“As I told Inspector Poole on Saturday, sir,” he began, “although I knew that the Rotunda Syndicate had sold their property to the Ethiopian and General, I didn’t know anything about the terms of sale; today I’ve been able to find out something about that. It hasn’t been very easy, because the two parties to the transaction—Lessingham, representing the Rotunda Syndicate, on the one side, and Wraile, representing the Ethiopian and General, on the other—are both hostile to any form of enquiry. I didn’t attempt to get anything from Lessingham—that Syndicate obviously wouldn’t give anything away. I managed it at last by bribing the same E. & G. clerk who sold me the Company’s schedule—the one I gave you on Saturday. It cost me £50—the fellow was taking a pretty big risk—but the normal means of finding out would have taken days or weeks and I gather that you’re in a hurry. “The terms are tremendously favourable to Lessingham. I don’t know, of course, how much of a dud this mine is—it may be a good thing but there’s quite a possibility that it’s a group of surface veins and nothing more—but for the amount of prospecting that’s been done, even if every test had been favourable, the price is a fancy one. I’ve got a copy of the report on the mine here; you’ll see that the Rotunda don’t pretend to have sunk a tremendous lot in exploration—probably they knew that if they claimed too much for initial expenditure (that’s being repaid to them in cash by the E. & G. D.) there would simply _have_ to be a proper report. All it amounts to is that they have sunk a few bore holes at wide intervals (no doubt in the most hopeful spots) and this optimistic report is based on the assumption, first, that the whole area is as good as the bore holes show the carefully chosen spots to be and, secondly, that the ore continues as such to deeper levels. “It’s a report that wouldn’t deceive a sound Development Company for a minute—not to the extent of plunging in as the E. & G. are doing. On the strength of it—and of course at the instigation of Wraile—they are forming a Company with a capital of £500,000 divided into £300,000 in 7% preference shares and £200,000 in 1/– ordinary shares—that is to say 4 million shares. The Rotunda—Lessingham—in addition to having all their initial expenditure in prospecting etc., refunded to them in cash, are to receive as purchase price half the ordinary shares—2 million—plus an option on a further million at 5/– per share if exercised within six months or 10/– per share if exercised within a year.