John Steele did not answer; he looked at the drawer. The affidavit was
not there; but something else was.

"You are resourceful, that is all."

Lord Ronsdale had now quite recovered himself; he sank back into his
chair. "You have, out of fancy, constructed a libelous theory; one that
you can not prove; one that you would be laughed at for advancing. A
cock-and-bull story about a witness who was not a witness; a paper that
doesn't exist, that never existed."

A sound at the door caused him to turn sharply; a knocking had passed
unheeded. The door opened, closed. Mr. Gillett, a troubled, perturbed
look on his face, stood now just within. "Your lordship!"

"Well?" the nobleman's manner was peremptory.

The police agent, however, came forward slowly. "I have here something
that one of our men has just turned over to me." John Steele started;
but neither of the others noticed. "He found it at the last place we
were; evidently it had been dropped by the fellow who was there and who
fled at our coming." As he spoke, he stepped nearer the desk, in his
hand a paper.

"What is it?" Lord Ronsdale demanded testily.

Mr. Gillett did not at once answer; he looked at John Steele; the latter
stood like a statue; only his eyes were turned toward the nobleman, to
the thin aristocratic hand yet resting on the edge of the drawer.