ufficient 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 passed 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
passed 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 embarrassing 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