CHAPTER II

THE business interview which followed between Mr. Spearmain and his new client was of an eminently satisfactory character, A messenger boy was despatched to Bermondsey, and duly returned with Mr. Cradd’s birth certificate, which happened to be at the moment in his desk, for purposes not unconnected with a projected loan on his life policy. Meanwhile, the latter executed a deed of attorney to Messrs. Spearmain, Armitage and Spearmain in London, and Messrs. Treavor, Heaton and Company of Christchurch, New Zealand, and listened with reverence to a long list of very excellent securities of which he was ?now the possessor. It was almost eleven o’clock when at last a pause arrived, Mr, Spearmain, adjusting his eyeglass, cast a surreptitious glance at his client and leaned once more back in his chair.

“You will understand, Mr. Cradd,” he explained, “that some short time must necessarily elapse before the whole of the estate will be in your hands, but, in the meantime, if you will permit it, any reasonable advance you may like to accept is yours for the asking. Your birth certificate, which seems to be in order, and which accords entirely with our information, has established the matter of your identity.”

“You mean,” Peter Cradd ventured–“forgive me if I am a little confused –you mean, in plain words, that I can have some money if I want it.”

“Certainly,” Mr. Spearmain assured him grandiloquently. “Name your