"Neale!"
Neale hurried in and found the banker standing on the hearth-rug, beneath the portrait of a former Chestermarke, founder of the bank in a bygone age. He was suddenly struck by the curious resemblance between that dead Chestermarke and the living one, and he wondered that he had never seen it before. But Mr. Chestermarke gave him no time for speculation.
"Where is Mr. Horbury?" he asked.
Neale told all he knew: the banker listened in his usual fashion, keeping his eyes steadily fixed on his informant. When Neale had finished, Mr. Chestermarke shook his head.
"If Horbury had meant to come into town by the 8.30 train and had missed it," he remarked, "he would have wired or telephoned by this. Telephoned, of course: there are telephones at every station on that branch line. Very well, let things go on."
Neale went out and set his fellow-clerks to the usual routine. Patten went for the letters. Neale carried them into the partners' room. At ten o'clock the street door was opened. A customer or two began to drop in. The business of the day had begun. It went on just as it would have gone on if Mr. Horbury had been away on holiday. And at half-past ten in walked the junior partner, Mr. Joseph Chestermarke.
Mr. Joseph was the exact opposite of his uncle. He was so much his opposite that it was difficult to believe, seeing them together, that they were related to each other. Mr. Joseph Chestermarke, a man of apparently thirty years of age, was tall and loose of
