Neale pricked his ears. Miss Fosdyke was the manager's niece--a young lady whom Neale remembered as a mere slip of a girl that he had met years before and never seen since. "I didn't know that," he remarked. "Neither did Mr. Horbury until Saturday afternoon--that is, for certain," said Mrs. Carswell. "He'd asked her to go with him to Scotland on this holiday, but it wasn't settled. However, he got a wire from her, about tea-time on Saturday, to say she'd go, and would be down here today. They're to start tomorrow morning." Neale turned to the door. He was distinctly puzzled and uneasy. He had known John Horbury since his own childhood, and had always regarded him as the personification of everything that was precise, systematic, and regular. All things considered, it was most remarkable that he should not be at the bank at opening hours. And already a vague suspicion that something had happened began to steal into his mind. "Did you happen to notice which way he went, Mrs. Carswell?" he asked. "Was it towards the station?" "He went out down the garden and through the orchard," replied the housekeeper. "He could have got to the station that way, of course. But I do know that he never said a word about going anywhere by train, and he'd no bag or anything with him--he'd nothing but that old oak stick he generally carried when he went out for his walks." Neale pushed open the house door and went into the outer hall to the junior clerks. Little as he cared about banking as a calling, he was punctilious about rules and observances, and it seemed to him somewhat indecorous that the staff of a bank should hang about its front door, as if they were workshop assistants awaiting the arrival of a belated foreman. "Better come inside the house, Shirley," he said. "Patten, you go to the post-office and get the letters." "No good without the bag," answered Patten, a calm youth of seventeen. "Tried that once before. Don't you know!--they've one key--we've another." "Well, come inside, then," commanded Neale. "It doesn't look well to hang about those steps." "Might just as well go away," muttered Shirley, stepping into the hall. "If Horbury's got to come back by train from wherever he's gone to, he can't get here till the 10.45, and then he's got to walk up. Might as well go home for an hour." "The partners'll be here before an hour's over," said Neale. "One of them's always here by ten." Shirley, a somewhat grumpy-countenanced young man, made no answer. He began to pace the hall with looks of eminent dissatisfaction. But he had only taken a turn or two when a quietly appointed one-horse coupé brougham came up to the open door, and a well-known face was seen at its window. Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke, senior proprietor, had come an hour before his time. CHAPTER II THE ELLERSDEANE DEPOSIT