will perform your part of the contract."

"The performance itself, since payment is conditional upon it--" began
Plowden, but the other interrupted him.

"No, I want something better than that. Here--give me your stamped
paper." He took the bluish sheet, and, without hesitation, wrote several
lines rapidly. "Here--this is my promise," he said, "to pay you 150,000
pounds, upon your satisfactory performance of a certain undertaking to
be separately nominated in a document called 'A,' which we will jointly
draw up and agree to and sign, and deposit wherever you like--for
safe keeping. Now, if you'll sit here, and write out for me a similar
thing--that in consideration of my promise of 150,000 pounds, you
covenant to perform the undertaking to be nominated in the document
'A'--and so on."

Lord Plowden treated as a matter of course the ready and business-like
suggestion of the other. Taking his place at the desk in turn, he wrote
out what had been suggested. Thorpe touched a bell, and the clerk who
came in perfunctorily attested the signatures upon both papers. Each
principal folded and pocketed the pledge of the other.

"Now," said Thorpe, when he had seated himself again at the desk, "we
are all right so far as protection against each other goes. If you don't
mind, I will draw up a suggestion of what the separate document 'A'
should set forth. If you don't like it, you can write one."

He took more time to this task, frowning laboriously over the fresh
sheet of foolscap, and screening from observation with his hand what he
was writing. Finally, the task seemed finished to his mind. He took up
the paper, glanced through it once more, and handed it in silence to the
other.

In silence also, and with an expression of arrested attention, Lord
Plowden read these lines:

"The undertaking referred to in the two documents of even date, signed
respectively by Lord Plowden and Stormont Thorpe, is to the effect
that at some hour between eleven A.M. and three P.M. of September 12th,
instant, Lord Plowden shall produce before a special meeting of the
Committee of the Stock Exchange, the person of one Jerome P. Tavender,
to explain to said Committee his share in the blackmailing scheme of
which Lord Plowden, over his own signature, has furnished documentary
evidence."

The nobleman continued to look down at the paper, after the power to
hold it without shaking had left his hand. There came into his face,
mingling with and vit