I do know that he never said a word about going anywhere by train, and
he'd no bag or anything with him--he'd nothing but that old oak stick he
generally carried when he went out for his walks."

Neale pushed open the house door and went into the outer hall to the
junior clerks. Little as he cared about banking as a calling, he was
punctilious about rules and observances, and it seemed to him somewhat
indecorous that the staff of a bank should hang about its front door, as
if they were workshop assistants awaiting the arrival of a belated
foreman.

"Better come inside the house, Shirley," he said. "Patten, you go to the
post-office and get the letters."

"No good without the bag," answered Patten, a calm youth of seventeen.
"Tried that once before. Don't you know!--they've one key--we've
another."

"Well, come inside, then," commanded Neale. "It doesn't look well to
hang about those steps."

"Might just as well go away," muttered Shirley, stepping into the hall.
"If Horbury's got to come back by train from wherever he's gone to, he
can't get here till the 10.45, and then he's got to walk up. Might as
well go home for an hour."

"The partners'll be here before an hour's over," said Neale. "One of
them's always here by ten."

Shirley, a somewhat grumpy-countenanced young man, made no answer. He
began to pace the hall with looks of eminent dissatisfaction. But he had
only taken a turn or two when a quietly appointed one-horse coupe
brougham came up to the open door, and a well-known face was seen at its
window. Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke, senior proprietor, had come an hour
before his time.

CHAPTER II

THE ELLERSDEANE DEPOSIT

Had the three young men waiting in that hall not been so familiar with
him by reason of daily and hourly acquaintance, the least observant
amongst them would surely have paused in whatever task he was busied
with, if Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke had crossed his path for the first
time. The senior partner of Chestermarke's Bank was a noticeable person.
Wallington Neale, who possessed some small gift of imagination, always
felt that his principal suggested something more than was accounted for
by his mere presence. He was a little, broadly built man, somewhat
inclined to stoutness, who carried himself in very upright fashion, and
habitually wore the look of a man engaged in operations of serious and
far-reaching importance, further heightened by an air of reserve and a
trick of sparing