Thereupon the old lawyer made the suggestion that was to be fraught with such odd consequences.

"Wouldn't it be more convenient," he said, "if an account could be opened in Miss Million's name at a bank?"

"That will do," said Miss Million's maid (myself), while Miss Million gazed round upon the black dispatch-boxes of the office.

Ten minutes later, with a cheque for £500 clutched tightly in Miss Million's hand, also a letter from Mr. Chesterton to Mr. Reginald Brace, the manager, we found ourselves at the bank near Ludgate Circus that Mr. Chesterton had recommended.

Million was once more doddering with nervousness. Once more Miss Million's new maid had to take it all upon herself.

[Pg 57] "Mr. Brace," I demanded boldly over the shoulder of an errand-lad who was handing in slips of paper with small red stamps upon them.

[Pg 57]

One moment later and we were ushered into the manager's private room.

Yet another second, and that room seemed echoing with Million's gleeful shriek of "Why! Miss Beatrice! See who it is? If it isn't the gent from next door!"

She meant the manager.

I looked up and faced the astonished blue eyes in his nice sunburnt face.

Yes! It was the young man from No. 44 Laburnum Grove; "the insufferable young bounder" on whose account I had got into those "rows" with Aunt Anastasia. So this was Mr. Reginald Brace, the bank manager! This was where he took the silk hat I'd seen disappearing down the grove each morning at 9.30.

He recognised us. All three of us laughed! He was the first to be grave. Indeed, he was suddenly alarmingly formal and ceremonious as he asked us to sit down and opened Mr. Chesterton's letter.

I couldn't help watching his face as he read it, to enjoy the look of blank amazement that I thought would appear there when he found that the little maid-servant he had noticed at the kitchen window of the next-door villa to his own should be the young lady about whom he had received this lawyer's letter.

No look of amazement appeared. You might just as well have expected a marble mantelpiece to look 

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