As soon as he had gone through his letters on the following morning, Laverick, in response to a second and more urgent message, went round to his bank. Mr. Fenwick greeted him gravely. He was feeling keenly the responsibilities of his position. Just how much to say and how much to leave unsaid was a question which called for a full measure of diplomacy.
"You understand, Mr. Laverick," he began, "that I wished to see you with regard to the arrangement we came to the day before yesterday."
Laverick nodded. It suited him to remain monosyllabic.
"Well?" he asked.
"The arrangement, of course, was most unusual," the manager continued.
"I agreed to it as you were an old customer and the matter was an urgent one."
"I do not quite follow you," Laverick remarked, frowning. "What is it you wish me to do? Withdraw my account?"
"Not in the least," the manager answered hastily.
"You know the position of our market, of course," Laverick went on.
"Three days ago I was in a situation which might have been called desperate. I could quite understand that you needed security to go on making the necessary payments on my behalf. To-day, things are entirely different. I am twenty thousand pounds better off, and if necessary I could realize sufficient to pay off the whole of my overdraft within half-an-hour. That I do not do so is simply a matter of policy and prices."
"I quite understand that, my dear Mr. Laverick," the bank manager declared. "The position is simply this. We have had a most unusual and a strictly private inquiry, of a nature which I cannot divulge to you, asking whether any large sum in five hundred pound banknotes has been pa.s.sed through our account during the last few days."
"You have actually had this inquiry?" Laverick asked calmly.
"We have. I can tell you no more. The source of the inquiry was, in a sense, amazing."
"May I ask what your reply was?"
"My reply was," Mr. Fenwick said slowly, "that no such notes had pa.s.sed through our account. We asked them, however, without giving any reasons, to repeat their question in a few days" time. Our reply was perfectly truthful. Owing to your peculiar stipulations, we are simply holding a certain packet for you in our security chamber. We know it to contain bank-notes, and there is very little doubt but that it contains the notes which have been the subject of this inquiry. I want to ask you, Mr. Laverick, to be so good as to open that packet, let me credit the notes to your account in the usual way, and leave me free to reply as I ought to have done in the first instance to this inquiry."
"The course which you suggest," replied the other, "is one which I absolutely decline to take. It is not for me to tell you the nature of the relations which should exist between a banker and his client.
All that I can say is that those notes are deposited with you and must remain on deposit, and that the transaction is one which must be treated entirely as a confidential one. If you decline to do this, I must remove my account, in which case I shall, of course, take the packet away with me. To be plain with you, Mr. Fenwick,"
he wound up, "I do not intend to make use of those notes, I never intended to do so. I simply deposited them as security until the turn in price of "Unions" came.
"It is a very nice point, Mr. Laverick," the bank manager remarked.
"I should consider that you had already made use of them."
"Every one to his own conscience," Laverick answered calmly.
"You place me in a very embarra.s.sing position, Mr. Laverick."
"I cannot admit that at all," Laverick replied. "There is only one inquiry which you could have had which could justify you in insisting upon what you have suggested. It emanated, I presume, from Scotland Yard?"
"If it had," Mr. Fenwick answered, "no considerations of etiquette would have intervened at all. I should have felt it my duty to have revealed at once the fact of your deposit. At the same time, the inquiry comes from an even more important source,--a source which cannot be ignored."
Laverick thought for a moment.
"After all, the matter is a very simple one," he declared. "By four o"clock this afternoon my account shall be within its limits.
You will then automatically restore to me the packet which you hold on my behalf, and the possession of which seems to embarra.s.s you."
"If you do not mind," the banker answered, "I should be glad if you would take it with you. It means, I think, a matter of six or seven thousand pounds added to your overdraft, but as a temporary thing we will pa.s.s that."
"As you will," Laverick a.s.sented carelessly. "The charge of those doc.u.ments is a trust with me as well as with yourself. I have no doubt that I can arrange for their being held in a secure place elsewhere."
The usual formalities were gone through, and Laverick left the bank with the brown leather pocket-book in his breast-coat pocket.
Arrived at his office, he locked it up at once in his private safe and proceeded with the usual business of the day. Even with an added staff of clerks, the office was almost in an uproar. Laverick threw himself into the struggle with a whole-hearted desire to escape from these unpleasant memories. He succeeded perfectly. It was two hours before he was able to sit down even for a moment. His head-clerk, almost as exhausted, followed him into his room.
"I forgot to tell you, sir," he announced, "that there s a man outside--Mr. Shepherd was his name, I believe--said he had a small investment to make which you promised to look after personally. He would insist on seeing you--said he was a waiter at a restaurant which you visited sometimes."
"That"s all right," Laverick declared. "You can show him in. We"ll probably give him American rails."
"Can"t we attend to it in the office for you, sir?" the clerk asked.
"I suppose it"s only a matter of a few hundreds."
"Less than that, probably, but I promised the fellow I"d look after it myself. Send him in, Scropes."
There was a brief delay and then Mr. Shepherd was announced.
Laverick, who was sitting with his coat off, smoking a well-earned cigarette, looked up and nodded to his visitor as the door was closed.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," he remarked. "We"re having a bit of a rush."
The man laid down his hat and came up to Laverick"s side.
"I guess that, sir," he said, "from the number of people we"ve had in the "Black Post" to-day, and the way they"ve all been shouting and talking. They don"t seem to eat much these days, but there"s some of them can shift the drink."
"I"ve got some sound stocks looked out for you," Laverick remarked, "two hundred and fifty pounds" worth. If you"ll just approve that list as a matter of form," he added, pushing a piece of paper across, "you can come in to-morrow and have the certificates. I shall tell them to debit the purchase money to my private account, so that if any one asks you anything, you can say that you paid me for them."
"I"m sure I"m much obliged, sir," the man said. "To tell you the truth," he went on, "I"ve had a bit of a scare to-day."
Laverick looked up quickly.
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
"May I sit down, sir? I"m a bit worn out. I"ve been on the go since half-past ten."
Laverick nodded and pointed to a chair. Shepherd brought it up to the side of the table and leaned forward.
"There"s been two men in to-day," he said, "asking questions. They wanted to know how many customers I had there on Monday night, and could I describe them. Was there any one I recognized, and so on."
"What did you say?"
"I declared I couldn"t remember any one. To the best of my recollection, I told them, there was no one served at all after ten o"clock. I wouldn"t say for certain--it looked as though I might have had a reason."
"And were they satisfied?"
"I don"t think they were," Shepherd admitted. "Not altogether, that is to say."
"Did they mention any names?" asked Laverick--"Morrison"s, for instance? Did they want to know whether he was a regular customer?"
"They didn"t mention no names at all, sir," the man answered, "but they did begin to ask questions about my regular clients. Fortunate like, the place was so crowded that I had every excuse for not paying any too much attention to them. It was all I could do to keep on getting orders attended to."