expect.
“If I had only known,” the girl murmured—"if I had only known!”
“You would have stayed away, Elsie. I beg your pardon, Miss Armstrong. I would remind you that this interview is no seeking of mine. Probably the maid told you that in no circumstances did I suffer callers in the morning.”
“Oh she did. I came to see Rodney Payne. I had no idea——”
“That the author who calls himself Rodney Payne and your old—lover—Lionel Harvey were one and the same person. I guessed that when your card was brought up to me. It was my impulse to decline to see you. But I am not one of those who forget so easily. I have not succeeded in eradicating from my memory the recollection of the old days. I daresay you regard me as one of those men who deserved little or no consideration at the hands of a woman; and yet, if you knew everything, I am quite certain you would come to the conclusion that your own conduct is not beyond the reach——”
Harvey paused abruptly, and walked up and down the room with impatient strides. He was a great deal more upset by this sudden and dramatic meeting than he would have cared to own, and, manlike, he disguised this feeling as far as possible. He did not notice the shy and timid way in which the girl was looking at him. He did not heed the half-pathetic expression in her eyes. His mind had gone back to the past. He was living certain scenes and situations over again, and yet, though he was striving hard to keep up his coldness, it needed but little on the girl’s part to break down the barriers of his pride had she only known it.
The silence became embarrassing, and at length the girl forced herself to speak. The words came hesitatingly from her lips.
“I hope you do not think,” she said, “that I have any ulterior motive in coming here to-day. You see, it is hardly possible for me to have been aware of the fact that Rodney Payne and my old——”
The girl broke off abruptly, and a vivid crimson stained her face. Harvey guessed what word the girl was going to use, and a bitter smile trembled on his lips.
“Why not finish your sentence?” he said. “Why not be candid? Still, I am quite prepared to believe that you did not know who I was when you came here. You are the same, yet, not the same. You have grown older, but no less beautiful. Remember, I have not——”
“Don’t you think you are speaking beside the point?” Elsie said, coldly. “I was under the impression that all that kind of thing was relegated to the past. I am only sorry to find that I have placed myself in so cruel a position. It is open for you to put the worst construction you like on my conduct. For instance, you might imagine that I came here with some trumped-up story, anything to get an interview with you. After all is said and done, though you disguise yourself under the pseudonym, it is not such a very difficult matter to ascertain the real name of a writer. I beg to tell you that nothing was further from my thoughts.”
“Always suspicious,” Harvey said, bitterly. “With the many beautiful points which I know exist in your character, it seems such a lamentable thing that you should be spoilt by that one little strain of hysterical jealousy. What do you take me for? Do you think because I am a soured and disappointed man that I impute the lowest of motives to all mankind? I don’t wish to blow my own trumpet, but you know that all my life I have always been ready to help others. I would help even my bitterest enemy if he came to me and asked my pardon for the wrong he had done me. I am going to help you now. If I can be of the slightest assistance to you I shall only be too pleased. Your eyes tell me that you have some dreadful trouble. If you will tell me what it is——”
“You are very good,” the girl said, humbly.
“Indeed, I am nothing of the kind,” Harvey went on. “I never could refuse anybody in distress, and you must forgive me if I forgot myself for the moment and alluded to the past. After all, I cannot forget the fact that I have not set eyes on you for two years. And the maid said it was a case of life and death. Elsie, Elsie, if there is anything I can do for you——”
The girl flung out her hands with a passionate gesture. “You are cruel,” she said. “You dare take that tone to me because you know that I am in deep distress. I came here prepared to humiliate myself——”
“But why? You must be perfectly aware that there is nothing I would not do for you. I am not the kind of man to change. We parted two years ago irrevocably. I accepted your decision as final, and bowed to it. But that did not cure me of my passion for you. Because you regarded me as a scoundrel and your brother as an injured man I loved you none the less. I love you just the same, you have the same power over me, Elsie. Oh, you may toss your head in proud scorn, you can turn from me, but the fact remains. And now you have come to me to assist you. What call I do?”
