"He has taken them for a year, monsieur. I think he will take them permanently. I hope so, for he gives no trouble, and has never been out late once since he came here."

"I want to see him," Cuthbert said, "I believe he is an old acquaintance of mine."

"If you ring his bell he will open himself. He keeps an old woman as servant, but she has just gone out to do his shopping. He always take his meals at home. He is on the second floor--the door to the left."

Cuthbert went up and rang the bell. c.u.mming himself opened the door. He looked at his visitor inquiringly.

"You do not remember me, Mr. c.u.mming?" Cuthbert said, cheerfully. "I am not surprised, for I have but just recovered from a very serious wound.

I will come in and sit down, if you don't mind; I want to have a chat with you. My name is Cuthbert Hartington!"

The man had given a violent start when his name was mentioned, and his face turned to an ashy pallor. He hesitated for a moment, and then, as Cuthbert entered, he closed the door behind him, and silently led the way into the sitting-room.

"I happened to see you in the street," Cuthbert went on, pleasantly, as he seated himself. "Of course, your beard has altered you a bit, and I could not at first recall your face, but it soon came back to me. It was a happy idea of yours shutting yourself up here when there was no chance of an extradition warrant being applied for. However, to-morrow or next day that little difficulty will be at an end. I thought I would come and have a conversation with you, and naturally the course that I shall take will depend a good deal on the results. I may mention," he went on, taking a revolver from his pocket and laying it on the table before him, "that I thought it as well to bring this with me, for just at present I don't feel quite up to a personal tussle."

"What do you want to talk about?" the man asked, doggedly. "I may tell you at once that I placed what little money I got where it will never be found, and beyond sending me up for some years, there will be nothing to be gained by denouncing me."

"There might be some satisfaction though in seeing a man who has ruined you punished--at least there would be to some men. I don't know that there would be to me. It would depend upon circ.u.mstances. I am ready to believe that in those transactions of yours that brought the bank to ruin, you honestly believed that the companies you a.s.sisted would turn out well, and that things would come out right in the end. I do not suppose you were such a fool as to run the risk of ruin and penal servitude when you had a snug place, unless you had thought so; and, indeed, as the directors were as responsible as yourself for making those advances--although they were, of course, ignorant of the fact that you held a considerable interest in those companies--there was nothing actually criminal in those transactions. Therefore, it is only for that matter of your making off with the contents of the safe that you can be actually prosecuted. At any rate, I have no present intention of interfering in the affair, and you can remain here as Mr. Jackson up to the end of your life for what I care, if you will give me the information that I desire."

The look on the man's face relaxed.

"I will give you any information you desire, I have nothing to conceal.

Of course, they can obtain a conviction against me for taking the money, but I should save them trouble by pleading guilty at once. Therefore, I don't see that I could harm myself in any way by answering any questions they may choose to ask me."

"I want to get to the bottom of what has all along been a mystery to me, and that is how my father came to take those shares, just at the moment when the bank was so shaky."

"That is more than I can tell you, Mr. Hartington. It has been a puzzle to myself."

"But they were your shares that were transferred to him."

"That is so, and the money came in useful enough, for I knew that the smash must take place soon, and that possibly I might not be able to lay my hands on much ready cash. However, I will tell you exactly how it came about. Brander, the lawyer came to me and said his client, Mr.

Hartington, wanted fifty shares. I own I was astounded, for Brander knew perfectly well that things were in a very bad way. By the way he spoke I saw there was something curious about the affair, but as he put the screw on, and as much as hinted that if I did not follow his instructions he would blow the whole thing into the air, I made no objections, especially as he proposed that I should transfer some of my own shares. The transfer was drawn up in regular form. He brought it to me duly signed by your father.

