"You are drunk," said Andrew.
Heriot regarded him with portentous solemnity.
"Mr. Harris was the kind gentleman who befriended my grandfather on his voyage to South America. He received afterwards many letters from your papa, Andrew; and very, very thoughtfully handed them to me. They prove, my boy, that you treated your parent outrageously. They prove that you must have been a shocking bad hat yourself. Some of them prove that your kind and forgiving parent is still alive at this moment; others prove that he expired under heart-rending circumstances six months ago; and I propose to use whichever alternative seems best—that's to say, whichever will flatten you out most effectively. And that's who Harris is."
For some minutes Andrew studied the letter in silence. He felt like a heavy-weight boxer in the grip of a professor of Ju-Jitsu. What use was a lifelong apprenticeship to common sense, respectability, and the law of Scotland, when it came to wrestling with a juggler of this kind? he asked himself bitterly. One ought to have led a life of crime! The longer he looked at the preposterous epistle, the more diabolical did it appear. At last he spoke—
"This is an impudent forgery."
"There are some hundreds of specimens of your father's hand to compare it with," said Heriot calmly; "I am perfectly willing to let any expert judge whether it's genuine or not."
The heavy-weight tried another wriggle.
"This is the letter of a lunatic. I have a certificate to prove it. I can call Dr. Downie to prove it."
"You needn't go to so much trouble. You'll find that plot against my grandfather's liberty fully described in some of the letters. The point that will be put to you by the cross-examining Counsel is, if you thought him off his chump, why did you only pretend to put him in an asylum?"
"I did put him," snapped Andrew.