“I soon realized from what he said that unless there were some papers of which we knew nothing in my brother’s pockets, there was really no possible means by which the police could identify him or learn how he had got there.  His ticket was in MacCoy’s pocket, and so was the ticket for some baggage which they had left at the depot.  Like most Americans, he had found it cheaper and easier to buy an outfit in London than to bring one from New York, so that all his linen and clothes were new and unmarked.  The bag, containing the dust-cloak, which I had thrown out of the window, may have fallen among some bramble patch where it is still concealed, or may have been carried off by some tramp, or may have come into the possession of the police, who kept the incident to themselves.  Anyhow, I have seen nothing about it in the London papers.  As to the watches, they were a selection from those which had been intrusted to him for business purposes.  It may have been for the same business purposes that he was taking them to Manchester, but—­well, it’s too late to enter into that.

“I don’t blame the police for being at fault.  I don’t see how it could have been otherwise.  There was just one little clue that they might have followed up, but it was a small one.  I mean that small, circular mirror which was found in my brother’s pocket.  It isn’t a very common thing for a young man to carry about with him, is it?  But a gambler might have told you what such a mirror may mean to a card-sharper.  If you sit back a little from the table, and lay the mirror, face upwards, upon your lap, you can see, as you deal, every card that you give to your adversary.  It is not hard to say whether you see a man or raise him when you know his cards as well as your own.  It was as much a part of a sharper’s outfit as the elastic clip upon Sparrow MacCoy’s arm.  Taking that, in connection with the recent frauds at the hotels, the police might have got hold of one end of the string.

“I don’t think there is much more for me to explain.  We got to a village called Amersham that night in the character of two gentlemen upon a walking tour, and afterwards we made our way quietly to London, whence MacCoy went on to Cairo and I returned to New York.  My mother died six months afterwards, and I am glad to say that to the day of her death she never knew what happened.  She was always under the delusion that Edward was earning an honest living in London, and I never had the heart to tell her the truth.  He never wrote; but, then, he never did write at any time, so that made no difference.  His name was the last upon her lips.

“There’s just one other thing that I have to ask you, sir, and I should take it as a kind return for all this explanation, if you could do it for me.  You remember that Testament that was picked up.  I always carried it in my inside pocket, and it must have come out in my fall.  I value it very highly, for it was the family book with my birth and my brother’s marked by my father in the beginning of it.  I wish you would apply at the proper place and have it sent to me.  It can be of no possible value to anyone else.  If you address it to X, Bassano’s Library, Broadway, New York, it is sure to come to hand.”