"As to that, my dear John, your family have been clients of my firm for generations," said the lawyer almost apologetically.
Calamity laughed.
"I'm afraid that's a very weak defence, Vayne, not to say irrelevant. However, we'll let it pass. You lent me the money to get out of the country and—well, you know the rest."
"I know as much as you told me in one scanty letter a year," answered the lawyer drily. "I don't believe you would even have written me to that extent had I not extracted the promise from you before you left my office."
"I'm afraid you wouldn't have been very edified had I given you a full and particular account of my adventures. I served three years before the mast, got my mate's ticket, and after that a master's ticket. I've sailed in whalers, colliers, cattle-boats, liners, tramps, blackbirders, and God knows what sort of craft. I've dug for gold in Alaska, been a transport rider in South Africa, skippered a pearling-ground poacher in Japanese waters, run guns in the Persian Gulf, and—well, ended up by becoming a privateer. Also, I nearly pegged out once with malaria, and, as you see, I lost an eye."
The lawyer nodded.
"Your father, as I informed you in one of my yearly letters, died in the belief that you were dead, and so did your brother," he said. "Seeing that they are both gone, I suggest that you do not attempt to reopen the matter of the forged cheque. As you have said, you can prove nothing, and——"
"But I can now," interrupted Calamity, with almost savage energy. "Look at this."
He took a wallet out of his pocket and extracted from it the document that Fritz Siemann had drawn up and signed and which Smith and McPhulach had witnessed.
"There," he said, handing it to the lawyer.