It was a highly business-like occasion--one of those colossal moments during which the most unassuming man is justified in donning horn-rimmed spectacles and a cigar, sticking his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and generally adopting the accent and demeanour of the Man of Big Business. For Raegenssen was augmenting his account by a sum which exceeded even his ordinary weekly contributions--and they would have represented Blaythwayt's income for a year. He dropped a wad of hundred-pound notes on the table as carelessly as a merely rich man might have paid in a handful of fivers. The manager counted them with a similar dispassionate air, and passed them over to the cashier as if they were so much waste paper; for Joe Blaythwayt was a stickler for the etiquette of his profession. But, business over, he degenerated into a human being. "Of course, you've seen the papers," he remarked. The Swede nodded. "It is ter pig bluff," he said. He glared at the inoffensive Joe as though he suspected him of being in league with the gang. "Plackmail!" he declared violently. "Ant I shall nod bay!" Blaythwayt watched the departure of the huge Viking figure in its ill-fitting clothes thoughtfully. Oscar Raegenssen drove back to Cockspur Street, where he occupied a palatial suite of offices in Scandinavia House. He sat over his desk for a long time, his big, capable hands toying with a ridiculously small pencil. Crag-like jaw outthrust, he stared truculently into space. His leonine head was set at an arrogant angle--he looked by no means an easy man to intimidate. Presently he pressed the bell at his side, and there was a knock on the door. "Gom!" he commanded curtly, and Mattock entered. Raegenssen took the little bundle of pink slips from his clerk's hand and spread them out on the blotting-paper in front of him. With ponderous deliberation he scrawled his thick untidy signature in the bottom right-hand corner of each; and when he had finished he gathered them up, counted them, and studied every one minutely. "Two are missing!" "I have them here," Mattock said. "I've written nothing on them--they're for large sums." "Why?" Mattock showed his teeth. "You forget my reputation, sir," he said gently. Raegenssen regarded his clerk inscrutably. Mattock met the stare boldly--almost insolently. Then, without a word, Raegenssen wrote out the cheques, blotted them, and handed them back. Although Raegenssen's were vaguely described in the directory as "Agents," the City knew them very little. It was rumoured that the Swede was a gigantic speculator in foreign exchanges, and certainly large sums of exotic currencies passed through the Scandinavia House offices and between London and the firm's correspondents in Marseilles, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Genoa. "Next week ter will pe ingoming monies. You will nodify Amstertam as usual. That iss all. Go!" "There was something I wanted to mention, sir, if you'll excuse me," Mattock said.