'
'Possibly. I haven't read it for a long while.'
'Have you ever met this learned doctor, Mr. Macpherson?'
'Oh, yes. Dr. Willoughby is the pen-name of Mr. Summertrees. He believes
in Christian Science and that sort of thing, and writes about it.'
'Ah, really. We are getting your confession bit by bit, Mr. Macpherson.
I think it would be better to be quite frank with us.'
'I was just going to make the same suggestion to you, Monsieur
Valmont. If you will tell me in a few words exactly what is your
charge against either Mr. Summertrees or myself, I will know then what
to say.'
'We charge you, sir, with obtaining money under false pretences, which
is a crime that has landed more than one distinguished financier in
prison.'
Spenser Hale shook his fat forefinger at me, and said,--
'Tut, tut, Valmont; we mustn't threaten, we mustn't threaten, you
know;' but I went on without heeding him.
'Take for instance, Lord Semptam. You sold him a table for fifty
pounds, on the instalment plan. He was to pay a pound a week, and in
less than a year the debt was liquidated. But he is an absent-minded
man, as all your clients are. That is why you came to me. I had
answered the bogus Willoughby's advertisement.
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