and the old boy read it in the
train. Five minutes after he had reached his house he was out on the
lawn with a daisy fork. No; the cashier didn't arrange the Paris
sale."

"What of the sons?"

"The elder, Hilton Fenley, is a neurotic, like myself, so he
would shine with equal luster as a saint, or a detective, or a
dyed-in-the-wool thief. The younger, Robert, ought to be an explorer,
or a steeplechase jockey, or an airman. In reality, he is a first-rate
wastrel. In my distress I harked back to the old man, to whom the loss
of the bonds represented something considerably less than a year's
expenditure. He is mixed up in all sorts of enterprises--rubber, tea,
picture palaces, breweries and automobile finance. He lent fifty
thousand pounds on five per cent. first mortgage bonds to one firm at
Coventry, and half that amount to a rival show in West London. So he
has the stuff, and plenty of it. Yet----"

Winter nodded.

"I know the sort of man. Dealing in millions today; tomorrow in the
dock at the Old Bailey."

"The point is that Fenley has never dealt in millions, and has
kept his head high for twenty years. Just twenty years, by the way.
Before that he was unknown. He began by the amalgamation of some tea
plantations in Assam. Fine word, 'amalgamation.' It means money, all
the time. Can't we amalgamate something, or somebody?"

"In Fenley's case it led to assassination."

"Perhaps. I have a feeling in my bones that if I knew who touched the
proceeds of those bonds I might understand why some one shot Fenley
this morning."

"I'll soon tell you a trivial thing like that," said Winter, affecting
a close interest in the landscape.

"I shouldn't be at all surprised if you did," said Furneaux. "You have
the luck of a Carnegie. Look at the way you bungled that affair of
Lady Morris's diamonds, until you happened to see her maid meeting
Gentleman George at the White City."

Winter smoked complacently.

"Smartest thing I ever did," he chortled. "Fixed on the thief within
half an hour, and never lost touch till I knew how she had worked the
job."

"The Bow Street method."

"Why didn't you try something of the sort with regard to Fenley's
bonds?"

"I couldn't be crude, even with a City financier. I put it gently that
the money was in the family; he blinked at me like an owl, said that
he would give thought to the suggestion, and shut down the inquiry by
telephone before I reached the Yard from his office."