"At the same time, there the money is. You can run no risk. If I am exceeding my moral right in making use of these notes, it is I who will have to pay. Will you do as I ask?"

The banker hesitated. The transaction was somewhat a peculiar one, but on the face of it there could be no possible risk. At the same time, there was something about it which he could not understand.

"Your wish, Mr. Laverick," he remarked, looking at him thoughtfully, "seems to be to keep these notes out of circulation."

Laverick returned his gaze without flinching.

"In a sense, that is so," he a.s.sented.

"On the whole," the banker declared, "I should prefer to credit them to your account in the usual way."

"I am sorry," Laverick answered, "but I have a sentimental feeling about it. I prefer to keep the notes intact. If you cannot follow out my suggestion, I must remove my account at once. This isn't a threat, Mr. Fenwick,--you will understand that, I am sure. It is simply a matter of business, and owing to Morrison's speculations I have no time for arguments. I am quite satisfied to remain in your hands, but my feeling in the matter is exactly as I have stated, and I cannot change. If you are to retain my account, my engagements for to-day must be met precisely in the way I have pointed out."

The banker excused himself and left the room for a few moments.

When he returned, he shrugged his shoulders with the air of one who is giving in to an unreasonable client.

"It shall be as you say, Mr. Laverick," he announced. "The notes are placed upon deposit. Your engagements to-day up to twenty thousand pounds shall be duly honored."

Laverick shook hands with him, talked for a moment or two about indifferent matters, and strolled back towards his office. He had rather the sense of a man who moves in a dream, who is living, somehow, in a life which doesn't belong to him. He was doing the impossible. He knew very well that his name was in every one's mouth. People were looking at him sympathetically, wondering how he could have been such a fool as to become the victim of an irresponsible speculator. No one ever imagined that he would be able to keep his engagements. And he had done it. The price might be a great one, but he was prepared to pay. At any moment the sensational news might be upon the placards, and the whole world might know that the man who had been murdered in Crooked Friars last night had first been robbed of twenty thousand pounds.

So far he had felt himself curiously free from anything in the shape of direct apprehensions. Already, however, the shadow was beginning to fall. Even as he entered his office, the sight of a stranger offering office files for sale made him start. He half expected to feel a hand upon his shoulder, a few words whispered in his ear. He set his teeth tight. This was his risk and he must take it.

For several hours he remained in his office, engaged in a scheme for the redirection of its policy. With the absence of Morrison, too, there were other changes to be made,--changes in the nature of the business they were prepared to handle, limits to be fixed.

It was not until nearly luncheon time that the telephone, the simultaneous arrival of several clients, and the breathless entry of his own head-clerk rushing in from the house, told him what was going on.

"'Unions' have taken their turn at last!" the clerk announced, in an excited tone. "They sagged a little this morning, but since eleven they have been going steadily up. Just now there seems to be a boom. Listen."

Laverick heard the roar of voices in the street, and nodded. He was prepared to be surprised at nothing.

"They were bound to go within a day or two," he remarked. "Morrison wasn't an absolute idiot."

The luncheon hour pa.s.sed. The excitement in the city grew. By three o'clock, ten thousand pounds would have covered all of Laverick's engagements. Just before closing-time, it was even doubtful whether he might not have borrowed every penny without security at all. He took it all quite calmly and as a matter of course. He left the office a little earlier than usual, and every man whom he met stopped to slap him on the back and chaff him. He escaped as soon as he could, bought the evening papers, found a taxicab, and as soon as he had started spread them open. It was a remarkable proof of the man's self-restraint that at no time during the afternoon had he sent out for one of these early editions.

He turned them over now with firm fingers. There was absolutely no fresh news. No one had come forward with any suggestion as to the ident.i.ty of the murdered man. All day long the body had lain in the Mortuary, visited by a constant stream of the curious, but presumably unrecognized. Laverick could scarcely believe the words he read. The thing seemed ludicrously impossible. The twenty thousand pounds must have come from some one. Why did they keep silence? What was the mystery about it? Could it be that they were not in a position to disclose the fact? Curiously enough, this unnatural absence of news inspired him with something which was almost fear. He had taken his risks boldly enough. Now that Fate was playing him this unexpectedly good turn, he was conscious of a growing nervousness. Who could he have been, this man? Whence could he have derived this great sum? One person at least must know that he had been robbed--the man who murdered him must know it. A cold shiver pa.s.sed through Laverick's veins at the thought.

