this place forbid my taking any of you with me behind that steel gate. But I shall be gone no more than a moment."
He passed behind the barrier and, accompanied by an official of the Safe Deposit, vanished into a strong-room.
At the end of three minutes he reappeared, carrying a small dispatch-case. This, after he had come back through the barrier, he laid on the table which occupied the centre of the lobby. The Committee and the rest of the party gathered curiously round.
"In this dispatch-case," the Archdeacon began, "is the manuscript of a published novel which was written by one whom for the purposes of this explanation I will call A. Hitherto the author of this work has been supposed, by the public, to be one whom I will call B. Into the reasons which led A to conceal his identity
