“Oh, yes!” said Grinnell. “I’m in no hurry. We will discuss these matters from time to time. In the meanwhile,” he took from his pocket-book another check—the same as he had taken out and replaced at the beginning of the interview—“I’ll deposit this additional five and one-half millions, making thirty-five in all, and—”
“Tell me, Mr. Grinnell,” interrupted Mr. Dawson, with a calmness unpleasantly suggestive of desperation, “is your secret known to others?”
“Which secret?”
“The source of your gold?” The intensity of Mr. Dawson’s gaze had in it something ominous.
“No one knows.”
“Ah!” The president drew in his breath sharply. He paused, growing visibly calm, the while.
“If anything happened to you?” he said. He meant his voice to show solicitude. It betrayed merely a strange and not kindly curiosity.
“My sister would know,” answered the young man. “I’ve provided for that, of course. She would continue my plans, with which she is in sympathy, though she does not know the extent of my resources.”
“H’m!”
“If I died suddenly, either from natural causes or as the result of some accident or violence, she would devote her life to carrying out my plans. She is really a remarkable woman. If she too should die suddenly, Mr. Dawson,” looking unflinchingly at the bank president, “my secret and my history would be given to the world. It would make interesting reading; particularly to financiers, Mr. Dawson. I have written full instructions. The average man could not be trusted with such an opportunity to become enormously wealthy, but I have a friend who is above the temptation of sudden riches, who would be my literary executor”—with a faint smile, as at the hidden humour of the phrase—“He is a real socialist. He’d give you trouble, Mr. Dawson. And if he dies, there are three others who would then know the means by which I came to be one of your depositors.”