All business London, and a good many other people besides, must remember the famous United Empire Bank Fraud.  Bonds had been stolen and negotiated, vast sums of money were discovered to be missing, and the manager and one of the directors were absent also.  So cleverly had the affair been worked, and so flaring were the defalcations, that had it not been for the public-spirited behaviour and generosity of two of the directors, the position of the bank would have been most seriously compromised, if not shattered altogether.  How the culprits had managed to slip through the fingers of the law in the first place no one could say, but the fact remains that they were able to get out of England, without, apparently, leaving a trace of their intentions or their whereabouts behind them.  Scotland Yard took the matter up with its usual promptness, and at first were confident of success.  They set their cleverest detectives to work upon it, and it was not until more than a month had elapsed that the men engaged were compelled most reluctantly to admit their defeat.  They had done their best:  it was the system under which they worked that was to blame.  In the detection of crime, or in the tracing of a criminal, it is best, as in every other walk of life, to be original.

One morning on arriving at my office I found a letter awaiting me from the remaining directors of the bank, in which they inquired if I could make it convenient to call upon them at the head-office that day.  To tell the truth I had been expecting this summons for nearly a week, and was far from being displeased when it came.  The work I had expected them to offer me was after my own heart, and if they would only trust the business to me and give me a free hand, I was prepared on my part to bring the missing gentlemen to justice.

Needless to say I called upon them at the hour specified, and after a brief wait was conducted to the board room where the directors sat in solemn conclave.

The chairman, Sir Walter Bracebridge, received me on behalf of his colleagues.

“We wrote to you, Mr. Fairfax,” he said, “in order to find out whether you could help us concerning the difficulty in which we find ourselves placed.  You of course are aware of the serious trouble the bank has experienced, and of the terrible consequences which have resulted therefrom?”

I admitted that I was quite conversant with it, and waited to hear what he would have to say next.

“As a matter of fact,” he continued, “we have sent for you to know whether you can offer us any assistance in our hour of difficulty?  Pray take a chair, and let us talk the matter over and see what conclusion we can arrive at.”