"Your banker's pass-book should be sufficient proof of that," he answered; and taking the book from an iron safe let into the opposite wall, he opened it and placed it before me. I glanced at the cover. Yes, there was no mistake. It was my own pass-book. My eyes fell upon the balance, standing to my credit, and the largeness of the figures held me open-eyed in astonishment. It was wealth beyond all my wildest dreams. "And that is mine--absolutely mine?" I inquired, when at last I found tongue. "Certainly," he replied, a moment later adding: "It is really very strange that I have to instruct you in your own private affairs." "Why have I an office in the City?" I asked, for that point was puzzling. "In order to carry on your business." "What business?" "That of financial agent." I smiled at the absurdity of the idea. I had never been a thrifty man; in fact, I had never had occasion to trouble my head about finance, and, truth to tell, had always been, from a lad, a most arrant dunce at figures. "I fear I'm a sorry financier," I remarked for want of something better to say. "You are acknowledged to be one of the shrewdest and the soundest in the City of London," Gedge answered. "Well," I remarked, closing the pass-book, securing the flap, and handing it back to him, "all I have to say is that this last hour that has passed has been absolutely replete with mystery. I can make nothing of all these things you tell me--absolutely nothing. I shall begin to doubt whether I'm actually myself very soon." "It would be better to rest a little, if I might advise," he said, in a more deferential tone than before. "Britten suggested repose. That blow has upset you a little. To-morrow you'll be quite right again, I feel sure." "I don't intend to rest until I've cleared up this mystery," I said determinedly, rising from the table. At that moment, however, the door opened, and turning quickly, I was confronted by an angular, bony-faced, lantern-jawed woman, whose rouged and powdered face and juvenility of dress struck me as utterly ludicrous. She was fifty, if a day, and although her face was wrinkled and brown where the artificial complexion had worn off, she was nevertheless attired in a manner becoming a girl of twenty. "Oh, my dear Wilford! Whatever has happened?" she cried in alarm, in a thin, unmusical voice, when she beheld the bandages around my head. I looked at her in mingled surprise and amusement; she was so doll-like and ridiculous in her painted juvenility. "Mr Heaton accidentally struck his head against the statue in the drawing-room, madam," explained Gedge. "Doctor Britten has assured me that the injury is not at all serious. A little rest is all that is necessary." "My dear Wilford! Oh, my dear Wilford! Why didn't you call me at once?" "Well, madam," I answered, "that was scarcely possible, considering that I had not the honour of your acquaintance."