"I am afraid that I am in the dark in more senses than one," David
murmured.

"Then let me enlighten you. Daily your books are more widely read. My
enemy is a great novel reader. You publish that story, and what results?
You not only tell that enemy my story, but you show him my way out of the
difficulty, and show him how he can checkmate my every move. Perhaps,
after I have escaped from the net--"

"You are right," Steel said, promptly. "From a professional point of view
the story is abandoned. And now you want me to show you a rational and
logical, a _human_ way out."

"If you can do so you have my everlasting gratitude."

"Then you must tell me in detail what it is you want to recover. My
heroine parts with a document which the villain knows to be a forgery.
Money cannot buy it back because the villain can make as much money as he
likes by retaining it. He does as he likes with the family property; he
keeps my heroine's husband out of England by dangling the forgery and its
consequences over his head. What is to be done? How is the ruffian to be
bullied into a false sense of security by the one man who desires to
throw dust in his eyes?"

"Ah," the voice cried, "ah, if you could only tell me that! Let _my_
ruffian only imagine that I am dead; let him have proofs of it, and the
thing is done. I could reach him _then_; I could tear from him the letter
that--but I need not go into details. But he is cunning as the serpent.
Nothing but the most convincing proofs would satisfy him."