one, beyond the fact that I was ignorant of its existence. I was so
surprised that I not only wrote to Brander himself but to the official
liquidator. The former said he had advanced the money at the urgent
request of my father, who told him he wished to settle a very long
standing claim upon him, and that he desired that the transaction should
be kept an absolute secret. The official liquidator said he had gone
carefully into the question of the mortgage, that it was of three years,
standing, that the receipts Mr. Brander had given my father for the
half-yearly interest on the money had been found among my father's
papers, and that Brander had moreover produced a document, showing that
he had sold securities to that amount, and had drawn the money from his
bankers in town by a singled check for L15,000. Do you remember whether
such a deed was ever drawn up in the office?"

"Certainly it was not, but you see that proves nothing, for it was to be
kept a secret. Brander might have had it drawn up by some solicitor in
London."

"I see that. Well, then, this deed, whatever it was that you witnessed,
was that drawn up in the office?"

"No. I remember Levison and I talked it over and said it was curious
that a deed between Brander and Mr. Hartington should not have been
given to us as usual to be drawn up."

"You witnessed his signature then as well as that of my father?"

"Yes, I have a particular reason for remembering that, for I had sat
down hurriedly after he had signed it, and dipping my pen too deeply in
the ink, made a blot. It was no doubt a stupid thing to do, but Brander
was so unreasonably angry about it, and blew me up so roughly that I
made up my mind there and then to stand it no longer, and wrote that
very evening to my friend in my present office the letter which led to
my getting the situation there two or three months later."

"That blot may be a most important one," Cuthbert said, "if it occurs on
the mortgage deed on Fairclose, it is clear that document was not, as it
professes on its face, executed three years earlier."

"That would be so indeed," Mr. Harford exclaimed, excitedly; "it would
be a piece of evidence there would be no getting over, and that fact
would account for Brander's anger, which seemed to me was out of all
proportion to the accident. If you could show that the mortgage deed on
which Brander claimed is really that document we witnessed, it would be
all up with him. As to the rec