“Very good, sir,” the man responded, and withdrew.

He had scarcely gone before one of my clerks entered the room and handed me a card.  On it was printed the name of Mr. Edward Bayley, and in the left-hand bottom corner was the announcement that he was the Managing Director of the Santa Cruz Mining Company of Forzoda, in the Argentine Republic.

“Show the gentleman in, Walters,” I said.

In a few minutes a tall, handsome man, irreproachably turned out, entered the office.  He seated himself in a chair the clerk placed for him, put his hat and umbrella on another, and then turned to me.

“My card has made you familiar with my name, Mr. Fairfax,” he began, “and doubtless, if you are at all familiar with mines and mining, you are acquainted with the name of the company I have the honour to represent?”

“I am very much afraid the Mining Market does not possess very much interest for me,” I replied.  “I have to work so hard for my money, that when I have got it I prefer to invest it in something a little more reliable.  May I inquire the nature of your business with me?”

“I have come to see you, Mr. Fairfax,” he said, speaking very impressively, and regarding me deliberately as he did so, “on rather a delicate subject.  Before I explain what it is, may I ask that you will treat what I am about to tell you as purely confidential?”

“My business is invariably a confidential one,” I answered for the second time in two days.  “I venture to think that this room has heard more secrets than almost any other in England.  But though they say walls have ears, I have never heard it said that they have tongues.”

“It is sometimes a good thing that they have not,” he replied.  “And now let me tell you what business has brought me here.  In the first place, if you do not already know it, I may say that the Company I represent is an exceedingly wealthy one, and, as our business lies a long way from Threadneedle Street, if I may so put it, it is necessary for us to trust very largely to the honesty of our employes on the other side of the world.  Of course we make all sorts of inquiries about them prior to engaging their services, and it is also needless to say that we keep a sharp eye on them when they have entered our employ.  Nevertheless, it is quite possible, all precautions notwithstanding, for an unscrupulous man to take advantage of us.  As a matter of fact, that is what has happened, and what has also brought me to you.  For some considerable time past we have had our suspicions that our manager at the mines has been in league with a notorious rascal in New York.  In proof of this, I might say that our returns have shown a decided falling off, while our manager has, so we have lately discovered, within the past year become rich enough to purchase property to a considerable extent in the United States.  Unfortunately for us, owing to a lack of direct evidence, we are unable to bring his defalcations home to him, though of course we are as certain of our facts as we can well be of anything.”