She laughed gayly.
“You know, all the time,” she said, “I feel that you are treating me as though I were a baby. I’ll be there punctually, and I don’t think I need tie the card around my neck.”
The cab glided off. Laverick caught a glimpse of a wan little face with a faint smile quivering at the corner of her lips as she leaned out for a moment to say good-bye. Then he went back to his rooms, breakfasted, and made his way to his office.
The morning papers had nothing new to report concerning the murder in Crooked Friars’ Alley. Evidently what information the police had obtained they were keeping for the inquest. Laverick, from the moment when he entered the office, had little or no time to think of the tragedy under whose shadow he had come. The long-predicted boom had arrived at last. Without lunch, he and all his clerks worked until after six o’clock. Even then Laverick found it hard to leave. During the day, a dozen people or so had been in to ask for Morrison. To all of them he had given the same reply,—Morrison had gone abroad on private business for the firm. Very few were deceived by Laverick’s dry statement. He was quite aware that he was looked upon either as one of the luckiest men on earth, or as a financier of consummate skill. The failure of Laverick & Morrison had been looked upon as a certainty. How they had tided over that twenty-four hours had been known to no one—to no one but Laverick himself and the manager of his bank.
Just before four o’clock, the telephone rang at his elbow.
“Mr. Fenwick from the bank, sir, is wishing to speak to you for a moment,” his head-clerk announced.
Laverick took up the telephone.
“Yes,” he said, “I am Laverick. Good afternoon, Mr. Fenwick! Absolutely impossible to spare any time to-day. What is it? The account is all right, isn’t it?”
“Quite right, Mr. Laverick,” was the answer. “At the same time, if you could spare me a moment I should be glad to see you concerning the deposit you made yesterday.”
“I will come in to-morrow,” Laverick promised. “This afternoon it is quite out of the question. I have a crowd of people waiting to see me, and several important engagements for which I am late already.”