"What do you mean?" I queried, with as much lofty scorn as I could command.
"I mean," he replied, "that all Felix Shap's documents were forgeries."
"Forgeries?" I exclaimed.
"Yes, spurious! False affidavits! Forgeries, the lot of 'em. My belief is that Stonebridge began to suspect this himself, and I think he has had a narrow escape of being murdered outright by those two rascals. As it is, they have destroyed every proof of their villainy, and old Stonebridge, I imagine, is content to let things remain as they are rather than admit publicly that he was completely taken in by two very plausible rogues."
"But," I urged, "what about the handwriting expert?"
The funny creature laughed aloud.
"Yes!" he said, "what about the expert? If there had been two they would have disagreed. And mind you at a distance of twelve years a signature would be difficult of absolute identification. Every one's handwriting undergoes certain modifications in the course of years. Experts," he reiterated. "Bah!"
"But," I went on, impatiently, "I don't see the object of the whole scheme."
"The object was blackmail," the whimsical creature retorted, "and it has succeeded admirably. Already we read that Messrs. Shap and Lloyd are staying at expensive hotels in London, that they have granted interviews to pressmen and written articles for half-penny newspapers. We shall hear of them as cinema stars presently. They have had the most gorgeous, the most paying publicity, and presently Sir David Carysfort will have had enough of them and will put a few more hundreds in their pockets just to be rid of them. That was the object of the whole scheme, my dear young lady! And see how well it was carried out.
"Of course the fuddle-headed Dutchman never thought of it. I imagine that the whole scheme originated in the fertile brain of Mr. Julian Lloyd. And it was thoroughly well thought out from the manufacture of the documents and letters down to the assault on the silly old country attorney. And, mind you, the rascals originally went to a silly country attorney; they would have been afraid to go to a London lawyer, lest he be too sharp for them.