It was four o'clock to the minute when Jasper Cole passed through the one open door of the bank at which the porter stood ready to close. He was well, but neatly, dressed, and had hooked to his wrist a thin snakewood cane attached to a crook handle. He saw Frank across the counter and smiled, displaying two rows of even, white teeth. "Hello, Jasper!" said Frank easily, extending his hand. "How is uncle?" "He is very well indeed," replied the other. "Of course he is very worried about things, but then I think he is always worried about something or other." "Anything in particular?" asked Frank interestedly. Jasper shrugged his shoulders. "You know him much better than I; you were with him longer. He is getting so horribly suspicious of people, and sees a spy or an enemy in every strange face. That is usually a bad sign, but I think he has been a little overwrought lately." He spoke easily; his voice was low and modulated with the faintest suggestion of a drawl, which was especially irritating to Frank, who secretly despised the Oxford product, though he admitted--since he was a very well-balanced and on the whole good-humored young man--his dislike was unreasonable. "I hear you have come to audit the accounts," said Frank, leaning on the counter and opening his gold cigarette case. "Hardly that," drawled Jasper. He reached out his hand and selected a cigarette. "I just want to sort out a few things. By the way, your uncle had a letter from a friend of yours." "Mine?" "A Rex Holland," said the other. "He is hardly a friend of mine; in fact, he is rather an infernal nuisance," said Frank. "I went down to Knightsbridge to see him to-day, and he was out. What has Mr. Holland to say?" "Oh, he is interested in some sort of charity, and he is starting a guinea collection. I forget what the charity was." "Why do you call him a friend of mine?" asked Frank, eying the other keenly. Jasper Cole was halfway to the manager's office and turned. "A little joke," he said. "I had heard you mention the gentleman. I have no other reason for supposing he was a friend of yours." "Oh, by the way, Cole," said Frank suddenly, "were you in town last night?" Jasper Cole shot a swift glance at him. "Why?" "Were you near Victoria Docks?" "What a question to ask!" said the other, with his inscrutable smile, and, turning abruptly, walked in to the waiting Mr. Brandon. Frank finished work at five-thirty that night and left Jasper Cole and a junior clerk to the congenial task of checking the securities. At nine o'clock the clerk went home, leaving Jasper alone in the bank. Mr. Brandon, the manager, was a bachelor and occupied a flat above the bank premises. From time to time he strode in, his big pipe in the corner of his mouth. The last of these occasions was when Jasper Cole had replaced the last ledger in Mr. Minute's private safe. "Half past eleven," said the manager disapprovingly, "and you have had no dinner."