ting,' answered Logotheti. 'I don't know whether you believe in
that, but I do a little. I got rather a queer result, considering that
I only showed half-a-dozen lines, which could not give any idea of the
contents.'

'What did the man say?'

'He said the writer appeared to be on the verge of insanity, if not
actually mad; that he was naturally of an accurate mind, with ordinary
business capacities, such as a clerk might have, but that he had
received a much better education than most clerks get, and must at one
time have done intellectual work. His madness, the man said, would
probably take some violent form.'

'There's nothing very definite about all that,' Margaret observed.
'Why in the world should the creature have written to you, of all
people, to destroy Mr. Van Torp's character?'

'The interview with you was only an incident,' answered Logotheti.
'There were other things, all tending to show that he is not a safe
person to deal with.'

'Why should you ever deal with him?'

Logotheti smiled.

'There are about a hundred and fifty men in different countries who
are regarded as the organs of the world's financial body. The very big
ones are the vital organs. Van Torp has grown so much of late that he
is probably one of them. Some people are good enough to think that I'm
another. The blood of the financial body--call it gold, or credit, or
anything you like--circulates through all the organs, and if one of
the great vital ones gets out of order the whole body is likely to
suffer. Suppose that Van Torp wished to do something with the Nickel
Trust in Paris, and that I had private information to the effect that
he was not a man to be trusted, and that I believed this information,
don't you see that I should naturally warn my friends against him, and
that our joint weight would be an effective obstacle in his way?'

'Yes, I see that. But, dear me! do you mean to say that all financiers
must be strictly virtuous, like little woolly white lambs?'

Margaret laughed carelessly. If Lushington had heard her, his teeth
would have been set on edge, but Logotheti did not notice the shade of
expression and tone.

'I repeat that the account of the interview with you was a mere
incident, thrown in to show that Van Torp occasionally loses his head
and behaves like a madman.'

'I don't want to see the letter,' said Margaret, 'but what sort of
accusations did it contain? Were they all of the same kind?'

'No. There was