n anger, but the prevailing
emotion seemed to be mere curiosity. The people who would suffer most
from the collapse of this high-sounding enterprise could not reach the
scene of calamity at half an hour's notice; they were dwellers in many
parts of the British Isles, strangers most of them to London city, with
but a vague mental picture of the local habitation of the Britannia
Loan, Assurance, Investment, and Banking Company, Limited.

His arm was seized, and a voice said hoarsely in his ear--

'By God! too late.'

Hugh Carnaby had tumbled out of a cab, and saw his friend in the same
moment that he got near enough to perceive that the doors of the bank
were shut.

'The thieves have lost no time,' he added, pale with fury.

'You had warning of it?'

Hugh pulled him a few yards away, and whispered----

'Bennet Frothingham shot himself last night.'

Again Harvey experienced that disagreeable heart-shock, with the
alternation of hot and cold.

'Where? At home?'

'At the office of _Stock and Share_. Come farther away. It'll be in the
evening papers directly, but I don't want those blackguards to hear me.
I got up late this morning, and as I was having breakfast, Sibyl rushed
in. She brought the news; had it from some friend of her mother's, a
man connected somehow with _Stock and Share_. I thought they would shut
up shop, and came to try and save Sibyl's balance--a couple of hundred,
that's all--but they've swallowed it with the rest.'

'With the rest?'

Hugh laughed mockingly.

'Of hers. Devilish bad luck Sibyl has. It was just a toss-up that a
good deal of my own wasn't in, one way or another.'

'Do you know any more about Frothingham?'

'No. Only the fact. Don't know when it was, or when it got known. We
shall have it from the papers presently. I think every penny Mrs
Larkfield had was in.'

'But it may not mean absolute ruin,' urged Harvey.

'I know what to think when B. F. commits suicide. We shall hear that
some of the others have bolted. It'll be as clean a sweep as our
housekeeper's little job.'

'I've had queer presentiments,' Harvey murmured.

'Why, damn it, so have I! So had lots of people. But nobody ever does
anything till it's too late. I must get home again with my agreeable
news. You'll be going to the club, I dare say? They'll have plenty to
talk about for the next month or two.'

'Try to come round tonight to my place.'

'Perhaps. It depends on fifty chances. There's only one thi