“I came to see Rodney Payne. How could I know that you were Rodney Payne! And yet if I had known I should have been compelled to come all the same. To come and stand here and let you insult me with words of love. If you had any feeling——”
“Stop! I have had enough of this. I was learning to forget, to be resigned, when you forced yourself on me in this fashion. Do I look like a liar?”
Elsie Armstrong turned her eyes upon the stern, clear-cut face, with its fine chin and clean-shaven, sensitive mouth. It was not precisely a handsome face, but it was a good one, and the eyes were pleasantly grey and honest. Elsie had not forgotten him in the old days. Children and dogs had always come quite naturally to Lionel Harvey.
“You—you don’t,” she admitted, grudgingly. “You never did. But I am merely wasting your time with these idle recriminations. What I want to know is why you are persecuting us in this way. At first I could not understand it at all. You see I did not know who Rodney Payne was. I was reading the serial story by ‘Rodney Payne’ at present appearing in the Daily Record, and it struck me that the author must know my brother and myself. His description of Dick was exact, his likeness of me a little flattering, but there were touches that enabled me to identify myself.”
“But what has all this to do with your visit here?”
“Oh, I am coming to that in good time. As the Daily Record story developed so it grew on me. I was forced to the conclusion that the author knew both Dick and myself. Certain reference to discreditable episodes in my brother’s past was made in the story. Then he escapes from a great danger, and finally becomes secretary to a newly-made nobleman, who is the possessor of a vast fortune. That is exactly what has happened to Dick. The peer in the story has a lovely daughter, and the secretary falls in love with her. That is precisely what has taken place in Dick’s case!”
“Really!” Harvey murmured. “It is a rather remarkable coincidence.”
“Coincidence! Do you ask me to believe that? But I have not gone far enough. It becomes pressingly necessary for the bold young secretary to procure a large sum of money to replace some which he has lost on the turf. He has forged a certain signature, and unless the money is forthcoming to cover the forgery he is lost. So goes your story, and so goes mine.”
“Oh! Your brother has done that same thing,” Harvey cried. “Well, there is nothing so very remarkable in that. Thousands of young men do the same thing every year. It struck me, too, as quite a commonplace plot when I was writing the story. I might have created something different, but I let it pass. So your brother is in immediate danger of losing his liberty. When I left the firm of Hudson and Co. two years ago there was a cloud over my name. I was suspected of robbing my employers. Had not my father been in the same bank for 40 years I should have been prosecuted. For your sake I refused to clear myself and point, as I could have done, to the real thief. I told you who the real thief was, and you ordered me out of your house. After what you have just told me are you prepared to take your brother’s word in preference to mine still?”
The blue eyes filled with tears. Lionel could see the crystal drops hanging to the long dark lashes. A great wave of pity came over him.
“Forgive me,” he said, gently. “Think how for two years I have suffered. For months I was on the verge of starvation. Until I discovered that I had the trick of imaginative writing I hardly earned my bread. I took the name of Rodney Payne because my story was known to more than one. Perhaps in writing the Record story my imagination was coloured by the recollection of your sweet self; perhaps, unconsciously, I drew my villain from your brother Dick. As to the rest I know nothing.”
“But you must, you are bound to,” Elsie cried. “How could this be mere coincidence? I am prepared to grant you the characters, but the rest is too great a strain upon my credulity. Can you say you didn’t know that my brother had left the bank and taken up the position of secretary to Lord Manningtree? You have described the man, you have drawn an excellent portrait of his daughter, you have even indicated the position in the library where the safe stands—the safe containing his late wife’s famous emerald!”
Lionel started. He was more interested than he cared to say. “I swear to you that it is mere coincidence,” he cried, hotly. “Most of us dramatise the common incidents of life, with crime and cunning to add colour to the picture. These kind of things are happening every day, Elsie. There are scores of serial writers like myself, there are literally hundreds of sensational stories published every year. If you will consider the matter you will see how easy it is to hit upon a chain of events that is happening to somebody. I have heard of Lord Manningtree, of course, but I have never been in his library, and I have no idea that his safe contains his late wife’s emeralds.”
