on the most ordinary business, "we'll just have a word with your principals, if they please. A mere interchange of views, you know: we shan't keep 'em."
"They don't want bothering," whispered Neale, bending over the counter. "Shan't I do instead?"
"No, sir!" answered Polke. "Nothing but principals will do! Here, Starmidge, give Mr. Neale one of your official cards."
Neale took the card and disappeared into the parlour, where he laid it before Gabriel.
"Mr. Polke is with him, sir," he said. "They say they won't detain you."
Gabriel tossed the card over to his nephew with a look of inquiry: Joseph sneered at it, and threw it into a waste-paper basket.
"Tell them we don't wish to see them," he answered. "We———"
"Stop a bit!" interrupted Gabriel. "I think perhaps we'd better see them. We may as well see them, and have done with it. Bring them in, Neale."
Polke and Starmidge, presently entering, found themselves coldly greeted. Gabriel made the slightest inclination of his head, in response to Polke's salutation and the detective's bow: Joseph pointedly gave no heed to either.
"Well?" demanded the senior partner.
"We've just called, Mr. Chestermarke, to hear if you've anything to say to us about this matter of Mr. Horbury's," said Polke. "Of course, you know it's been put in our hands."
"Not by us!" snapped Gabriel.
"Quite so, sir, by Lord Ellersdeane, and by Mr.
