? ? ? ? " 'You horrify me, Trevor!' I cried. 'What then could have been in this letter to cause so dreadful a result?'
? ? ? ? " 'Nothing. There lies the inexplicable part of it. The message was absurd and trivial. Ah, my God, it is as I feared!'
? ? ? ? "As he spoke we came round the curve of the avenue and saw in the fading light that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we dashed up to the door, my friend's face convulsed with grief, a gentleman in black emerged from it.
? ? ? ? " 'When did it happen, doctor?' asked Trevor.
? ? ? ? " 'Almost immediately after you left.'
? ? ? ? " 'Did he recover consciousness?'
? ? ? ? " 'For an instant before the end.'
? ? ? ? " 'Any message for me?'
? ? ? ? " 'Only that the papers were in the back drawer of the Japanese cabinet.'
? ? ? ? "My friend ascended with the doctor to the chamber of death while I remained in the study, turning the whole matter over and over in my head, and feeling as sombre as ever I had done in my life. What was the past of this Trevor, pugilist, traveller, and gold-digger, and how had he placed himself in the power of this acid-faced seaman? Why, too, should he faint at an allusion to the half-effaced initials upon his arm and die of fright when he had a letter from Fordingham? Then I remembered that Fordingham was in Hampshire, and that this Mr.
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