He grasped Demorest’s hand and then dropped the little packet into his palm, and ambled away towards Stacy and Barker.  Holding the packet in his hand with an amused yet puzzled smile, Demorest watched the gambler give Stacy’s hand a hearty farewell shake and a supplementary slap on the back to the delighted Barker, and then vanish in a flash of red sash and silver buttons.  At which Demorest, walking slowly towards his partners, opened the packet, and stood suddenly still.  It contained the dried and bloodless second finger of a human hand cut off at the first joint!

For an instant he held it at arm’s length, as if about to cast it away.  Then he grimly replaced it in the paper, put it carefully in his pocket, and silently walked after his companions.

CHAPTER I

A strong southwester was beating against the windows and doors of Stacy’s Bank in San Francisco, and spreading a film of rain between the regular splendors of its mahogany counters and sprucely dressed clerks and the usual passing pedestrian.  For Stacy’s new banking-house had long since received the epithet of “palatial” from an enthusiastic local press fresh from the “opening” luncheon in its richly decorated directors’ rooms, and it was said that once a homely would-be depositor from One Horse Gulch was so cowed by its magnificence that his heart failed him at the last moment, and mumbling an apology to the elegant receiving teller, fled with his greasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to deposit his treasure in the dingy Mint around the corner.  Perhaps there was something of this feeling, mingled with a certain simple-minded fascination, in the hesitation of a stranger of a higher class who entered the bank that rainy morning and finally tendered his card to the important negro messenger.

The card preceded him through noiselessly swinging doors and across heavily carpeted passages until it reached the inner core of Mr. James Stacy’s private offices, and was respectfully laid before him.  He was not alone.  At his side, in an attitude of polite and studied expectancy, stood a correct-looking young man, for whom Mr. Stacy was evidently writing a memorandum.  The stranger glanced furtively at the card with a curiosity hardly in keeping with his suggested good breeding; but Stacy did not look at it until he had finished his memorandum.

“There,” he said, with business decision, “you can tell your people that if we carry their new debentures over our limit we will expect a larger margin.  Ditches are not what they were three years ago when miners were willing to waste their money over your rates.  They don’t gamble that way any more, and your company ought to know it, and not gamble themselves over that prospect.”  He handed the paper to the stranger, who bowed over it with studied politeness, and backed towards the door.  Stacy took up the waiting card, read it, said to the messenger, “Show him in,” and in the same breath turned to his guest:  “I say, Van Loo, it’s George Barker!  You know him.”