"Let us try to remember the letter, Mr. Emblem."
"Yes, yes—certainly—the letter. Why it went—ahem!—as follows—"
Arnold laid down the pen in despair. The poor old man was mad. He had poured out the wildest farrago without sense, coherence, or story.
"So much for the letter, Mr. Arbuthnot." He was mad without doubt, yet he knew Arnold, and knew, too, why he was in the house. "Ah, I knew it would come back to me. Strange if it did not. Why I read that letter once every quarter or so for eighteen years. It is a part of myself. I could not forget it."
"And the name of your son-in-law's old friend?"
"Oh, yes, the name!"
He gave some name, which might have been the lost name, but as Mr. Emblem changed it the next moment, and forgot it again the moment after, it was doubtful; certainly not much to build upon.
"And the coat-of-arms?"
"We are getting on famously, are we not? The coat, sir, was as follows."