s that a man treasured more than money; little
tokens of which the clue has died with him; the unfinished work to which
he was coming back, and never came; even the unpaid bills that worried
him; for death transfigures all, and makes the commonplace pathetic."

He stopped for a moment. Westray said nothing, being surprised at this
momentary softening of the other's mood.

"Yes, it's sad enough," the organist resumed; "all these papers are
nebuly coat--the sea-green and silver."

"He was quite mad, I suppose?" Westray said.

"Everyone except me will tell you so," replied the organist; "but I'm
not so very sure after all that there wasn't a good deal more in it than
madness. That's all that I can say just now, but those of us who live
will see. There is a queer tradition hereabout. I don't know how long
ago it started, but people say that there _is_ some mystery about the
Blandamer descent, and that those in possession have no right to what
they hold. But there is something else. Many have tried to solve the
riddle, and some, you may depend, have been very hot on the track. But
just as they come to the touch, something takes them off; that's what
happened to Martin. I saw him the very day he died. `Sharnall,' he
said to me, `if I can last out forty-eight hours more, you may take off
your hat to me, and say "My lord."'

"But the nebuly coat was too much for him; he had to die. So don't you
be surprised if I pop off the hooks some of these fine days; if I don't,
I'm going to get to the bottom, and you will see some changes here
before so very long."

He sat down at the table, and made a show for a minute of looking at the
papers.

"Poor Martin!" he said, and got up again, opened the cupboard, and took
out the bottle. "You'll have a drop," he asked Westray, "won't you?"

"No, thanks, not I," Westray said, with something as near contempt as
his thin voice was capable of expressing.

"Just a drop--do! I must have just a drop myself; I find it a great
strain working at these papers; there may be more at stake in the
reading than I care to think of."

He poured out half a tumbler of spirit. Westray hesitated for a moment,
and then his conscience and an early puritan training forced him to
speak.

"Sharnall," he said, "put it away. That bottle is your evil angel.
Play the man, and put it away. You force me to speak. I cannot sit by
with hands folded and see you going down the hill."

The organist g