“Will you wait, sir? Or will you come in again? I shan’t be more than half an hour or so. I hope things are all well down at The Maples, Mr. Bradstone? What a lovely place it is, to be sure; quite a palace. And Mrs. Bradstone, sir—I do trust she is better. What a painful, mysterious affair that murder is, sir!”
“Yes, yes,” said Bartley Bradstone. “Yes, Mrs. Bradstone is better, and a man’s being tried for the murder. I think I’ll go down to the bank, while you sell that stock. Why the devil don’t you open the window in this room? It smells like a charcoal house,” and he wiped his burning forehead.
“Yes, yes, it is, sir,” said Mr. Mowle; “it is rather close,” and he shuffled to the window and made a vain attempt to open it.
Bartley Bradstone put on his hat and walked out of the room, telling the cabman to wait while he walked toward the bank. There he changed a check.
The cashier did not, as usual, scoop out the money with a respectful smile, but took the check, apparently, into the manager’s room. He came out after a minute or two and changed the check.
“We have not had your passbook for some weeks, sir,” he said, as he passed the money over.
Bartley Bradstone scarcely noticed him, but went out into the street again. He turned into a refreshment bar and got a glass of sherry. Half an hour, perhaps, passed, then he made his way back to Ethelred Chambers. Just as he was within sight of them, a gentleman ran up against him, and was making the usual apology, when he broke off with:
“Hallo, Bradstone! is that you? I say, my dear fellow, what a deuce of a mess we’re in!”
“What do you mean?” said Bradstone.
“Well! Good heavens, man, I mean this infernal bank.”