hole of his income. His
secret, well guarded as it was, need be no secret to the reader. Mr.
White, who had never touched a playing-card in his life and who grew
apoplectic at the sin and shame of playing the races, was an inveterate
gambler. His passion was for Sunken Treasure Syndicates, formed to
recover golden ingots from ships of the Spanish Armada; for companies
that set forth to harness the horse-power of the sea to the services of
commerce; for optimistic companies that discovered radium mines in the
Ural Mountains--anything which promised a steady three hundred per cent.
per annum on an initial investment had an irresistible attraction for
Mr. White, who argued that some day something would really fulfil
expectations and his losses would be recovered.

In the meantime he was in the hands of Moss Ibramovitch, trading as the
Union Jack Investment and Mortgage Corporation, licensed and registered
as a moneylender according to law. And being in the hands of this
gentleman, was much less satisfactory and infinitely more expensive than
being in the hands of the bankruptcy officials.

In the evening of the day Oliva Cresswell had started working for her
new employer, Mr. White stalked forth from his gloomy house and his
departure was watched by the two tough females who kept house for him,
with every pleasure. He strutted eastward swinging his umbrella, his
head well back, his eyes half-closed, his massive waistcoat curving
regally. His silk hat was pushed back from his forehead and the
pince-nez he carried, but so seldom wore, swung from the cord he held
before him in that dead-mouse manner which important men affect.

He had often been mistaken for a Fellow of the Royal Society, so learned
and detached was his bearing. Yet no speculation upon the origin of
species or the function of the nebulae filled his mind.

At a moment of great stress and distraction, Dr. van Heerden had arisen
above his horizon, and there was something in Dr. van Heerden's manner
which inspired confidence and respect. They had met by accident at a
meeting held to liquidate the Shining Strand Alluvial Gold Mining
Company--a concern which had started forth in the happiest circumstances
to extract the fabulous riches which had been discovered by an American
philanthropist (he is now selling Real Estate by correspondence) on a
Southern Pacific island.

Van Heerden was not a shareholder, but he was intensely interested in
the kind of people wh