brought him wealth, but not happiness, Mr Greenwood,” she responded quickly. “That packet, the contents of which I have never seen, he has carried with him in his pocket or suspended round his neck ever since it first came into his possession years ago. In all his clothes he had a special pocket in which to carry it, while at night he wore it in a specially made belt which was locked around his waist. I think he regarded it as a sort of charm, or talisman, which, besides bringing him his great fortune, also preserved him from all ills. The reason of this I cannot tell.”

“Did you never ascertain the nature of the document which he considered so precious?”

“I tried to do so many times, but he would never reveal it to me. ‘It was his secret,’ he would say, and no more.”

Both Reggie and I had, times without number, endeavoured to learn what the mysterious packet really contained, but had been no more successful than the charming girl now standing before me. Burton Blair was a strange man, both in actions and in words, very reserved regarding his own affairs, and yet, curiously enough, with the advent of prosperity he had become a prince of good fellows.

“But who were his enemies?” I inquired.

“Ah! of that I am likewise in utter ignorance,” was her reply. “As you know, during the past year or two, like all rich men he has been surrounded by adventurers and parasites of all sorts, whom Ford, his secretary, has kept at arm’s length. It may be that the existence of the precious packet was known, and that my poor father has fallen a victim to some foul plot. At least, that is my firm idea.”

“If so, the police should certainly be informed,” I said. “It is true that the wash-leather sachet which he showed me on the night of our first meeting is now missing, for we have all made the most careful search for it, but in vain. Yet what could its possession possibly profit any one if the key to what was contained there is wanting?”

“But was not this key, whatever it was, also in my father’s hands?” queried Mabel Blair. “Was it not the discovery of that very key which gave us all these possessions?” she asked, with the sweet womanliness that was her most engaging characteristic.

“Exactly. But surely your father, shrewd and cautious as he always was, would never carry upon his person both problem and key together! I can’t really believe that he’d do such a foolish thing as that.”

“Nor do I. 

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