"No, sir!" thundered the money-lender, just when I could have sworn his lips were framing an affirmative.
"I see; it was written to you, not by you."
"Wrong again, Raffles!"
"Then how can the letter be your property, my dear Mr. Levy?"
There was a pause. The money-lender was at visible grips with some new difficulty. I watched his heavy but not unhandsome face, and timed the moment of mastery by the sudden light in his crafty eyes.
"They think it was written by me," said he. "It's a forgery, written on my office paper; if that isn't my property, I should like to know what is?"
"It certainly ought to be," returned Raffles, sympathetically. "Of course you're speaking of the crucial letter in your case against Fact?"
"I am," said Levy, rather startled; "but 'ow did you know I was?"
"I am naturally interested in the case."
"And you've read about it in the papers; they've had a fat sight too much to say about it, with the whole case still sub judice."