"I noticed that his own clerks witnessed the signature, so I supposed it was done in the office. He made a point that I should get the transfer pa.s.sed with some others without the attention of the directors being called to the matter. I got the transfer signed and sealed by two of the directors while there was a talk going on about other things, and they signed without looking at names. So far as I am concerned that was the beginning and ending of the matter. Oh, there was another point, the transfer was ante-dated three weeks. Of course, it might have been lying in Brander's office all the time. It was dated on the day after the previous board meeting, so that in the ordinary course it would not be pa.s.sed until the next meeting, and it might very well have remained in Brander's hands until he knew that the directors were going to meet again. I have often wondered what Brander's game was, and of course I thought all the more of it when I saw that he had bought Fairclose. He was a crafty old fox, Brander, but I have never been able to understand why he permitted your father to ruin himself."

Cuthbert remained silent for some time.

"Your explanation only thickens the mystery," he said. "I can no more understand his motive than you can. Brander's explanation of the affair to me was that my father insisted against his advice in buying the shares, as he did not believe in the rumors to the discredit of the bank. He was a strong county man, as you may know, and thought that when people heard that he had taken shares, it would tend to restore confidence in the concern. Now, as, on the contrary, Brander seems to have taken special pains to prevent the transaction being known even by the directors, it is clear that his explanation was a lie, that for some reasons of his own he wished to defeat my father's intentions. I think I must get you to put the statement you have made to me on paper, and to get it sworn before a public notary--at least I think that is the way out here."

"I have no objection to do that, but as it is my intention to continue to live here where I am now known as a resident and feel myself pretty safe, except from some chance meeting like that of yours, I would rather that it should be done somewhere else."

"That is reasonable enough," Cuthbert agreed. "I expect the gates will be open in a day or two, and I shall go to England at once and try to get to the bottom of this matter. I should think the Prussians will let Englishmen pa.s.s out at once. Would you mind going with me as far as Calais? We can get the doc.u.ment sworn to in legal form and you can then come back here."

"I would rather go to Brussels," the man said.

"No doubt that would be best," Cuthbert agreed. "It might be as well that it should not be done at any place in France. Well, Mr. c.u.mming, your secret is safe with me. I will call on you again as soon as I find that we can get across to Brussels."

"I shall be ready whenever you are, Mr. Hartington. Of course, I don't quite see what you will do with this doc.u.ment, but I am perfectly ready to sign it."

"I don't see either. I shall want to think the matter over. At present I feel in a complete fog."

"I can quite understand that. I may tell you that Brander puzzled me a good deal the last two or three months before the bank stopped. He spent two or three hours going into the affairs with me. He knew generally how matters stood, but he had never gone thoroughly into them before. When he had done he said, 'I knew you were in a very bad way before but I did not think it was as bad as this. I want to see whether the smash could not be postponed. Things have been bad lately, but I think they are improving, and some of these affairs that you have been bolstering up might pull round if you had time given you."

"I did not see much chance of that. However, I did not say so in fact, I wanted to hear what he was driving at. He went on, after looking through the list of mortgages we held, 'Of course, c.u.mming, it is to your interest to hold on here as long as possible, and I may have mine for wishing the bank to keep its doors open for some little time yet. It would never do for you to be going into the market to try and transfer any of these mortgages, but I have clients in London who would, I think, take some of them over. Of course, I have taken good care that in no cases did the bank lend more than fifty per cent. of the full value of the lands, and the mortgages are all as safe as if they were on consols.

So if you will give me a fortnight's notice when there is anything pressing coming forward, I think I can manage to get twenty thousand pounds' worth of these mortgages taken off our hands altogether. I might repeat the operation three or four times, and could get it done quietly and with no fuss. In that way the bank could be kept going for a good many months, which would give time for things to take a turn. In case of anything like a run taking place, which I think is unlikely, I could let you have fifteen thousand of my own in a few hours. I have it standing at call and could run up to town and bring it down by the next train.'

