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be?’
    â€˜No,’ said Palfrey, ‘none at all. If he doesn’t turn up soon I’ll make inquiries.’
    When he rang off he took a coin from his pocket and flicked it absently into the air. Drusilla had heard enough to know that Charles had not reached home, and the same thought was in her mind as in Palfrey’s: that he had been waylaid.
    Palfrey was still tossing up the coin when the front-door bell rang.
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Chapter Five
The Remarkable Adventure of Charles Lumsden
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    â€˜Hallo,’ said Bobby Fairweather. ‘I turn up, you see. Better late than in the morning. I have been delving deep, as per request—also,’ he added with a grin, ‘as per instructions received on, I believe, the instigation of your pal the Marquis. I never know what it’s safe to say to you people, your friends are so high in the political heavens. Thanks.’ He sat down in an easy chair and stretched his legs.
    Drusilla took out the brandy glasses.
    â€˜My, my!’ said Bobby. ‘You must be anxious to get on my right side. The last drop of fine old French for Bobby! A nice warm glass, please.’ Drusilla put the glasses in front of the gas fire, while Palfrey leaned against the mantelpiece and eyed the Foreign Office man.
    His Excellency Señor Fernandez y Dias,’ said Bobby, with great dignity, ‘is certainly up to No Good. Another secret mission, and not concerned with Whitehall. That’s offended the big wallahs. I might say annoyed. Dias comes with diplomatic privilege and does very much what he likes. He claims the sanctuary of the Embassy on his comings and goings, but he hasn’t once made a formal visit to the F.O., so—secret mission.’
    â€˜Any idea about what?’ asked Palfrey.
    â€˜The pluck of the Palfreys,’ murmured Bobby, and raised his glass. When he had sipped, he said: ‘I had one or two tentacles put out today. There was a party of sorts at the Lanchester thrown by Dias. Much wine flowed, much work was thrown upon the digestive organs; ostensible purpose of the gathering: the discussion of new railway projects in South America. Also, new ships for ditto. Present were Dias, his private secretary whose name is Lozana— sleek, dark, scented, forty, an obscure official at the Embassy, and—’ Bobby paused, as if to marshal his thoughts, actually to increase their interest. Neither of them gratified him by asking him to hurry. ‘Anderson,’ he said, ‘and William K. Bane.’
    â€œWhich Anderson?’ asked Palfrey.
    â€˜Ours. Mr. Joshua.’ Bobby looked peeved. ‘Why don’t you open your mouths and gape with the surprise which you should feel at the sensation?’
    â€˜No sensation,’ said Palfrey; ‘something of the kind isn’t altogether unexpected.’
    Joshua Anderson was a power in financial circles in Great Britain. He was one of the old school of financiers and his spiritual home was undoubtedly Wall Street. His speculations were vast and his gambles greatly daring, but he had never been on the wrong side of the law, and he had made fortunes for those people who followed his judgement or his luck. One day, said the Jeremiahs, Josh would come a cropper. When he did, tens of thousands of small English ‘capitalists’ would lose their all, and Josh would probably spend the rest of his life in prison. He was a man of sixty, a small, wiry, berry-faced man with a caustic sense of humour. He was affectionately known as ‘our Josh’ by most of his friends. He did not live in state; he seemed interested only in money, and he had never tried to buy a title, which was so frequently the end and object of his kind. Only in that was he like Lumsden.
    William K. Bane was a younger man, in the early fifties, an American from the Middle West. He had stormed Wall Street in the middle twenties, and won for himself a reputation second to none. He was, according to the many