The contents of Nathaniel's desk, however, afforded little of interest. Evidently Nathaniel had been a methodical man who kept his papers neatly docketed, and did not hoard correspondence. A letter from Paula was discovered, bearing a recent date. Paula's wild handwriting covered four pages, but apart from one petulant reference to her uncle's meanness in not instantly agreeing to support Willoughby Roydon's works there was nothing in the letter to indicate that she felt any animosity towards him. None of the other private letters seemed to have any bearing on the case, and after glancing through them the Inspector turned to the business letters, which Blyth was sorting. These too were uninteresting from Hemingway's point of view, but while he was running through them, Blyth, who had been studying some papers which were clipped together, glanced fleetingly towards Mottisfont, and then silently laid the papers before Hemingway.
"Ah!" said Mottisfont, with a slight laugh. "I fancy I see my own fist! I can guess what that is!"
Hemingway paid no heed to this remark, but picked up the sheaf, and began to read the first letter.
It had apparently been written in reply to a demand for information, and the terms in .which it was couched were too guarded to afford the Inspector any very precise idea of the business the firm of Herriard and Mottisfont had been conducting. Attached to it was the rough draft of a further letter from Nathaniel. Such intemperate expressions as crass folly, unjustifiable risks, and staggering impudence abounded, and had called forth a second letter from Mottisfont, in which he suggested rather stiffly that his partner was behind the times, and had, in fact, been out of the business for too long to realise the exigencies of modern times, or the necessity of seizing any opportunity that offered for lucrative trading.
The fourth and last letter in the clip was again a copy, and in Nathaniel's hand. It was quite short. It stated with crushing finality that "this business' would be brought to an immediate conclusion. Plainly, although Nathaniel might of late years have taken but little share in the working activities of the business which bore his name, his veto was final, admitting of no argument.
The Inspector laid these papers to one side, and would have continued to run through the dwindling pile before him had not Mottisfont said, with another of his mirthless laughs: "Well, if that's my correspondence with Mr. Herriard over the China business, as I can see it is, I've no doubt you must want to know what the devil it's all about, Inspector!"
"Not now!" Joseph said. "This isn't quite the moment, do you think?"
"Oh, so Nat told you about it, did he?"
"Good heavens, no! Nat knew me too well to do that! I knew you'd had some sort of a disagreement, of course." "Well, I've no objection to having the thing out now, or at any other time."
"If you feel like that, sir, what is it all about?" asked Hemingway.