“But you mentioned those jewels in to-day’s instalment of your story,” Elsie Armstrong protested. “You actually speak of the emeralds! You accentuate the fact that the secretary—in other words, my brother Dick—means to get them. In your story there is a certain Kate Bradley, a mysterious, anaemic pensioner of the family. Are you going to make her responsible for the robbery that you foreshadow; and who is she?”
“Really, you try my patience,” Lionel protested. “Did I not tell you that the whole thing was pure fiction and nothing else. Kate Bradley is a mere subordinate character——”
“Who exists in real life,” Elsie interrupted, breathlessly. “I forgot what she is called, but there is a creature just like her who has a place in Lord Manningtree’s household. It is absolutely impossible for me to stand here and believe that——”
“You may believe what you like,” said Lionel, coldly. “I have already explained to you how these things come about. As to the prototype of Kate Bradley——”
“I have not finished,” Elsie went on. “Please hear me to the end. I can’t rid myself of the idea that you know far more than you are prepared to admit. I came to you, Rodney Payne, because you are a clever man, and because you might save me from a great unhappiness. You can get your characters into desperate situations, and you can get them out again. Nobody could do that better than a novelist. If I were a desperate criminal flying from justice, I should go to some writer like yourself and ask him to scheme me an avenue of escape. I would far rather have his advice than that of the greatest detective at Scotland Yard. But it is not for myself that I ask this favour, but for Dick’s sake. In to-day’s instalment of your story you indicate the fact that your nobleman is found in his library half-dead by the side of the safe, the key of which is missing. And here comes the most amazing part of my story. Lord Manningtree——”
“Elsie! For heaven’s sake don’t tell me that he was—was——”
“Found early this morning on the point of death, outstretched in his library before the safe. And the key is missing. That is exactly what I came to say!”
LIONEL HAD NO WORDS TO say for the moment. He was a firm believer in the long arm of coincidence; he had seen too much of it to be a scoffer. Truth is ever stranger than fiction. There are mysteries, rejected of editors as too improbable, which find more than their parallel in the daily press. And yet here was a case that staggered a hardened offender. In his imagination he had actually drawn a series of true happenings. He had finished the story before they began.
“I begin to understand,” he said presently. “You have come to regard the author, Rodney Payne, as a malignant foe who was gloating over your misfortune. And instead of that you find a man who used to be, nay, still is, your lover. Well, that accounts for certain things, but it does not account for everything. As I said before these coincidences frequently happen. They had done so in my case. I once hit upon what I considered to be a fine series of eventful happenings, and I placed them in the form of a long story. I had disposed of the story to a magazine, and it was going to be published, when I was attracted by the title of a dramatic book published by a well-known author. The title suggested my tale. I read the book, and I found that the other man had practically written my story. I don’t think that the editor of that magazine has ever quite forgiven me, and he still cherishes the idea that in some way I picked the brain of the other man. Elsie, can it be that there is anything in the theory of mental telepathy? Could your brother’s brain in some way have communicated his idea and plans to mine? In my story the nobleman’s secretary half-kills his master and steals the gems. And your brother has apparently done this——”
Lionel paused; the stricken misery on Elsie’s face forced him to silence. He had a shrewd idea of what was uppermost in her mind. She did not know what to think or how to act. She had come to him, half to save her, half to ask his advice.
“My mind is in a ferment,” she said. “I half anticipated some attempt at blackmail on the part of Rodney Payne. He seemed to know so much of our doings, he seemed to take a malignant pleasure in letting me know that he was in advance of our ideas. And when I had a telegram from Dick this morning telling me what had happened, I could not contain myself any longer. I was bound to see this Rodney Payne without delay. For the sake of old times you will help us, you will try to get to the bottom of the mystery?”
“It looks as if we had already done so,” Lionel said, sadly. “After what you have told me about your brother, after what I know——”
“Yes, yes. My eyes have been opened lately. It is a terrible thing. But I am sure that Dick had nothing to do with this outrage. He has fallen deeply and sincerely in love with Gladys Manningtree. For her sake he was going to do better. Of course, Lord Manningtree knew nothing of this; the engagement was a secret from him. You may argue that the whole business is slightly irregular, and I am not going to disagree with you. After reading your fiction, and studying the extraordinary parallel facts, I have come to a certain conclusion. You may laugh at me, but there it is. Now, in the story still to be finished, do you make the secretary steal the jewels?”
