“Dick, will you say goodbye to Harry for me? I promised my brother I would come home early. No, really, you need not take me. I’m not at all afraid of being held up by armed desperadoes!”

“Neither am I,” said Dick, “but I don’t fancy you overmuch as a driver.”

And in her annoyance at this false accusation she forgot to resist his escort.

By the time he had returned to the house, Puttler had secured a dressing for his foot. The injury was so slight that he could resume his shoes, and pooh-poohed the suggestion that he had better lie up that night.

“It was a narrow escape,” he said, “but I’m rather glad I got that bullet, and that it didn’t go where it was intended.”

Dick looked at him steadily.

“For whom was it intended?” he asked.

Without hesitation came the reply.

“For Miss Leslie Gine: I thought you knew that.”

Dick could find no answer, but in his heart of hearts he knew that Puttler was speaking the truth.

27

Mr Fabrian Gilder sometime head clerk to the firm of Gine & Gine, and now a gentleman of leisure, was in one sense a hard man. He did not forgive even slight injuries, and in the past had gone a long way out of his path to get even with those who had the misfortune to affront him. And Arthur Gine had offended beyond hope of forgiveness. A few days before, Gilder would have thought it a very simple matter to be revenged upon his enemy; but now the simple process of laying an information and of preferring a charge of forgery was contingent upon four bills which were in his possession being repudiated by the man who was alleged to have backed them.

He could do no more than present those interesting documents, and this he did through his bank. Dick had already made arrangements for their redemption. It was not entirely an act of philanthropy on his part, for he was a business man, and took over from the frankly reluctant Mr Gine the choice of a number of unsaleable shares which Dick regarded as having a certain value. The bills which had been renewed from time to time were met, and that ended Mr Gilder’s chance of carrying his threat into execution.

He was the type of man who thrived on opposition. Though it would be true to say that he had fallen in love with Leslie Gine the first time he had seen her, which was months before that unpleasant scene at his flat, his desire for her grew as his chance of winning her receded farther and farther into the background.