any of them.... You weren't brought up to
business, Chetwode?" he asked suddenly.

"I was not, sir," Arnold admitted.

"What made you come into it?"

"Poverty, sir," Arnold answered. "I had only a few shillings in the
world when I walked in and asked Mr. Jarvis for a situation."

Mr. Weatherley sighed.

"Your people are gentlefolk, I expect," he said. "You have the look
of it."

Arnold did not reply. Mr. Weatherley shrugged his shoulders.

"Well," he concluded, "you must look after yourself, only remember
what I have said. By the bye, Chetwode, I am going to repose a
certain amount of confidence in you."

Arnold looked up from his desk.

"I think you may safely do so, sir," he declared.

Mr. Weatherley slowly opened a drawer at his right hand and produced
two letters. He carefully folded up the sheet upon which he had been
writing, and also addressed that.

"I cannot enter into explanations with you about this matter,
Chetwode," he said, "but I require your promise that what I say to
you now is not mentioned in the warehouse or to any one until the
time comes which I am about to indicate. You are my confidential
secretary and I have a right, I suppose, to demand your silence."

"Certainly, sir," Arnold assured him.

"There is just a possibility," Mr. Weatherley declared, speaking
thoughtfully and looking out of the window, "that I may be compelled
to take a sudden and quite unexpected journey. If this be so, I
should have to leave without a word to any one--to any one, you
understand."

Arnold was puzzled, but he murmured a word of assent.

"In case this should happen," Mr. Weatherley went on, "and I have
not time to communicate with any of you, I am leaving in your
possession these two letters. One is addressed jointly to you and
Mr. Jarvis, and the other to Messrs. Turnbull & James, Solicitors,
Bishopsgate Street Within. Now I give these letters into your
charge. We shall lock them up together in this small safe which I
told you you could have for your own papers," Mr. Weatherley
continued, rising to his feet and crossing the room. "There you are,
you see. The safe is empty at present, so you will not need to go to
it. I am locking them up," he added, taking a key from his pocket,
"and there is the key. Now you understand?"

"But surely, sir," Arnold began,--

"The matter is quite simple," Mr. Weatherley interrupted, sharply.
"To put it plainly, if I am missing at any time, if anything should
h