“We need not go into that, Charles,” said Sir John, with dignity. “We do not discuss the mistakes that members here may have made in their past life, nor the mistakes which the police may have made. Mr Pentwin sends his subscription and a letter of recommendation from the widow of an old member, Herbert Wyse.”
“Didn’t know him.”
“No,” said Sir John. “Poor Wyse was called to his rest before you arrived here.”
Wyse had thought that he wished to get away from the police. After a few months on Faloo he had found that what he really wanted to get away from was himself and the thing he had to think about. He cut his throat.
The provisional election of Pentwin had been a matter of course. The only comment in committee had been a remark of Hanson’s that he would sooner have had a recommendation from a living member of the club. As Sir John said, if Pentwin was not suitable, he would not remain a member; one or two such cases had occurred before and had given no trouble.
As to the principal business of the committee, Sir John said not one word to Lord Charles Baringstoke, who believed that this provisional election of Pentwin had been the principal business and was quite satisfied. Sir John, as has already been said, had told the truth about the election so far as he knew it. He was exact in saying that a subscription and letter of recommendation from poor Mrs Wyse had been received, and that the name given was Pentwin. Also, the solitary passenger who was at present cursing the cockroaches and discomforts of Smith’s smaller trading vessel, and enduring many things in order to reach Faloo, called himself Pentwin and was thus addressed by people who had time to talk to him. The initials H. P. were on his rather scanty luggage, and the Christian name of the hero, or villain, of Pentwin’s Popular Bank was undeniably Hector.
But this man was not Hector Pentwin, knew very little about him, and knew less about bank business than he did about some other things. Hector himself, flying from justice with a presentiment (subsequently fulfilled) that he would be caught and punished, would have been much surprised had he known that anybody was impersonating him. He could have imagined no possible motive. Yet the impersonator (whom we may continue to call by the assumed name of Pentwin) had his sound and sufficient reasons.
He was a round-faced little man with a cheery smile and an inexhaustible flow of rather commonplace talk. He had money to spend, and appeared immune to alcohol and anxious to prove it. In two days he seemed quite to have fallen into the ways of the club, and was on the best of terms with all the members.
“Pentwin will do very well,” said the president, and the secretary agreed.