About this story
Clement Austin arranges word at every stage as you travel to Southampton on a commission limited to identification, nothing more. On the train, Joseph reappears across the carriage under another name, and when a seizure leaves you helpless at a wayside inn, he takes your letter and continues toward the ship without you.
How it opens
After office hours, the partners prepared for Henry Dunbar's return from India after thirty-five years.
Mr BalderbySampson, you alone in this bank have seen the man who will now command it.
No surviving portrait could help the staff or the daughter who last saw Henry when she was two.
Recognition therefore rests upon memory older than many clerks in this building.
Mr BalderbyTell us the old facts before private resentment meets public business at Southampton.
Choose
Begin with the forged bills and who produced the signatures.
State first why Joseph entered Henry's service.