He was reflecting upon all this on the morning in question when Mr. Quest, looking very cool, composed and gentlemanlike, was shown into his room, much as Colonel Quaritch had been shown in two mornings before.

“How do you do, Quest?” he said, in a from high to low tone, which he was in the habit of adopting towards his official subordinates.  “Sit down.  What is it?”

“It is some business, Mr. Cossey,” the lawyer answered in his usual quiet tones.

“Honham Castle mortgages again, I suppose,” he growled.  “I only hope you don’t want any more money on that account at present, that’s all; because I can’t raise another cent while my father lives.  They don’t entail cash and bank shares, you know, and though my credit’s pretty good I am not far from the bottom of it.”

“Well,” said Mr. Quest, with a faint smile, “it has to do with the Honham Castle mortgages; but as I have a good deal to say, perhaps we had better wait till the things are cleared.”

“All right.  Just ring the bell, will you, and take a cigarette?”

Mr. Quest smiled again and rang the bell, but did not take the cigarette.  When the breakfast things had been removed he took a chair, and placing it on the further side of the table in such a position that the light, which was to his back, struck full upon Edward Cossey’s face, began to deliberately untie and sort his bundle of papers.  Presently he came to the one he wanted—­a letter.  It was not an original letter, but a copy.  “Will you kindly read this, Mr. Cossey?” he said quietly, as he pushed the letter towards him across the table.

Edward finished lighting his cigarette, then took the letter up and glanced at it carelessly.  At sight of the first line his expression changed to one of absolute horror, his face blanched, the perspiration sprang out upon his forehead, and the cigarette dropped from his fingers to the carpet, where it lay smouldering.  Nor was this wonderful, for the letter was a copy of one of Belle’s most passionate epistles to himself.  He had never been able to restrain her from writing these compromising letters.  Indeed, this one was the very same that some little time before Mr. Quest had abstracted from the pocket of Mr. Cossey’s lounging coat in the room in London.

He read on for a little way and then put the letter down upon the table.  There was no need for him to go further, it was all in the same strain.

“You will observe, Mr. Cossey, that this is a copy,” said Mr. Quest, “but if you like you can inspect the original document.”

He made no answer.

“Now,” went on Mr. Quest, handing him a second paper, “here is the copy of another letter, of which the original is in your handwriting.”

Edward looked at it.  It was an intercepted letter of his own, dated about a year before, and its contents, though not of so passionate a nature as the other, were of a sufficiently incriminating character.