Chapter 14

THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL

For a while the unrighteous may bask in the sunshine of prosperity, but there comes a time of reckoning, more especially in the City of London, and things were at this moment shaping ill for Mr. Philip Slotman.

He stood at the door of the general office and surveyed his clerks. There were five of them; at the end of the week there would be but two, he decided. Next week probably there would be only one.

“Hello, Slotman!” It was a business acquaintance, who had dropped in to discuss the financial position.

“Things all right?

“Nothing to complain about,” said Slotman, who did not believe in crying stinking fish. Credit meant everything to him, and it was for that reason he wore very nice clothes and more jewellery than good taste warranted.

In Mr. Slotman’s inner office he and his friend, Mr. James Bloomberg, lighted expensive cigars.

“So the pretty typist has gone, of course?” said Bloomberg.

Slotman started. “You mean—?”

“Miss Meredyth; I’ve heard about her.”

“About her. What?”

Bloomberg drew at his cigar. “Of course you know she’s come into money, a pot of money and a fine place down in the country. Uncle died, left a will—that sort of thing. Rankin acts for me, a sound man. I was talking to him the other day, and your name cropped up.”

“Go on!” said Slotman. The cigar shook between, his finger and thumb. “My name cropped up?”

“And Rankin was interested, as a young lady he was acting for had just come into a pot of money and a fine place down in Kent, and he had heard that she used to be employed by you. Ah, ha!” Bloomberg laughed. “You oughtn’t to have let her slip away, old man. She was as pretty as a peach, and now with some hundreds of thousands she will be worth while, eh?”

“I suppose so,” Slotman said, apparently indifferently. “And did you hear the name of the place she had come into?”

“I did. Something—Den—all places in Kent are something or other—Den. Oh, Starden! That’s it! Well, I must go. But tell me, what’s your opinion about those Calbary Reef Preferentials?”

Ten minutes later Slotman was alone, frowning at thought. If it were true, then indeed the luck had been against him. Even without money he had been willing, more than willing to marry Joan, in spite of the past, of which he knew nothing, but suspected much. Yes, he would have married her.

“She got hold of me,” he muttered, “and I can’t leave off thinking of her, and now she is an heiress, and Heaven knows I want money. If I had a chance, if—” He paused.

For a long while Mr. Philip Slotman sat in deep thought. About Joan Meredyth there was a mystery, and it was a mystery that might be well worth solving.

“I’ll hunt it out,” he muttered. “I’ll have to work back. Let me see, there was that old General—General—?”

He frowned, Ah! he had it now, for his memory was a good one.

“General Bartholomew! That was the name,” Slotman muttered. “And that is where I commence my hunt!”