"Why he should make such an offer as this puzzled me, but his reason for wanting to prop the bank up was no business of mine, and there was no doubt if he could get fifty or sixty thousand pounds' worth of mortgages taken off our hands, it would enable us to hold on for some time. He did, in fact, get one batch of twenty thousand pounds' worth transferred, but about a month before we stopped he came in one morning and said, 'I am sorry to tell you, c.u.mming, that I have heard from the people in town I had relied on to help us about those mortgages, and they tell me they have undertaken the financing of a contractor for a South American railway, and that, therefore, they are not inclined at present to sink money farther in mortgages, so I am afraid, as far as I am concerned, things here must take their course,' and, as you know, they did take their course. Naturally, I did not believe Brander's story, but it was evident he had, when he made the offer, some reason for wanting the bank to keep its doors open for a time, and that that reason, whatever it was, had ceased to operate when he withdrew the offer."

"I don't see that that part of the business has any bearing upon my affair," Cuthbert said, "beyond helping to show Brander was playing some deep game of his own."

"I don't know, Mr. Hartington. However, I will think the matter over, and we shall have opportunities for discussing it again on our way to Brussels."

"I almost wish I had let the matter alone altogether," Cuthbert said to himself as he drove back to his lodgings. "I wanted to clear up what seemed a mystery, and I find myself plunged much deeper into a fog than ever. Before I only dimly suspected Brander of having for some reason or other permitted my father to take these shares when a word from him would have dissuaded him from doing so. I now find that the whole transaction was carried out in something like secrecy, and that so far from my father's name being used to prop up the bank, it was almost smuggled into the list of shareholders, and that even the directors were kept in ignorance of the transfer of c.u.mming's shares to him. The whole business has a very ugly look, though what the motive of this secrecy was, or why Brander should be willing to allow, if not to a.s.sist, in my father's ruin is more than I can conceive. The worst of the matter is, he is Mary's father. Yes, I wish to goodness that I had left the whole business alone."

Cuthbert had given his address to c.u.mming, and to his surprise the man called on him that evening.

"You did not expect to see me again to-day, Mr. Hartington," he said, when he entered, "but thinking the matter over a fresh light has struck me, and I felt obliged to come round to tell you. I hope I am not disturbing you."

"No, I have been so worried over the confounded business, that I have given up going to some friends as I had promised, as I didn't feel that I could talk about indifferent matters."

"Well, Mr. Hartington, my idea will surprise you; it will seem incredible to you, and it almost seems so to myself, and yet it all works in so that I can't help thinking it is near the mark. I believe that your father never signed that transfer at all that his signature was in fact a forgery."

"The deuce you do," Cuthbert exclaimed; "what on earth put such an idea into your head? Why, man, the idea is absurd! If it was a forgery it must have been done by Brander, and what possible motive could he have had for such an act?"

"That I don't pretend to say. If I could see that, I should say it was a certainty, but I own the absence of motive is the weak point of my idea.

In all other respects the thing works out. In the first place, although your father was not a man of business, it was singular that he should go out of his way to take shares in the bank, when he must have known that in the case of things going wrong his whole property would be involved.

No doubt that idea must have occurred to yourself."

"Certainly; it astonished me beyond measure that he should have done such a thing. I wrote to Brander at once hoping for some sort of explanation. I was at the time satisfied with that that he gave me, but it was, as you know, because the matter, on reflection, has since seemed so extraordinary that I came to you to try and get some further information about it."

"You saw your father after this supposed transaction, Mr. Hartington?"

"Yes, I was down there for a fortnight."

"And he did not mention it to you?"

"Not a word!"

"Was it his habit to talk on business matters with you?"

"He never had any business matters except about the estate, and he generally told me if he had any difficulty about his rents, and discussed any improvements he thought of making, but beyond that there was never any question of money. Sometimes he would say 'My balance at the bank is rather larger than usual, Cuthbert, and if you like an extra hundred you can have it,' which I never did."

"Well, of course it is only negative evidence that he made no allusion to his having purchased those shares, still, as he was in the habit of speaking to you about things, he might very naturally have said 'I have been investing some spare cash in the shares of the bank here.'"

"Yes, I should have thought he would have done so!"

"You don't think he would have abstained from telling you, because he might have thought you would have considered it a rash speculation."

"Certainly not," Cuthbert said, warmly, "I should no more have thought of criticising anything he chose to do with his money, than I should of flying."