“No, I don’t,” Lionel admitted, with a faint smile. “My idea has been to keep up the mystery that surrounds the character of the girl Kate Bradley.”
“Oh, I knew it, I knew it!” Elsie cried. “I thought that that anaemic woman was going to develop strangely. I have felt it from the first. What an extraordinary medley it all is—the jumbling together of fact and fiction. I am glad that I came to you now, Lionel, more glad than I can say. Supposing that the prototype of Kate Bradley, Lord Manningtree’s pensioner, I mean, reads the Record story as well as other people. There is no reason why she should not do so. Don’t you think that she would have felt nervous and anxious and frightened, as I have done the last few days?”
“Very likely she would, if she had a conscience, Elsie. My dear girl, you have interested me in spite of myself. The study of criminology has always had a certain fascination for me. These disclosures of yours appeal to me personally. I am going to devote myself to the case. I am going to act on your suggestion—I am going to try and get you out of the mess. There is no reason why the imaginative novelist should not beat the detectives. We will suppose for a moment that your brother is innocent——”
“Oh! he is, Lionel. I can prove that at once. He was in London last night, he only went back to Manningtree Hall by the early mail his morning.”
“If he can prove that there is an end of the mystery as far as we are concerned.”
A shade of anxiety crossed Elsie’s pretty face. “I hope he won’t be asked,” she whispered. “He was not supposed to be in London. He came up in a secret way. Oh! I can’t tell you why, I promised not to.”
“Promised that you would not tell me?” Lionel asked.
“Tell anybody. Do not forget the fact that you—as you—had not entered into my calculations an hour ago. But you may take my definite assurance for it that Dick was not in the house at the time of that tragedy. He had nothing to do with it.”
“Which proves nothing,” Lionel said, thoughtfully. “He might have had the emeralds all the same. And there is a new danger that you have not considered. You were wondering if the alter ego of my Kate Bradley has read my story. If she has, and if she has anything to do with the tragedy, she would make suspicion point to your brother if she was a woman of that kind. On the whole I shall make it my business to meet this creature.”
“I had not thought of that,” Elsie said, with a pale face.
“Still,” Lionel went on, “if the worst comes to the worst, Dick must tell the truth at all hazards and clear himself. Already an idea has occurred to me. I feel as if I was making up a new story which fascinated me. Where are you staying?”
“I am still at the old place.” Elsie explained. “If you want to see me——”
“I will call. I will come and see you to-morrow night at half-past ten. It is a little late, but I have much to do in the meantime, Elsie. I am glad you came; I am glad to find that you are mistaken in ‘Rodney Payne.’ A little later, perhaps——”
Lionel checked the warm words that rose to his tongue. But Elsie understood, for her face flushed a dainty pink and her blue eyes sought the floor.
“I am detaining you,” she said, coldly. “I have stayed too long already.”
Lionel said no more; he felt, perhaps, that the time was not ripe for it. He sat and mused for a long time after Elsie had gone, and, on the whole, his reflections were not pleasant ones. Then, gradually, the extraordinary story that the girl had told took a grip on him. There was a fascination about it that precluded all idea of further work. He began fitting the pieces of the puzzle together, and then gradually the way to the solution of the problem came to him.
He took a hearty lunch and walked off immediately to the office of the Daily Record. The news editor, who was previously responsible for the story page, was in, and ready to see his visitor. Lionel’s explanation was brief and to the point.
“I want to make a slight alteration or two in the instalment of my story for to-morrow There is a little discrepancy I have discovered, not much in itself, but it may be spotted by some lynx-eyed reader, who will write you on the matter.”
“I know ‘em,” the editor growled. “Make the alterations if you like. I shall be glad of it. I’ll ask Morris to bring down the copy of the story that was given out to-day. You can sit at that desk and work it out at your leisure.”
