Risk nodded thoughtfully. “Please pardon so many questions, Hayward. I feel that I may now tell you why I am taking so much trouble, and giving you so much, over this Mr. Symington. About seven years ago I advised a friend who had come into a little money to put it into Zeniths for what is sometimes termed a ‘long shot.’ I did so not only because I positively knew the mines had a great future, though possibly a distant one, but also because I knew my friend would otherwise fritter away the money which he honestly believed he could save for his daughter, then a young girl. . . . Yes, Hayward? Have you something to say?” “Please go on,” said Colin, restraining himself. “Very well. Zeniths at that period,” the other proceeded, “were decidedly out of favour. One could buy at two or three shillings. My friend bought 5,000 at half a crown a share. At his request I did the business for him and eventually handed him ten bearer certificates for 500 shares each. I am a methodical person in some respects, and in an old diary I have a record of the transaction and the numbers of the shares. Now—one moment, please!—I had my friend’s promise that he would not part with the shares until I gave him the word. If he needed money badly, he was to let me know. Time passed, and circumstances prevented our meeting; I was much abroad. I did not hear of his death until a year afterwards, and I failed to trace his daughter. But I have always been on the watch for shares bearing the numbers recorded in the old diary, and I have not grown less keen since the shares began to move up in earnest. And now, when the shares have risen to over four pounds apiece—when my friend, had he lived, would have seen himself worth at least twenty thousand pounds—along comes a letter from a Mr. Symington covering five hundred of those same shares—” “Mr. Risk, I have something to say—” “One moment more!—and within a few hours of its receipt I discover, by the merest chance, the daughter of my old friend—” “Her—his name was Carstairs—Hugh Carstairs?” exploded Colin. “It was.” “And no doubt you mean as well by the daughter as you meant by the father?—Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Risk!” For an instant Risk frowned, then he smiled pleasantly. “The daughter has never seen me, but she has no better friend for her father’s sake. Yet I must try to satisfy you that I am not interested in those 5,000 shares with an eye to personal profit.” He got up and, leaving Colin hot and uncomfortable, went to a safe built into the wall behind the panelling, a door in which stood open. He came back with a thin bundle of parchment-like papers which he put into the young man’s hand. “Kindly look at these, Hayward, and tell me what they represent.” Reluctantly but perforce Colin examined the documents and after a little while replied a trifle huskily— “Eighty thousand shares in the Zenith Company—and you are the owner!”