ficial report that he had a mortgage of
fifteen thousand on the estate. Do you mind telling me how that came
about? It may possibly help us."

"I have not the least idea. I never heard of the existence of the
mortgage until Brander wrote to me himself about it at the time he
bought the estate; but he gave me an explanation that perfectly
satisfied me at the time."

Mr. Cumming looked at him inquiringly.

"It was an explanation," Cuthbert said, after a pause, "that closed my
lips altogether on the subject. But in the present strange state of
affairs I do not know that I need abstain from mentioning it to you.
Brander explained that my father said that he required it to close up a
matter that had long been troubling him. I gathered from the way he put
it that it was some folly with a woman in his early years, and I need
not say that respect for my father's memory prevented me from pursuing
the matter further. Brander said that he had himself advanced the money
on the mortgage in order that the business should be done privately and
without any third person being cognizant of it."

Cumming sat thoughtfully for a minute without speaking and then he leapt
suddenly to his feet and put his hand on Cuthbert's shoulder.

"You take my word for it, Mr. Hartington, that mortgage was just as much
a bogus affair as the transfer. The one supplies the motive we have been
looking for for the other. The failure of the bank brought Fairclose
into the market, and not only did Brander purchase it for ten or fifteen
thousand below its value at any other time, but he gained another
fifteen thousand by this bogus mortgage. There is your motive for the
forgery of your father's name on the transfer."

"I cannot believe it," Cuthbert said, slowly. "Brander could never be
such a scoundrel as that. Besides, of course, the men who wound up the
affairs of the bank would look closely into the mortgage. Whether it
was real or whether it was a forgery, Brander would equally have
obtained the money at my father's death, so your supposition of a motive
fails."

"I do not know. Had the claim been made direct to you, you would
naturally have got some sharp lawyer to investigate it, and, it would
have been inquired into a good deal more closely than the official
liquidator probably took the trouble to do. A mortgage, of which no one
knows anything until after the mortgagor's death, would always be looked
upon with suspicion, and some collateral proofs