"Lastly, I have a singular piece of evidence that the mortgage was signed not on the date it purported but shortly after the seizure of the client. The clerk might have had some difficulty in swearing that this mortgage was the document that he signed, as the signatures were written on the last sheet of the parchment, and he saw nothing of the contents. But it happened that there were only four lines of writing on that page, and there are four on the mortgage in the hands of the official liquidator, but this is not the crucial point. The clerk, in making his signature, dropped a blot of ink on the parchment. Now it was clear that this blot of ink might prove the means o identifying this document and of proving the time at which it was signed; therefore it was necesssary that it should be erased. This the lawyer proceeded to do and so cleverly that an unpracticed eye would not detect it. The expert, however, though not knowing where the blot had fallen, detected the erasure at once, and noticed that in erasing it two of the letters of the name had been involved, and these had been retouched so as to make them the same darkness as the rest. The chain of evidence is therefore complete."
The last blow had proved too crushing. There was a sudden rush of blood to his face, and, with a gasping sob, Mr. Brander fell back in his chair insensible. Cuthbert ran to the door and opened it.
"Mr. Levison, your employer is taken ill. Send the other clerk to fetch Dr. Edwardes at once, he will not have started on his rounds yet. Bring some water in here."
With the assistance of the clerk, Cuthbert loosened the lawyer's necktie and collar, swept the papers off the table, and laid him upon it, folding up his great coat and placing it under his head.
CHAPTER XX.
"Apoplexy!" Dr. Edwardes exclaimed, as soon as he entered. "Cut his sleeve open, Cuthbert. Fetch a basin, sir, and some water," he added to the clerk.
He took a lancet from his pocket and opened a vein in the arm. At first only a few drops of dark-colored blood issued out.
"Dip a cloth in cold water and wrap it round his head; and do you, lad, run down to Miggleton, the confectioner, and get some ice, quick; it is a matter of life or death!"
At last the blood began to flow more freely.