"If you know anything of auditing," she said, "you can come down and go through the books of the estate at the Court. I can arrange that."
"It will do admirably. These are my plans, then. We shall require from you, Miss Thurwell, two hundred guineas to send abroad, and forty guineas a week for the services of my father and myself and our staff. If in twelve months we have not succeeded, we will engage to return you twenty-five per cent of this amount. If, on the other hand, we have brought home the crime to the murderer, we shall ask you for a further five hundred. Will you agree to these terms?"
"Yes."
Mr. Benjamin stretched out his hand for a piece of writing paper, and made a memorandum.
"Perhaps you would be so good as to sign this, then?" he said, passing it to her.
She took the pen, and wrote her name at the bottom. Then she rose to go.
"There is nothing more?" she said.
"Nothing except your London address," he reminded her.
"I am staying with my aunt, Lady Thurwell, at No. 8, Cadogan Square."
"Can I call and see you to-morrow morning there?"