All business London, and a good many other people besides, must remember the famous United Empire Bank Fraud.

Bonds had been stolen and negotiated, vast sums of money were discovered to be missing, and the manager and one of the directors were absent also.

So cleverly had the affair been worked, and so flaring were the defalcations, that had it not been for the public-spirited behaviour and generosity of two of the directors, the position of the bank would have been most seriously compromised, if not shattered altogether.

How the culprits had managed to slip through the fingers of the law in the first place no one could say, but the fact remains that they were able to get out of England, without, apparently, leaving a trace of their intentions or their whereabouts behind them.

Scotland Yard took the matter up with its usual promptness, and at first were confident of success.