Nodding portentously, the worthy manager followed them to the door. Assuredly one of the most remarkable episodes that had come his way, during thirty years’ experience. Rio Lopez! Two thousand five hundred of them! And he was still staring dazedly at a placard extolling Exchequer Bonds, which adorned his office wall, when the London train steamed slowly out of the station. Its departure had been to the casual eye quite normal: but the casual eye is, as its name implies, casual. The departure had been far from normal. It was just as the guard was waving his flag that a man, leaning our of the window of a first-class carriage, spoke to a girl standing on the platform. "You say you didn’t trust the man, Miss Crossley. Do you—trust me?" "Naturally," she answered demurely, "after what the bank manager said." "It rests on the bank manager, does it?" She blushed faintly. "No, Mr. Hewson, it doesn’t. One doesn’t need a bank manager to confirm—a certainty." And then the fool engine-driver had started his beastly machine. But to call it a normal departure is obviously absurd. *III* "Good-morning. Mr. Ferguson, I believe?". Hewson entered the office at 20, Plumpton Street, and bowed slightly to the man at the desk. As he had expected, the type was a common one—one, incidentally, with which he had had a good deal to do himself. Mr. Arthur Ferguson could be placed at once in the category of men who consider that in business everything is fair, and that if they can get the better of another man the funeral is his. And as an outlook on life there is nothing much to be said against it, provided the other man is of the same kidney. "Yes." Ferguson indicated a chair. "What can I do for you, Mr.——" He paused, interrogatively. "I have come to have a short talk with you on a little matter of business." Hewson took the proffered chair, while Ferguson glanced at him covertly. Who the deuce was the fellow? His face seemed vaguely familiar. "Delighted!" he murmured. "Have a cigar?" "Thank you—no. I have just come from Umberleigh, in Devonshire, Mr. Ferguson." A barely perceptible change passed over the other’s face. "Indeed," he said, easily. "I was there myself a little while ago." "So I understood," remarked Hewson. "A Mr. Crossley told me that you had been good enough to sell him some shares while you were there—a packet of Rio Lopez, to be exact." "I did," answered Ferguson. "Though I hardly see what concern it is of yours." "All in good time," said Hewson, taking the certificate from his pocket. "Two thousand five hundred, I see, when they were standing at two pounds. And to-day they’re a shade over four shillings—to-morrow, quite possibly, sixpence." "Everything is down," remarked Ferguson with a wave of his hand. "Sorry for Mr. Crossley."