The work did not take long; it was merely a few words added by a cunning hand, but it entirely altered the “curtain” of the instalment. The Record always insisted upon a strong “curtain” at the end of each portion of their serials, and it seemed to Lionel that he had added to the strength of his story. With a few words of apology he turned to leave the office. He began to feel pretty sure of his ground now; he had only to wait in patience for a day or so.
“By the way, there was a lady asking for you to-day,” the editor said. “An exceedingly pretty girl, too. You might have been a long-lost brother by her anxiety. I told her that we did not give the names of our writers in a general way, but she looked at me so pleadingly that I couldn’t resist. I hope you didn’t mind my giving her your address?”
“Not at all,” Harvey said, coolly. “As a matter of fact, the young lady in question is an old friend of mine, whom I had lost sight of for some time. She called on me to-day.”
“Well, that’s all right,” the editor said, cheerfully. “We had a letter, too, to-day from a lady in Essex who desired your address. Said she was a relative of yours lately from Australia. I sent her a postcard. If you get a begging letter from somewhere in Essex, blame me. I’m afraid that I chucked the letter into the waste-paper basket.”
Lionel went on his way, without giving further thought to the matter. He was pretty used by this time to getting letters from strangers by post asking for all kinds of things, from his advice on a manuscript to a request for an autograph. He had no time to ponder over these things now, he was far too busy for that. He decided to put away his work for the next day or two, and devote himself to the mystery that surrounded the assault on the Earl of Manningtree. The papers that came out late were full of the mystery. The noble victim was not dead—indeed, strong hopes of his recovery were held—but he was still unconscious and likely to remain so for some time longer. Nobody could say whether or not robbery was the motive; nothing appeared to be missing, but the safe was locked and the key was gone. Till the Earl grew better it was impossible for any definite steps to be taken.
Lionel went down to New Scotland Yard, but he could learn nothing new there.
He was bound to admit that he had not made much progress as he walked back to his rooms about ten o’clock the following night. He was going to call upon Elsie presently, but there was something he had to do first. He took his latchkey from his pocket, knowing that already his prim landlady and the prim maid had gone to bed. As there were no other lodgers, Lionel was surprised to find a key in the door. He was surprised also to see the landing gas was lighted, and that the pin-point of flame had been turned up in his room. A woman passed him hurriedly on the stairs, a young woman with a veil over her face. She was poorly dressed, but Lionel did not fail to note the valuable rings on her slim hands.
“May I ask,” he began, “whether or not you have made——”
“It is all right,” the stranger said. She did not stop to explain. “I—I used to lodge here. I came to see Mrs.—Mrs.——I used my old latchkey. I’ll leave it in the door. You will please give it to the landlady to-morrow. I shall miss my train.”
The slim figure flitted away before Lionel could say any more. He came back after closing the front door and wondered what it meant. On his table lay a flat box, and on the top of it a note addressed to himself. The note, was short, only a few lines:
“For heaven’s sake cease to persecute me. If you knew my story you would pity me. Take these and keep silent. They are worth a queen’s ransom.”
Hastily Lionel tore the cover off the box. As the light flashed on the contents he staggered back.
“As I’m alive, the Manningtree emeralds!” he cried, hoarsely. “The gems from the safe! What a story—if you could only get an editor to believe it!”
BEYOND DOUBT LIONEL HARVEY WAS holding in his hand the Manningtree emeralds. He was no particular judge of such things, but even his untrained eye could see no flaw in these shimmering, shining stones. But why had they been sent to him like this? Why had the thief made so strong an appeal to him to keep silence? These jewels had been offered to him as a bribe.
Lionel sat himself down to think it all out. The motive by which the thief had been inspired became clear presently. Evidently more than one person had been reading the serial story in the Daily Record, evidently more than one person had appreciated the similarity between the story and the course of current events taking place at Manningtree Hall.
“I have succeeded in fairly frightening my prey,” Lionel told himself. “It must have been the alteration in yesterday’s instalment of the story that did it. Upon my word, I have a very great mind to go down to Manningtree to-morrow and investigate for myself. As I said before, what a story this would make! And yet one reads more extraordinary stories every day in the papers.”
