accounts to prove it, and Royle must have bolted just when he knew the mail would reach me where I've been abroad. I don't wonder, either; he's been faking every statement for the last six months!"

"But not before?" cried Delavoye, as though it mattered.

Coysh turned to him with puzzled eyes.

"No; that's the funny part of it," said he. "You'd think a man who went so wrong--hundreds, in these few months--could never have been quite straight. But not a bit of it. I've got the accounts; they were as right as rain till this last spring."

"I knew it!" exclaimed Delavoye in wild excitement.

"May I ask what you knew?"

Coysh was staring, as well he might.

"Only that the whole mischief must have happened since these people came here to live!"

"Do you suggest that they've been living beyond their means?"

"I shouldn't be surprised," said Delavoye, as readily as though nothing else had been in his mind.

"Well, and I should say you were right," rejoined the engineer, "if it wasn't for the funniest part of all. When a straight man goes off the rails, there's generally some tremendous cause; but one of the surprises of this case, as my banker has managed to ascertain, is that Abercromby Royle is in a position to repay every penny. He has more than enough to do it, lying idle in his bank; so there was no apparent motive for the crime, and I for my part am prepared to treat it as a sudden aberration."

"Exactly!" cried Delavoye, as though he were the missing man's oldest friend and more eager than either of us to find excuses for him.

"Otherwise," continued Coysh, "I wouldn't have taken you gentlemen into my confidence. But the plain fact is that I'm prepared to condone the felony at my own risk in return for immediate and complete restitution." He turned his attention entirely to me. "Now, Royle can't make good unless you help him by helping me to find him. I won't be hard on him if you do, I promise you! Not a dozen men in England shall ever know. But if I have to hunt for him it'll be with detectives and a warrant, and the fat'll be in the 

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