The little man explained that the Lord had moved him to come and ask a small subscription towards his religious crusade. He was doing the Lord’s work, and the smallest remuneration from the Devil would be most thankfully received.
The manager donated a shilling, and the crusader, after piously promising that the shilling would be put to his dear brother’s credit in Heaven, picked up the hymn where he had left it and went out. His squint eye was elevated towards the insulators on the telegraph posts as he walked along the street, and a light of satisfaction gleamed therein. He might have been thanking Heaven for some fresh mercy or thinking out a scheme for wireless telegraphy.
Whatever his thoughts were, he carried in one hand a piece of wax, and on the wax was the newly-made impression of a key.
About a week later, George Chard in Assam silk and helmet paused at the door of the office. Although it had thundered and stormed up the river the night previously, it was a suffocating morning. The mercury at Wharfdale stood already at ninety in the shade, and the vapoury atmosphere seemed to take all the energy out of one’s body.
George looked across to the islands in the river and hungered for the shade of their jungles, where the day might be worn through in comparative coolness.
A boat put out from the bank upstream, and he recognised Nora Creyton in a white frock and sun-bonnet rowing gently towards the point of the furthest island, whereon, as George knew well enough, she was used to spend many a hot forenoon under the fig trees with a book for company. George sighed drearily and entered the bank.
The manager came down and unlocked the safe.
Then occurred the crisis of the young man’s life.
Five hundred pounds in sovereigns laid upon the floor of the safe the night previously by the manager in the presence of his assistant, were no longer there!
The canvas bags containing the money had disappeared. Yet the door of the safe had certainly been locked.