If Mr. Braden had been puzzled by Garland's conduct in the first instance, he became more so. Garland made him no proposition. The thought that the latter might be dickering with the French boys crossed Mr. Braden's mind, but was open to the objection that he would have to share blackmail with them. On the whole, Mr. Braden concluded that he had bluffed Garland. After a while the latter would part with the document cheaply.

Hence, when he received a visit from Judge Riley one day about the close of business hours, he was very little perturbed. Mackay perhaps had taken legal advice on his supposed right, or the judge might have come on other business. But the lawyer's first words cleared up that point.

"I am here," he said, "on behalf of my client, Mrs. Mackay. You are aware that she claims ownership of the land on which coal has been found?"

"Her claim is nonsense," Mr. Braden asserted stoutly.

"That's just what I am trying to clear up. As a result of what French told her she always supposed she owned the land."

"I'm not responsible for what French told her. I'm getting tired of this absurd claim of hers. Her land is described in her deeds. That's her evidence of title. You ought to know that."

"Yes, I know that," the judge admitted mildly. "As it happens, she is now able to produce a deed from you to her father conveying the land in question."

It was so entirely unexpected that Mr. Braden's heart decidedly misbehaved. How in the name of all bad luck had this happened? Had Garland, after all, made a dicker with Mackay? Had Mackay got those infernal deeds? Or had he merely a suspicion, which Riley was trying to confirm by a fishing trip for a damaging admission?

"Nonsense!" he said.

"Oh, no," the judge replied cheerfully. "To be quite frank with you, our position is this: French, shortly before his death, delivered to his niece a conveyance in duplicate from you to her father purporting to convey certain lands therein described. This land lies immediately east of the coal lands, but does not include them. We claim that this latter conveyance is the true and original one."

"Where did you get it?" Mr. Braden demanded.

"Suppose French, feeling his end approaching, gave it to his niece?"

"He—" Mr. Braden began and checked himself suddenly. Riley was laying verbal traps for him. He must be careful. "If you have this conveyance, let me see it."

"You will see it at the proper time."

"You mean that you haven't got it," Mr. Braden charged.

The judge smiled. "You think I am trying to trap you into an admission. Nothing of the sort. I said we could produce the documents. The only difference between them and the others is the description of the property. Same date, same witness. It's useless to deny the existence of documents which I myself have seen."

There was no doubt that the judge was telling the truth. So Garland had sold out to Mackay. Mr. Braden's front trenches were carried, but he believed his second line to be impregnable.

"I'm not denying its existence. I know all about the thing, including the fact that it was stolen from me."

"The main thing is that it exists."

"It exists, but it is worthless."

"My clients consider it rather valuable."

"I suppose they paid for it, but they've been stung. When I sold that land to Winton, a clerk in my office prepared the deeds and got the description wrong. When I discovered the error I had new deeds prepared and executed, and they are what I suppose French gave to Winton's daughter. I supposed he had given them to Winton long ago. So there you are! You've found a mare's nest, and that's all there is to it."

Judge Riley chuckled internally, though his face was grave. Braden was doing the obvious.

"Don't you compare conveyances before execution in your office?"

"Of course I do. But in this case the error was in the description which the clerk prepared and gave to the stenographer to copy. She copied it, and it was compared with what had been given her."

"Then who discovered the error?"

"I did. It struck me that the description was not correct."

"After you had signed it and French had witnessed it?"

"Y—yes." There was hesitation in his voice.

"Don't you read things over before you sign and have your signature witnessed? Why didn't it strike you then?"

"You aren't cross-examining me!" Mr. Braden asserted.

"Not at all. I am just trying to understand a situation which is rather extraordinary. Then, as I understand it, you had a new conveyance prepared, and delivered it to French, and that's all you know about it?"

"That's all," Mr. Braden confirmed.

"Why didn't you destroy the other one?"

"I suppose I overlooked it. The papers got among others."

"And into your private safe."

"Yes. And they were stolen from it."

"But then you say they're worthless. You say that the two sets of papers were drawn on the same day? The second wasn't prepared subsequently and dated back?"

Mr. Braden hesitated, trying to read the purpose behind the question. He was again beginning to distrust Riley, who undoubtedly resembled an Airedale.

"I'm almost sure it was the same day. It may have been the next."

"But at all events within, say, forty-eight hours?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps your stenographer might remember? Or your clerk?"

"That clerk is dead," said Mr. Braden without noticeable regret. "My stenographer might or might not remember. But she could identify the papers as being written about the same time on the same machine."

"How?"

"Because I had only one machine in my office at that time, and that had certain peculiarities of type. I scrapped it soon after that, and got a new one. If you'll compare the deeds, you'll see they must have been written on the same machine."

"A very fair point," the judge admitted blandly. "You have an excellent memory for details. But even if you establish that they were written on the same machine, it would not prove that they were written on the same day. For that you would have to depend on your evidence and that of your stenographer."

"I don't have to prove when they were written," Mr. Braden stated. "The date of an instrument is prima facie evidence. I know a little law myself, Riley."

"A little law is a very dangerous thing to know," the judge commented.

"And I'm not going to be cross-examined by you," Mr. Braden declared. "If you contend that those deeds were made at different times it's up to you to prove it. Can you do that, hey?"

"Yes," the judge replied. "Absolutely!"

Mr. Braden almost jumped, and his heart again misbehaved.

"H—how?" he asked in a voice which shook slightly.

"In this way," the judge replied: "The conveyance delivered by French to his niece and dated some seven years ago, is on paper bearing the watermark of a firm which did not exist, much less manufacture a single sheet of paper, until two years ago!"

It was a terrible blow, direct, unexpected, smashing through Mr. Braden's elaborate system of defense. It produced the shattering, shocking effect of high explosive. For a moment he was speechless. He rallied feebly.

"It's—it's a lie!" he stammered. "They were written on the same legal forms, printed by the same firm."

"On the same legal forms," the judge conceded. "But law stationers as a rule don't manufacture their own paper." His face became grim, his voice rose, and he drove his accusation home as in the old days of his greater prosperity he had broken other carefully prepared testimony.

"That one detail, Braden, overlooked by you and French, destroys entirely the plausible story you have invented. I am prepared to prove, and prove to the hilt, that the deeds delivered by French to my client are forgeries, prepared by you both to defraud a young woman of land which, instead of being worthless as you supposed it to be when you sold it to her father in fraudulent collusion with French, you suddenly discovered to have a high potential value. I say I am prepared to prove this, including the writing of the forged instruments on the same machine. I am prepared to prove, too, how the original deeds passed from French's possession to yours. You are in danger of standing in the dock facing a charge which carries a very heavy penalty. You must decide here and now, whether or not you will face that charge, and the damning evidence which I am prepared to bring against you."

Mr. Braden quailed before the stern voice and menacing finger of the old lawyer. He was not of the stuff to fight up hill, to play out a losing game to the last chip. What was the use? The judge had the goods on him. He sagged in his chair, all fight gone, his face white, his heart choking him.

"Don'—don't prosecute me, Riley!" he pleaded in a shaking voice. "I'll do anything you say. What do you want?"