On a warm June evening three men were sitting in the smoking-room
of a London club. One was an old man, with a face which had once
been weather-beaten and was now intricately seamed with veins and
wrinkles. His bearing, his shoulders trimly squared even at
seventy, spoke of the old style of British regimental officer. The
second was in his early thirties, a heavy young man, with nothing
of the Guardsman about him except his tie. The third might have
been any age between forty and sixty, and had writ plain upon him
the profession of the law.

The newsboys were shouting in Pall Mall.

"They can't have got the verdict yet," said the last. "Jenks was
only beginning to sum up when I left. We shall hear nothing for
another hour."

The old man shivered. "Good God! It is awful to be waiting here
to know whether Tom Melfort's boy is to go to prison for six years
or ten. I suppose there's no chance of an acquittal."

"None," said the lawyer. "You see, he pled guilty. Leithen was
his counsel, and I believe did his best to get him to change his
mind. But the fellow was adamant."

The young soldier, whose name was Lyson, shook his head.

"That was like Adam. There never was a more obstinate chap in his
quiet way. Very easy and good-natured till you presumed just a
little too much on his placidity, and then you found yourself hard
up against a granite wall."

"How well did you know him?" the lawyer asked.

"I was at school with him and we passed out of Sandhurst together.
He was a friend, but not what you would call an intimate. Too
clever, and a little too much of the wise youth. . . . Oh yes, he
was popular, for he was a first-class sportsman and a good fellow,
but he had a bit too much professional keenness for lazy dogs like
me. After that he went straight ahead, as you know, and left us
all behind. Somebody told me that old Mullins said he was the most
brilliant man they had had at the Staff College for a generation.
He had got a European war on the brain, and spent most of his leave
tramping about the Ardennes or bicycling in Lorraine."

"If this thing hadn't happened, what would you have said about his
character?"

"Sound as the Bank of England," was the answer. "A trifle
puritanical, maybe. I used to feel that if I ever did anything
mean I should be more ashamed to face Adam Melfort than any other
man alive. You remember how he looked, sir," and he turned to the
old man. "Always in training--walked with a light step as if he
were on the hill after deer--terribly quick off the mark in an
argument--all fine and hard and tightly screwed together. The grip
of his small firm hand had a sort of electric energy. Not the kind
of man you would think likely to take the wrong turning."

"I am not very clear. . . . What exactly happened?" asked the old
man.

"Common vulgar forgery," the lawyer replied. "He altered a cheque
which was made out to his wife--part of her allowance from a rich
great-uncle. The facts were not in doubt, and he made no attempt
to dispute them. He confessed what he had done, and explained it
by a sudden madness. The funny thing was that he did not seem to
be ashamed of it. He stood there quite cool and collected, with a
ghost of a smile on his face, making admissions which he must have
known were going to wreck him for good. You say he was wrapt up in
his career, but I never saw anyone face a crash more coolly. . . .
The absence of motive puzzles me. Were the Melforts hard up? They
never behaved as if they were."

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