He was insolvent. For some time past he had suspected that this was the state of things. Now he was sure of it. The yearly balance sheet placed in his hand the previous day by his cashier, together with sundry figures from his own private ledger, placed the fact beyond the region of dispute. Because he felt himself unequal to the situation, Sir John had shut himself up in his office—and on the desk in front of him was a loaded revolver.
Sir John had strong antiquarian tastes. His bachelor home in Withington was a positive museum of curiosities, from Phœnician pottery down to files of English newspapers when the Georges were kings. In his office he kept more personal relics of bygone times, and he was now sorting out the drawers of a big bureau, full of them.
He had been severely trained in method by the most orderly of fathers, and had saved every written communication he had received since the age of seventeen. It is therefore quite understandable why his accumulation of letters was so large, and partially understandable how he came to have before him four bulky parcels of them, respectively endorsed with the names of Mary, Nell, Kitty, and Flip. The dates of these, be it at once understood, were not contemporaneous, though a careful investigator might have detected a little overlapping. The letters marked Flip, it ought also to be stated, came first in point of time.
Sir John lingered long over these bundles, and read many of the letters. They interested him greatly, and in their perusal he almost forgot the evening's ultimate objective. Connected with these particular letters was a batch of photographs, on which he gazed with tender reminiscence. Then there were other matters of more public character—a missive, for instance, from the Prime Minister, informing him that his Majesty intended to confer upon him the honour of knighthood, his Commission in the Volunteers, and some I.O.U.'s from a member of the House of Lords.
All these, and many others, Sir John threw on the desk in front, ready for the final holocaust. With the feeling of a true collector he had not the heart to destroy them singly.
Then, from another drawer, he drew forth his balance sheets for twenty years, and glanced them through with almost as much interest as he had felt for his letters. Once, it seemed, he had been worth close on a hundred thousand pounds. An infatuated belief in a South American concession, followed by a succession of lean years in trading, had frittered all this, and more, away.
While he was gazing gloomily at these recording figures the door gently opened, and a man stood on the threshold—a man with his coat buttoned tightly up to the neck, with his cap brought down over his eyes, a man with a lamp—in short, a burglar. Sir John stared at him dumbfounded. Then he glanced at the revolver, but it was out of reach. The burglar followed his look, and caught up the weapon.
Now thoroughly aroused, the knight indignantly exclaimed:
"You needn't add murder to your other crimes, my man."