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210 public, would ruin him, but on this the financier was firm, and after much discussion the instrument was drawn up, signed by Hazel, and witnessed by the servant who waited upon them. The Honourable John Hazel must have the money and could not stop at trifles.

It was broad daylight when he emerged from the mansion of Isaacstein, and its owner chuckled as he filed away the document. He might well laugh at the threat of what Lord Stranleigh would do, for he had not the slightest intention of carrying out any part of the scheme he had outlined to John Hazel. He would not send to even one of the newspapers an explanation that the use of Stranleigh's name was unauthorised. The effective and long-continued stringency on the Stock Exchange had brought Isador Isaacstein face to face with bankruptcy. Nothing short of a miracle could now save him. In the bank was a remnant of the eight hundred thousand pounds he had possessed two years and a half before, and only barely enough to enable him to make a dash for a criminal fortune such as he had planned. He knew that the property in Honduras was worthless. It had come to him through an insolvency. He would not go to Frankfort as he had said, but would remain in London until he and his accomplices had secured the loot. If Lord Stranleigh's name possessed the financial magic he attributed to it the million capital would probably be over-