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to Scarborough for three years and thence to Bournemouth. Regularly every month she wrote to her two sisters and her bachelor brother in New York; and the terminology of the letters did not vary by so much as a comma:
    “Miss Mercy Harlow presents her compliments and begs to state that The Boy is in Good Health and is receiving adequate tuition in the essential subjects together with a sound instruction in the tenets of the Protestant Faith.”
    She had engaged a tutor, a bearded young man from Oxford University (she deigned to mention this fact to her brother, with whom she had not quarrelled), whose name was Marling. There came to the ears of Aunt Alice a story which called into question the fitness of Mr Marling to mould the plastic mind of youth. A mild scandal at Oxford. Miss Alice felt it her duty to write, and after a long interval had a reply:
    “Miss Mercy Harlow begs to thank Miss Alice Harlow for her communication and in reply begs to state that she has conducted a very thorough and searching enquiry into the charges preferred against Mr Saul Marling (B.A. Oxon) and is satisfied that Mr Marling acted in the most honourable manner, and has done nothing with which he may reproach himself or which renders him unfit to direct the studies of The Boy.”
    This happened a year before Miss Mercy’s death. When nature took its toll and she passed to her Maker, Miss Alice hastened to Bournemouth and in a small and secluded cottage near Christchurch found a big and solemn young man of twenty-three, dressed a little gawkily in black. He was tearless; and indeed, his aunt suspected, almost cheerful, at the prospect of being freed from Miss Mercy’s drastic management.
    The bearded tutor had left (Mrs Edwins, the maid, tearfully explained) a fortnight before the passing of Miss Mercy.
    ‘And if he hadn’t gone,’ said Miss Alice with tight lips, ‘I should have made short work of him. The Boy has been suppressed! He hasn’t a word to say for himself!’
    A council was held, including the family lawyer, who was making his first acquaintance with Stratford. It was agreed that The Boy should have a flat in Park Lane and the companionship of an elder man who combined a knowledge of the world with a leaning towards piety. Such was found in the Rev. John Barthurst, M.A., an ex-naval chaplain.
    Miss Edwins was pensioned off and the beginning of Stratford’s independent life was celebrated with a dinner and a visit to Charley’s Aunt, through which roaring farce he sat with a stony face.
    The tutelage lasted the best part of a year; and then the quiet young man suddenly came to life, dismissed his worldly and pious companion with a cheque for a thousand pounds, summoned Mrs Edwins to be his housekeeper; and bought and reconstructed the Duke of Greenhart’s house in Park Lane.
    And thenceforward Mr Harlow’s name began to appear in the records of important transactions. Family fortunes dropped into his lap. Miss Mercy had been fabulously rich. She had left him every penny of her fortune, with the exception of PS100 to Lucy Edwins in recognition of her faithful service, realising that she will not regard this sum as inadequate in view of the great service I rendered to her.’ Then Miss Henrietta died; and when the death duties were paid there was the greater part of two millions. Miss Alice left more. The bachelor uncle in New York died a comparative pauper, leaving a beggarly six hundred thousand.
    Mr Harlow’s house was a rather ugly three-storey building which occupied a small island site, possibly the most valuable in Park Lane, though the actual entrance was not in that exclusive thoroughfare, but in the side street. He opened the door with a key and walked into the hall. The door to the library faced him. There were some letters on the table, which he scanned through rapidly, opening only one. It was from Ellenbury; and just then Mr Harlow was annoyed with Ellenbury; he had supplied erroneous information about Aileen