A Girl of the Commune

by G. A. Henty

"Why he should make such an offer as this puzzled me, but his reason for wanting to prop the bank up was no business of mine, and there was no doubt if he could get fifty or sixty thousand pounds' worth of mortgages taken off our hands, it would enable us to hold on for some time. He did, in fact, get one batch of twenty thousand pounds' worth transferred, but about a month before we stopped he came in one morning and said, 'I am sorry to tell you, Cumming, that I have heard from the people in town I had relied on to help us about those mortgages, and they tell me they have undertaken the financing of a contractor for a South American railway, and that, therefore, they are not inclined at present to sink money farther in mortgages, so I am afraid, as far as I am concerned, things here must take their course,' and, as you know, they did take their course. Naturally, I did not believe Brander's story, but it was evident he had, when he made the offer, some reason for wanting the bank to keep its doors open for a time, and that that reason, whatever it was, had ceased to operate when he withdrew the offer."

"I don't see that that part of the business has any bearing upon my affair," Cuthbert said, "beyond helping to show Brander was playing some deep game of his own."

"I don't know, Mr. Hartington. However, I will think the matter over, and we shall have opportunities for discussing it again on our way to Brussels."

"I almost wish I had let the matter alone altogether," Cuthbert said to himself as he drove back to his lodgings. "I wanted to clear up what seemed a mystery, and I find myself plunged much deeper into a fog than ever. Before I only dimly suspected Brander of having for some reason or other permitted my father to take these shares when a word from him would have dissuaded him from doing so. I now find that the whole transaction was carried out in something like secrecy, and that so far from my father's name being used to prop up the bank, it was almost smuggled into the list of shareholders, and that even the directors were kept in ignorance of the transfer of Cumming's shares to him. The whole business has a very ugly look, though what the motive of this secrecy was, or why Brander should be willing to allow, if not to assist, in my father's ruin is more than I can conceive. The worst of the matter is, he is Mary's father. Yes, I wish to goodness that I had left the whole business alone."

Cuthbert had given his address to Cumming, and to his surprise the man called on him that evening.

"You did not expect to see me again to-day, Mr. Hartington," he said, when he entered, "but thinking the matter over a fresh light has struck me, and I felt obliged to come round to tell you. I hope I am not disturbing you."

"No, I have been so worried over the confounded business, that I have given up going to some friends as I had promised, as I didn't feel that I could talk about indifferent matters."

"Well, Mr. Hartington, my idea will surprise you; it will seem incredible to you, and it almost seems so to myself, and yet it all works in so that I can't help thinking it is near the mark. I believe that your father never signed that transfer at all that his signature was in fact a forgery."

"The deuce you do," Cuthbert exclaimed; "what on earth put such an idea into your head? Why, man, the idea is absurd! If it was a forgery it must have been done by Brander, and what possible motive could he have had for such an act?"

"That I don't pretend to say. If I could see that, I should say it was a certainty, but I own the absence of motive is the weak point of my idea. In all other respects the thing works out. In the first place, although your father was not a man of business, it was singular that he should go out of his way to take shares in the bank, when he must have known that in the case of things going wrong his whole property would be involved. No doubt that idea must have occurred to yourself."