Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/70

64 clear," said Bottiger. "Are you coming round to my rooms?"

"No, I'm not. Not now. It's too late. "What's the use? And I wish to goodness you would not call a strenuous philanthropic enterprise murder!"

"Very well. But Chelubai says you carried off a black bag from the body—a senseless thing to do. I'm to take it away and destroy it."

I had forgotten Pudleigh's bag. I took it up from a chair, and tried to open it It was locked.

"We may as well see if there's anything of interest in it," I said; and I took a screw-driver from a drawer and forced the bag open. There were half a dozen papers in it, and I tumbled them out on the table.

"I shall look through these carefully," I said. "There may be something here that will give us a hold on some King of Finance. It would be in the highest degree unphilanthropic to miss a chance of extracting reluctant subscriptions from those enemies of Humanity. Besides, it has always been my ambition to hear a financier sing, and it might turn out another effective method of obtaining subscriptions to the hospital. Here's your bag," and I tossed it to him.

He caught it, saying with some irritation: "You seem to be growing perfectly grasping."

"Not perfectly—at least not perfectly yet—but