'Your obedient servants,
'Guldenheim and Co.'
Now that, my dear Nash, is the letter which you found; I don't know if your memory will enable you to recognize the accuracy of the copy." Mr. Nash was silent, presenting a curious picture of indecision; of the man who lets "I dare not" wait upon "I would." Mr. Morgan went affably on, diplomatically ignoring the singularity of the other's attitude. "To the superficial eye there is nothing in that letter; it is a mere routine business communication; in fact, however, as matters were, you could scarcely have found anything more important. I take it that you recognized this, or you would hardly have appropriated it; but I fancy that you only recognized it dimly. Your whole after-behaviour seems to point to it." Mr. Morgan glanced round at the moment, in time to catch the ghost of a smile, which seemed to flicker across Mr. Nash's face; Mr. Morgan's comment on that flickering smile was characteristic. "Perhaps not so dimly as I supposed; the springs of human action do lie so deep. Perhaps, after all, it has occurred to you, as it has to me, that that letter killed Donald Lindsay. You remember where you found it? Lindsay's was a pedestal writing-table; it was on the floor, under one of the pedestals, with one corner of the paper just showing. I think that was the last letter Donald Lindsay ever read. He had read it again and again before, and was re-reading it; but that re-reading was just the one too many. The strain of that cumulative shock was greater than he could bear; something snapped; he fell forward; the letter slipped from his fingers, under one of the pedestals, where it might have remained but for your sharp eyes." Mr. Morgan held the paper out in front of him with the air of one who is explaining something which he desires to make quite plain. "Now what is there in this letter which could have produced so extraordinary an effect upon a person possessed of so much self-restraint as Donald Lindsay undoubtedly was? What does the letter itself tell us? It tells us that Messrs. Guldenheim, as is the custom, I have reason to know, of a certain type of usurer, had written to advise him that certain acceptances of his, which matured at a certain date, had come into their hands. I'll bet sixpence that Lindsay was a man who never in his life put his name on a piece of paper which was likely, in the ordinary course, as they put it, to fall into the hands of carrion like the Guldenheims; that first communication of theirs must in itself have been a shock to him. But he was a cautious man; he liked to move gently; whether he already had suspicions I cannot say; evidently he wrote a non-committal letter, asking them from whom they had obtained acceptances of his. This was their reply; they informed him that originally the acceptances came from Mr. Frank Clifford, of Marlborough Buildings, Farringdon Road, and that information killed him. Is that how it occurred to you?"
"Never mind what occurred to me."
"Quite so, I won't; I'll content myself with telling you what occurred to me. I've only known what was in this letter a couple of days, and, with its aid, I have already learned that, when he died, Donald Lindsay was, probably, one of the richest men in England. Have you learned that?"
"I--I had my doubts."
"But you hadn't verified them? I see. Other matters interfered; for instance, your marriage. Now, my dear Nash, pray understand that I congratulate you, from the bottom of my heart, on what is, in all respects, an auspicious event; but you must forgive my saying that you were one of the last persons I should have associated with a love match. Now I happen to know that neither Miss Harding nor you had money, or prospects. Indeed, I've been wondering how you managed between you to pay the marriage fees, to say nothing of the expenses of your honeymoon. Did a good fairy drop down from the skies?"
"It strikes me, Morgan, that you are constitutionally incapable of seeing how infernally insolent you are."
"Am I? Perhaps; you should be a better judge of insolence than I. And believe me that I quite understand that a man is entitled to keep his own counsel; I don't wish to pry into your secrets; only I was wondering if you had a secret. However, to return to business. Do you know that this letter means a fortune for you, and incidentally, perhaps, also one for me; but certainly a fortune for you. All we have to do is to pull together; treat each other as friends, not enemies; although I say it, you'll find my friendship well worth having, from every point of view. Don't let the accident of my having once been a butler stand in the way; that's nonsense. Let me tell you that the butler at Cloverlea had a better position, in every respect, than the average clerk in a government office; as for your banks, and such dustbins--pah! he was better off than many a solicitor; though I know that's a delicate subject. But don't let's cut each other's throats for the sake of a merely imaginary social distinction; let's be friends, and I'll undertake to make your fortune. That's the proposition I've come down to Littlehampton to make."