hastily scribbled note which Lauriston eagerly read. "Dear old Andie," it
ran, "I've only just got your letter, for I've been from home for a
fortnight, and had no letters sent on to me. Of course you'll make me your
banker until your book's finished--and afterwards, too, if need be. Here's
something to be going on with--but I'm coming to London in a day or two,
as it happens, and will go into the matter--I'll call on you as soon as I
arrive. Excuse this scrawl--post time. Always yours, John Purdie."

Lauriston thrust that letter, too, into Ayscough's hands.

"If I've no friends in London, there's proof of having one in my own
country!" he exclaimed. "Ah!--if those letters had only come before I went
off to Praed Street!"

"Just so!" agreed the detective, glancing the letters and their
accompaniments over. "Well, I'm glad you're able to show me these, Mr.
Lauriston, anyway. But now, about those rings--between you and me, I wish
they hadn't been so much like those that were lying in that tray on the
old man's table. It's an unfortunate coincidence!--because some folks
might think, you know, that you'd just grabbed a couple of those as you
left the place. Eh?"

"My rings have been in that trunk for two or three years," asserted
Lauriston. "They were my mother's, and I believe she'd had them for many a
year before she died. They may resemble those that we saw in that tray,
but--"

"Well, I suppose you can bring somebody--if necessary, that is--to prove
that they were your mother's, can't you?" asked Ayscough. "That'll make
matters all right--on that point. And as for the rest--it's very lucky you