“I have already hinted to you that I have made considerable sums. There, again, it has never seemed necessary that I should keep you acquainted with my bank balance.”

“You have had a moderate salary,” said Arthur significantly. “Not a generous amount, I agree; certainly not an amount from which a man could save a sum sufficient to buy and rebuild Red Farm and maintain it.”

For answer Gilder put his hand in his pocket and, taking out a little Russia-leather note-case, laid it on the table. The name in gold letters upon the cover was that of a bookmaker who carried one of his employer’s biggest accounts. With this firm Arthur had lost his largest bets, for Trumans had offered him facilities which other houses had denied to him.

“Truman?” He frowned. “What has that to do with it? Have you been backing horses?”

Gilder shook his head.

“No,” he said simply. “I am Truman.”

Arthur Gine gaped at him. Truman! The bookmaker to whom for weeks in succession he had been paying thousands upon thousands of pounds!

“Then the money you have – is my money!” he gasped.

“Your money?” said the other quietly. “If Trumans had not taken it, some other bookmaker would have done so. When you won you were paid – have you any complaints?”

“My money!” muttered Arthur.

Gilder replaced the book in his pocket.

“You remember five years ago complaining to me that you couldn’t find bookmakers who would take big bets by telegram within a few minutes of the race? That little talk gave me an idea. I knew you lost steadily, that you were one of those – unfortunate people–”

“Say ‘fools’ – that was the word on your lips.”

“‘Mug’ was the word,” said Mr Gilder, with great calmness. “I knew you were one of those people who couldn’t stop betting. So Trumans came into existence. Their book of rules was sent to you, featuring the important concession that you could wire big sums of money up to within a few minutes of a race. Do you know how much you’ve lost in the last five years?”

Arthur was pale with fury, but, mastering himself, shook his head.

“You have lost sixty-three thousand pounds to Truman alone,” said the other slowly. “And I have won it!”

The colour came and went in Arthur Gine’s face. He knew all the time that his rage and resentment were unreasonable. Hitherto Truman had been a name on a telegraph form, an address somewhere in the West End to which his unprofitable telegrams were sent. Who they were he neither knew nor cared; they might have been people infinitely more objectionable than Gilder.

But there was a suggestion of duplicity in the man’s confession. Arthur Gine felt that be bad been tricked by a servant he trusted, and he was helpless in face of sixty-three thousand facts, all of which balanced on the side of the hard-faced man before him.