As it chanced they were blocked for a quarter of an hour near the Mansion House, so that he found time, if not to master it, at least to gather enough of its contents to make him open his brown eyes very wide before the motor pulled up at the granite doorway of his office.  Alan descended from the machine, which departed silently, and stood for a moment wondering what he should do.  His impulse was to jump into a bus and go straight to his rooms or his club, to which Sir Robert did not belong, but being no coward, he dismissed it from his mind.

His fate hung in the balance, of that he was well aware.  Either he must disregard Mr. Jackson’s warning, confirmed as it was by many secret fears and instincts of his own, and say nothing except that he had failed in his mission, or he must take the bull by the horns and break with the firm.  To do the latter meant not only a good deal of moral courage, but practical ruin, whereas if he chose the former course, probably within a fortnight he would find himself a rich man.  Whatever Jackson and a few others might say in its depreciation, he was certain that the Sahara flotation would go through, for it was underwritten, of course upon terms, by responsible people, moreover the unissued preferred shares had already been dealt in at a heavy premium.  Now to say nothing of the allotment to which he was entitled upon his holding in the parent Syndicate, the proportion of cash due to him as a partner, would amount to quite a hundred thousand pounds.  In other words, he, who had so many reasons for desiring money, would be wealthy.  After working so hard and undergoing so much that he felt to be humiliating and even degrading, why should he not take his reward and clear out afterwards?

This he remembered he could do, since probably by some oversight of Aylward’s, who left such matters to his lawyers, his deed of partnership did not bind him to a fixed term.  It could be broken at any moment.  To this argument there was only one possible answer, that of his conscience.  If once he were convinced that things were not right, it would be dishonest to participate in their profits.  And he was convinced.  Mr. Jackson’s arguments and his damning document had thrown a flood of light upon many matters which he had suspected but never quite understood.  He was the partner of, well, adventurers, and the money which he received would in fact be filched from the pockets of unsuspecting persons.  He would vouch for that of which he was doubtful and receive the price of sharp practice.  In other words he, Alan Vernon, who had never uttered a wilful untruth or taken a halfpenny that was not his own, would before the tribunal of his own mind, stand convicted as a liar and a thief.  The thing was not to be borne.  At whatever cost it must be ended.  If he were fated to be a beggar, at least he would be an honest beggar.

With a firm step and a high head he walked straight into Sir Robert’s room, without even going through the formality of knocking, to find Mr. Champers-Haswell seated at the ebony desk by his partner’s side examining some document through a reading-glass, which on his appearance, was folded over and presently thrust away into a drawer.  It seemed, Alan noticed, to be of an unusual shape and written in some strange character.