"Now, one of the two people who, twice every year, audit the Corporation's accounts and verify their securities, is Mr. Dunning, a lawyer well known both at Solchester and Merehampton, At the half-yearly audit, which took place about three weeks after my interview with Mr. Melray, the policy of assurance, together with other documents bearing on the transaction, came, in due course, under Mr. Dunning's inspection. You will readily imagine, then, that I was not a little surprised when he came to me with the papers in his hand and asked me to tell him all I knew of the transaction to which they referred. Taking into account his official connection with the Corporation, there was no breach of confidence in my complying with his request. It was then my turn to put certain questions to him, and the surprise I had felt before was in nowise lessened when he told me that he had been Mr. Melray's lawyer, and, in certain matters, his confidential adviser, for something like a quarter of a century; that, from his knowledge of that gentleman's affairs, he could aver that it was next to impossible that he should have been in need of such a sum as three hundred pounds; that, so far as he was aware, Mr. Melray, whose eyes were remarkably good for his age, had never worn spectacles in his life; and, finally, that he, Mr. Dunning, believed the signatures which I had witnessed to be neither more nor less than unblushing forgeries of his client's name. Thereupon it was agreed that he should take the suspected documents away with him and see Mr. Melray on the morrow.
"Of what passed between the two I have no knowledge, but when I tell you that, as far as I am concerned, the sequel of the affair was the letter of which you have this morning shown me a copy, you are at liberty, just as I was, to think what you like. Having got my 'pound of flesh,' as I suppose you would term it, I returned the policy as requested, and from that day to this have never sought to pry further into the affair."
The first thing Winslade did after leaving Mr. Noyes was to despatch a telegram to Mr. Melray, which served to bring that gentleman to Solchester by the next train. It is not needful to dilate on the grieved astonishment with which he listened to the other's recital of what had passed between himself and the money-lender. Dyson had been a favourite with both the brothers, not merely because he was the only son of an orphan cousin--of whom, as a girl, they had been both proud and fond--but also by reason of certain pleasant qualities of his own, which, if they did not spring from any genuine depth or sincerity of feeling, had all the appearance of doing so and answered their purpose equally as well.