Somewhere in London there must be a man thirsting for his blood, a man who had committed a murder in vain and been robbed of his spoil.

Laverick had no engagements for that evening, but instead of going to his club he drove straight to his rooms, meaning to change a little early for dinner and go to a theatre, lie found there, however, a small boy waiting for him with a note in his hand. It was addressed in pencil only, and his name was printed upon it.

Laverick tore it open with a haste which he only imperfectly concealed. There was something ominous to him in those printed characters. Its contents, however, were short enough.

DEAR LAVERICK, I must see you. Come the moment you get this. Come without fail, for your own sake and mine. A. M.

Laverick looked at the boy. His fingers were trembling, but it was with relief. The note was from Morrison.

"There is no address here," he remarked.

"The gent said as I was to take you back with me," the boy answered.

"Is it far?" Laverick asked.

"Close to Red Lion Square," the boy declared. "Not more nor five minutes in one of them taxicabs. The gent said we was to take one. He is in a great hurry to see you."

Laverick did not hesitate a moment.

"Very well," he said, "we'll start at once."

He put on his hat again and waited while the commissionaire called them a taxicab.

"What address?" he asked.

"Number 7, Theobald Square," the boy said. Laverick nodded and repeated the address to the driver.

"What the d.i.c.kens can Morrison be doing in a part like that!" he thought, as they pa.s.sed up Northumberland Avenue.

CHAPTER XIV

ARTHUR MORRISON'S COLLAPSE

The Square was a small one, and in a particularly unsavory neighborhood. Laverick, who had once visited his partner's somewhat extensive suite of rooms in Jermyn Street, rang the bell doubtfully.

The door was opened almost at once, not by a servant but by a young lady who was obviously expecting him. Before he could open his lips to frame an inquiry, she had closed the door behind him.

"Will you please come this way?" she said timidly.

Laverick found himself in a small sitting-room, unexpectedly neat, and with the plainness of its furniture relieved by certain undeniable traces of some cultured presence. The girl who had followed him stood with her back to the door, a little out of breath.

Laverick contemplated her in surprise. She was under medium height, with small pale face and wonderful dark eyes. Her brown hair was parted in the middle and arranged low down, so that at first, taking into account her obvious nervousness, he thought that she was a child. When she spoke, however, he knew that for some reason she was afraid. Her voice was soft and low, but it was the voice of a woman.

"It is Mr. Laverick, is it not?" she asked, looking at him eagerly.

"My name is Stephen Laverick," he admitted. "I understood that I should find Mr. Arthur Morrison here."

"Yes," the girl answered, "he sent for you. The note was from him.

He is here."

She made no movement to summon him. She still stood, in fact, with her back to the door. Laverick was distinctly puzzled. He felt himself unable to place this timid, childlike woman, with her terrified face and beautiful eyes. He had never heard Morrison speak of having any relations. His presence in such a locality, indeed, was hard to understand unless he had met with an accident.

Morrison was one of those young men who would have chosen h.e.l.l with a "W" rather than Heaven E. C.

"I am afraid," Laverick said, "that for some reason or other you are afraid of me. I can a.s.sure you that I am quite harmless," he added smiling. "Won't you sit down and tell me what is the matter?

Is Mr. Morrison in any trouble?"

"Yes," she answered, "he is. As for me, I am terrified."

She came a little away from the door. Laverick was a man who inspired trust. His tone, too, was unusually kind. He had the protective instinct of a big man toward a small woman.

"Come and tell me all about it," he suggested. "I expected to hear that he had gone abroad."

"Mr. Laverick," she said, looking up at him tremulously. "I was hoping that you could have told me what it was that had come to him."