“One moment, if you please, Mr. Letheringcourt,” he said, turning away. “You want this in notes, I understand?”
Mr. Philip Letheringcourt raised his eyebrows.
“I certainly don’t want gold, if that is what you mean,” he replied.
The clerk hastened to a desk at the farther end of the bank and talked for a moment to a grey-headed man who sat there apparently entering up a ceaseless stream of amounts into a grand ledger. It was clear, even to Philip Letheringcourt—who felt only fairly interested—that the cheque which the clerk held in his hand was the subject of their conversation. The elder gentleman took up a telephone which stood by his side and spoke into it. When he replaced the receiver he nodded curtly to the clerk, who returned to his former place at the desk.
“One fifty, you said, and plenty of tens, I believe, Mr. Letheringcourt?” the latter remarked, beginning to count out the notes.
“That’s right,” Letheringcourt answered. “Why did you take the cheque up to the old gentleman? You didn’t doubt my signature, I suppose?”
“Not in the least, sir,” the man answered, civilly. “By the by, Mr. Jarndyse would like to speak to you, if you can spare half a moment.”
“I haven’t much time,” Letheringcourt remarked, doubtfully. “If it’s a matter of business, hadn’t he better send for Weare? I don’t interfere, you know, in the financial part of our affairs.”
“I think Mr. Jarndyse would like to see you, sir,” the clerk answered, “if you can spare half a minute. He is disengaged now, if you will come this way.” Letheringcourt stuffed the notes into his pocket and followed his guide into the private office of the bank manager. Mr. Jarndyse rose to his feet as they entered, and motioned the clerk to leave them.
“Some time since we met, Mr. Letheringcourt,” the banker remarked, pleasantly. “You do not often favour us with a visit.”
Letheringcourt smiled.
“Why should I?” he answered. “I leave everything connected with the financial conduct of our business to Weare. Your young man said that you would like to have a word with me.”
“Just so, Mr. Letheringcourt,” the bank manager said. “Sit down for a moment, will you?”
Letheringcourt sat down a little unwillingly.
“I’m afraid I can only spare you a moment,” he said.
“I shall not detain you,” the bank manager answered. “The fact of it is, Mr. Letheringcourt, I was looking into the figures connected with your firm this morning. You have, as doubtless you are aware, an authorized overdraft with us of twenty-five thousand pounds, against which we hold various securities. I find that you are overdrawn at the moment rather more than thirty thousand pounds, and that there is a draft of fifty-five thousand pounds to Cunliffe and Peabody due to-morrow.”
Letheringcourt looked across at the manager in blank amazement.
“Really, Mr. Jarndyse,” he said, “these are matters in which I never interfere at all. I presume that whatever obligations the firm has entered into will be duly met.”
“I trust so, Mr. Letheringcourt,” the bank manager answered. “At the same time I do not think that you should allow matters to be run quite so close. If you will pardon my saying so, I think that you ought to keep a stricter personal control over the financial side of your business.”
Letheringcourt was a little taken aback.
“You don’t mean to imply, Mr. Jarndyse,” he said, “that Ambrose Weare is not so careful as he ought to be? He has been in our employ for over fifteen years, and for the last ten years, at least, he has absolutely controlled our finances.”
“I wish to imply nothing,” the bank manger answered; “but I do not think it is good financing to leave so large a sum as nearly sixty thousand pounds to be provided on the very day when the draft is due.”
Letheringcourt took up his hat.
“I agree with you,” he answered. “It doesn’t sound exactly the thing. I’ll speak to Weare about it. Very likely he has a number of bills of exchange which he did not wish to discount until the last moment. Bank rate’s pretty stiff just now, isn’t it?”
“There are, no doubt, explanations,” the bank manager remarked. “At the same time, Mr. Letheringcourt, if you will pardon my saying so, I think that you will be well advised to take a little more personal interest in your business.”
“Thanks!” Letheringcourt answered, a little curtly. “I’ll remember what you say.”
He was thoughtful during the drive home; he was thoughtful during the one rubber he had time for at the club; and he was even thoughtful over the tête-à-tête dinner alone with his wife, for which a series of mischances was responsible. Mrs. Letheringcourt, at the conclusion of the meal, rose to her feet with a little yawn and strolled to the mantle-piece.
“Philip,” she remarked, lighting a cigarette, “a dinner à deux doesn’t seem to amuse you.”
He sat up with a little start; he had been gazing fixedly at the tablecloth, speechless, for the last five minutes.
“I am awfully sorry, Joan,” he said. “I am afraid that you must have thought me a perfect bear.”
“Your conversation certainly hasn’t been brilliant,” she remarked, quietly. “Please tell me what it is that you have been thinking about.” He shook his head.
“The affairs of Holt and Letheringcourt!” he answered.
She raised her eyebrows.
“Business?” she repeated. “Well, it isn’t very often you allow that to trouble you.”
“You are quite right,” he admitted. “It is very seldom that I think about it at all. And yet this afternoon something happened—just a trifle—which gave me a most unpleasant quarter of an hour.”
“Go on,” she said. “Tell me about it.”
They were sitting in one of the smaller rooms of their house in Berkeley Square, half study, half morning-room. It was an evening on which they had planned to dine out and to go to the theatre, but some friends had disappointed them, and at the last moment Letheringcourt himself had begged for a quiet evening. His wife, always good-natured, had acceded readily enough—it was not often that their social engagements permitted them to spend an evening together. A small dinner had been served to them in an impromptu fashion.
“Tell me, Philip,” she said, “exactly what it is that is bothering you.”
Letheringcourt threw away the cigar which had burned out between his fingers and lit a cigarette. In a few words he told his wife of his visit to the bank that afternoon. When he had finished she looked across at him with wide-open eyes.
“It certainly seems most odd!” she exclaimed. “What did you say to Mr. Jarndyse, Philip?”
“I told him, of course,” Letheringcourt continued, “that for a great many years Ambrose Weare had had the sole control of the finances of my firm, that during all that time no complaint had been made, and that the business generally had been exceedingly prosperous. Yet I don’t fancy that he was satisfied. I didn’t like the way he twice advised me to take a more personal interest in my own affairs.”
“Do you think that he mistrusts Ambrose Weare?” she asked.
“Such an idea is preposterous,” Letheringcourt declared.
“You believe in him implicitly yourself, then?” she demanded.
“Implicitly!”