he bent yet closer to Soames' ear--"you will direct the
chauffeur to drop you, not at the Strand entrance, but at the side
entrance. You follow?"

Soames, almost holding his breath, nodded again.

"At the end of the court, in which the latter entrance is situated, a
lady dressed in the same manner as Mrs. Leroux (this is arranged)
will be waiting. Mrs. Leroux will walk straight up the court, into the
corridor of Bank Chambers by the back entrance, and from thence out into
the Strand. YOU will escort the second lady into the manager's office,
and she will sign 'Mira Leroux' instead of the real Mira Leroux."...

Soames became aware that he was changing color. This was a superior
felony, and as such it awed his little mind. It was tantamount to
burning his boats. Missing silver spoons and cooked petty cash were
trivialities usually expiable at the price of a boot-assisted dismissal;
but this--!

"You understand?" Gianapolis was not smiling, now. "There is not the
slightest danger. The signature of the lady whom you will meet will be
an exact duplicate of the real one; that is, exact enough to deceive a
man who is not looking for a forgery. But it would not be exact enough
to deceive the French banker--he WILL be looking for a forgery. You
follow me? The signature on the checks drawn against the Credit Lyonnais
will be the SAME as the specimen forwarded by the London County and
Suburban, since they will be written by the same lady--the duplicate
Mrs. Leroux. Therefore, the French bank will have no means of detecting
the harmless little deception practised upon them, and the English bank,
if it should ever see those checks, will raise no question, since the
checks will have been honored by the Credit Lyonnais."

Soames finished his whisky-and-soda at a gulp.

"Finally," concluded Gianapolis, "you will escort the lady out by the
front entrance to the Strand. She will leave you and walk in an easterly
direction--making some suitable excuse if the manager should insist upon
seeing her to the door; and the real Mrs. Leroux will come out by the
Strand end of Bank Chambers' corridor, and walk back with you around the
corner to where the car will be waiting. Perfect?"

"Quite," said Soames, huskily....

But when, some twenty minutes later, he returned to Palace Mansions,
he was a man lost in thought; and he did not entirely regain his wonted
composure, and did not entirely shake off the incubus, Doubt, until in
his own roo