ant client. He
began talking the usual market shop until his visitor stopped him.

"I have come to you, Edwardes, more for information than anything,"
Peter declared, "although it may mean that I shall need to sell a lot of
stock. Can you tell me of any private financier who could raise a loan
of a million pounds in cash within the course of a week?"

The stockbroker looked dubious.

"In cash," he repeated. "Money isn't raised that way, you know. I doubt
whether there are many men in the whole city of London who could put up
such an amount with only a week's notice."

"But there must be some one," Peter persisted. "Think! It would probably
be a firm or a man not obtrusively English. I don't think the Jews would
touch it, and a German citizen would be impossible."

"Semi-political, eh?"

Peter nodded.

"It is rather that way," he admitted.

"Would your friend Count von Hern be likely to be concerned in it?"

"Why?" Peter asked, with immovable face.

"Nothing, only I saw him coming out of Heseltine-Wrigge's office the
other day," the stockbroker remarked, carelessly.

"And who is Mr. Heseltine-Wrigge?"

"A very wealthy American financier," the stockbroker replied, "not at
all an unlikely person for a loan of the sort you mention."

"American citizen?" Peter inquired.

"Without a doubt. Of German descent, I should say, but nothing much left
of it in his appearance. He settled over here in a huff because New York
society wouldn't receive his wife."

"I remember all about it," Peter declared. "She was a chorus girl,
wasn't she? Nothing particular against her, but the fellow had no tact.
Do you know him, Edwardes?"

"Slightly," the stockbroker answered.

"Give me a letter to him," Peter said. "Give my credit as good a leg as
you can. I shall probably go as a borrower."

Mr. Edwardes wrote a few lines and handed them to his client.

"Office is nearly opposite," he remarked. "Wish you luck, whatever your
scheme is."

Peter crossed the street and entered the building which his friend had
pointed out. He ascended in the lift to the third floor, knocked at the
door which bore Mr. Heseltine-Wrigge's name, and almost ran into the
arms of a charmingly dressed little lady, who was being shown out by a
broad-shouldered, typical American. Peter hastened to apologize.

"I beg your pardon," he said, raising his hat. "I was rather in a hurry
and I quite thought I heard some one say 'Come in.'"

The lady replied