There was nothing more to be done for the present, and Lionel decided to sleep on it. When he came down to breakfast the following morning he found that a letter from the editor of the Daily Record awaited him. Would he go round to the office in the course of the afternoon? The request somewhat interfered with the plan that Harvey had laid out for himself, but Hilton was a power whom it was impossible to disregard. And Harvey was a journalist as well as an author of fiction. For once Hilton had abandoned his studiously calm manner. He seemed quite excited about something.
“Sorry to worry you,” he said, “but there’s a little thing that needs explaining. The matter was pointed out to me late last night. Do you know anything of Lord Manningtree?”
Lionel started and hesitated. There was no reason why he should tell Hilton anything.
“Only by name,” he said. “He was made a peer the other day to the general surprise of most people, who regarded him as a mere city man who had made a large fortune in mines, or something of that kind.”
“We know all that,” Hilton said, impatiently. “I mean as to the inner life of the man. Do you happen to know his niece personally or his secretary?”
There was no fencing the question any longer. Hilton’s eyes fairly burnt behind his gold-rimmed pince-nez. Nothing could be gained by concealment.
“I was not aware that he had a niece,” Lionel replied. “The secretary I knew because I was at school with him, and afterwards we were together in the same bank. But I only knew the day before yesterday that Richard Armstrong was Lord Manningtree’s secretary.”
“Very strange,” Hilton murmured. “But perhaps I had better tell you what I am driving at. Your story in our paper exactly forecasted the tragedy at Manningtree. It reads as if you know all the parties, and were in a position to say what was going to happen. There is the body in the library before the safe; there is the hint that the secretary could tell a story if he liked; there is the missing key of the safe, a safe which by jove! was supposed to contain emeralds. And what happens in your story in to-day’s issue? Why, the safe is opened and the emeralds are gone! I took the trouble to look up the page of ‘copy’ that you altered yesterday, and I find that you have fitted the whole thing closer and closer into the crime. And yet you stand there and tell me that you know nothing whatever about Lord Manningtree!”
Hilton’s voice had grown cold and suspicious. Lionel began to see that it would be necessary for him to speak. He fenced up to the point by asking if Hilton regarded him as in any way responsible for the matter under discussion.
“Well, not directly,” the editor said. “But you can hardly expect me to believe that there is nothing more or less than coincidence in this. And, besides, you can help the paper; which brings me to my point. This crime has become a popular sensation. It has caught on with the British public. They are thirsty for any details, and Lord Manningtree is not in a position as yet to throw any light on the matter. He was brought up last night by road, on a specially quiet car, so that his case could be properly gone into in a hospital—X-rays, and all that kind of thing, such apparatus as could not be taken into the country. I have two special men down in Essex getting all the news they can. I’ve just had a wire to say that the key of the safe has been found, and that the safe has been opened in the presence of his lordship’s lawyer. Now, I wonder if you can guess what was discovered inside the safe?”
“Probably nothing,” Lionel smiled. “You are going to tell me that the emeralds are gone.”
“Well, it does not require any vast amount of cleverness to guess that,” Hilton went on. “The emeralds have vanished—just the same as they vanish in your story. Suspicion at once attaches to the people who are most nearly connected with his lordship’s household. I am speaking, of course, of the niece or the secretary. On the whole, it is the most extraordinary complication that I ever came in contact with, and, unless I am greatly mistaken, you are in a position to solve the thing right away. Is not that so?”
“Well, it may be,” Harvey admitted, guardedly. “But I tell you frankly that I am not going to stand here and be bullied into a confession that I have overstepped the bounds of fiction and given you a story that is taken from real life. That kind of thing is very dangerous, as I knew to my cost. Not so very long ago, I used some singular incidents that were told me by a friend, and found out afterwards that I had given great pain to some perfectly innocent people, who were suffering also from pecuniary loss owing to my unfortunate use of the facts. The whole thing proved somewhat expensive in the long run, and cost me a great deal more money than I could well afford. I am not very likely——”