‘I never write down these details,’ said Richard. ‘It is safer not to. My memory is quite reliable.’
Simon Lock nodded twice quickly and resumed:
‘We have a branch at Kilburn, in the High Street, under the managership of Mr. Raphael Craig. Mr. Craig has been in our service for about twenty years. His age is fifty-five. He is a widower with one daughter. He came to us from an Irish bank. Professionally, we have no fault to find with him; but for many years past he has chosen to live thirty-five miles from London, at a farmhouse between the town of Dunstable and the village of Hockliffe, in Bedfordshire. Dunstable, you may be aware, is on the old Roman road, Watling Street, which runs to Chester. He used to go up to Bedfordshire only at weekends, but of late years he has travelled between his country home and London several times a week, often daily. He owns two or three motor-cars, and has once been summoned and convicted for furious driving. It is said that he can come to London by road from Dunstable in sixty minutes. When he stays in London he sleeps over the bank premises in the suite of rooms which we provide for him, as for all our managers.’
‘You say you have no fault to find with Mr. Craig professionally,’ said Richard. ‘He does not, then, in any way neglect his duties?’
‘The reverse. He is an admirable servant, and our Kilburn branch is one of the most lucrative of all our branches. Mr. Craig has built up a wonderfully good business for us in that suburb. Let me continue. Last year but one a relative of Mr. Craig’s, an uncle or something of that sort, reputed to be crazy, died and left him a hundred thousand pounds, chiefly, one heard, in new silver coins, which the old miser had had a mania for collecting, and kept in his cellars like wine. The strange thing is that Mr. Craig, thus made rich, did not resign his position with us. Now, why should a man of large fortune trouble himself with the cares of a comparatively unimportant bank managership? That aspect of the case has struck us as somewhat suspicious.’
‘Highly suspicious,’ murmured Sir Charles Custer, M.P., out of his beard.
‘You naturally—shall I say?—resent eccentricity in any member of your staff?’ said Richard sagaciously.
‘We do, Mr. Redgrave. In a bank, eccentricity is not wanted. Further—another strange fact—a month ago the cashier of our Kilburn branch, a mediocre but worthy servant named Featherstone, a man of fifty, whose brains were insufficient to lift him beyond a cashiership, and who, outside our bank, had no chance whatever of getting a livelihood in this hard world, suddenly resigned. He would give no reason for his resignation, nor could Mr. Craig give us any reason for it. In the following week Featherstone committed suicide. No doubt you saw the affair in the papers. The man’s books were perfectly straight. He was a bachelor, and had no ties that the police could discover. Such is the brief outline of the case. Have you any questions to ask?’
Redgrave paused. When, from ignorance or any other cause, he had nothing to say, he contrived to produce an excellent effect by remaining silent and peering through his gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘Only one,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘We don’t know what we want to know,’ said Simon Lock abruptly. ‘We want to know anything and everything. Our suspicions are too vague to be formulated, but, as directors of a great financial undertaking, we are bound to practise precautions. We do not desire to dismiss Mr. Craig without a reason. Such a course would be unfair—and unprofitable.’