outlines for essays, and hasty
jottings of University and Temple lectures--memorials of Holroyd's
undergraduate and law-student days. Then came notes scribbled down in
court with a blunt corroded quill on borrowed scraps of paper, and
elaborate analyses of leading cases and Acts of Parliament, which
belonged to the period of zeal which had followed his call to the Bar.

He turned all these over carelessly enough, until he came upon some
sheets fastened together with a metal clip. 'This does not look like
law,' he said half aloud. '"Glamour--romance by Vincent Beauchamp."
Beauchamp was his second name, I think. So he wrote romances, did he,
poor devil! This looks like the scaffolding for one, anyway; let's
have a look at it. List of characters: Beaumelle Marston; I've come
across that name somewhere lately, I know; Lieutenant-Colonel
Duncombe; why, I know that gentleman, too! Was this ever published?
Here's the argument.' He read and re-read it carefully, and then went
to a bookshelf and took down a book with the Grosvenor Library label;
it was a copy of 'Illusion,' by Cyril Ernstone.

With that by his side he turned over the rest of Holroyd's papers, and
found more traces of some projected literary work; skeleton scenes,
headings for chapters, and even a few of the opening pages, with some
marginal alterations in red ink, all of which he eagerly compared with
the printed work before him.

Then he rose and paced excitedly up and down his room. 'Is _this_ his
secret?' he thought. 'If I could only be sure of it! It seems too good
to be true ... they might have collaborated, or the other might have
made him a present of a plot, or even borrowed some notions from
him.... And yet there are some things that look uncommonly suspicious.
Why should he look so odd at the mere mention of Holroyd's name? Why
did he get the manuscript recopied? Was it modesty--or something else?
And why does one name only appear on the title-page, and our dear
friend take all the credit to himself? There's something fishy about
it all, and I mean to get at it. Job was perfectly correct. It _is_
rash for an enemy to put his name to a book--especially some other
fellow's book. Mr. Mark Ashburn and I must have a little private
conversation together, in which I shall see how much I remember of the
action of the common pump.'

He sat down and wrote a genial little note, asking Mark, if he had no
better engagement, to come round and dine quietly with h