h worse off than I had expected. I went
into the money market, and made a successful deal. Counting on being
able to repeat this, I guaranteed the sixteen thousand for Bristol; but
the second time I lost. So it has gone on; all these last weeks I have
been speculating, winning and losing. Last Tuesday, when I came to see
you, I had about twelve thousand, and hoped somehow to make up the
deficiency. As the devil would have it, that same morning I met a City
acquaintance, who spoke of a great _coup_ to be made by any one who had
some fifteen thousand at command. It meant an immediate profit of 25
per cent. Like a fool, I was persuaded--as you will see when I go into
details, the thing looked horribly tempting. I put it all--every penny
that lay at our bank in the name of Sherwood Bros. And now I learn that
the house I trusted has smashed. It's in the papers this
evening--Biggles, Thorpe and Biggles--you'll see it. I dare not ask you
to forgive me. Of course I shall at once take steps to raise the money
owing to you, and hope to be able to do that soon, but it's all over
with the Bristol affair. I shall come to see you at twelve to-morrow.

"Yours,

"G. F. SHERWOOD."

CHAPTER 15

"After all, there's something in presentiment."

This was the first thought that took shape in Will's whirling mind. The
second was, that he might rationally have foreseen disaster. All the
points of strangeness which had struck him in Sherwood's behaviour came
back now with such glaring significance that he accused himself of
inconceivable limpness in having allowed things to go their way--above
all in trusting Godfrey with the St. Neots cheque. On this moment of
painful lucidity followed blind rage. Why, what a grovelling imbecile
was this fellow! To plunge into wild speculation, on the word of some
City shark, with money not his own! But could one credit the story? Was
it not more likely that Sherwood had got involved in some cunning
thievery which he durst not avow? Perhaps he was a mere liar and
hypocrite. That story of the ten thousand pounds he had lent to
somebody--how improbable it sounded; why might he not have invented it,
to strengthen confidence at a critical moment? The incredible baseness
of the man! He, who knew well all that depended upon the safe
investment of the St. Neots money--to risk it in this furiously
reckless way. In all the records of City scoundrelism, was there a
blacker case?

Raging thus, Warburton b