"According to him Smethurst had made one gigantic mistake in his clever
career--he had on four occasions written to his late friend, William
Kershaw. Two of these letters had no bearing on the case, since they
were written more than twenty-five years ago, and Kershaw, moreover, had
lost them--so he said--long ago. According to him, however, the first of
these letters was written when Smethurst, alias Barker, had spent all
the money he had obtained from the crime, and found himself destitute in
New York.
"Kershaw, then in fairly prosperous circumstances, sent him a L10 note
for the sake of old times. The second, when the tables had turned, and
Kershaw had begun to go downhill, Smethurst, as he then already called
himself, sent his whilom friend L50. After that, as Mueller gathered,
Kershaw had made sundry demands on Smethurst's ever-increasing purse,
and had accompanied these demands by various threats, which, considering
the distant country in which the millionaire lived, were worse than
futile.
"But now the climax had come, and Kershaw, after a final moment of
hesitation, handed over to his German friend the two last letters
purporting to have been written by Smethurst, and which, if you
remember, played such an important part in the mysterious story of this
extraordinary crime.
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