"YOU'RE wanted on the telephone, sir."Mr. Bruce Bowring, managing director of the Consolidated Mining and Investment Corporation, Limited (capital two millions, in one-pound shares, which stood at twenty-seven-and-six), turnedand gazed querulously across the electric-lit spaces of his superb private office at the confidentialclerk who addressed him. Mr. Bowring, in shirt-sleeves before a Florentine mirror, was brushing hishair with the solicitude of a mother who has failed to rear most of a large family."Who is it?" he asked, as if that demand for him were the last straw but one. "Nearly seven onFriday evening!" he added, martyrised."I think a friend, sir."The middle-aged financier dropped his gold-mounted brush and, wading through the deep pile ofthe Oriental carpet, passed into the telephone-cabinet and shut the door."Hallo!" he accosted the transmitter, resolved not to be angry with it. "Hallo! Are you there? Yes, I'm Bowring. Who are you?""Nrrrr," the faint, unhuman voice of the receiver whispered in his ear. "Nrrrr. Cluck. I'm a friend.""What name?""No name. I thought you might like to know that a determined robbery is going to be attempted tonight at your house in Lowndes Square, a robbery of cash-and before nine o'clock. Nrrrr. Ithought you might like to know.""Ah!" said Mr. Bowring to the transmitter.The feeble exclamation was all he could achieve at first. In the confined, hot silence of thetelephone-cabinet this message, coming to him mysteriously out of the vast unknown of London, struck him with a sudden sick fear that perhaps his wondrously organised scheme might yet miscarry, even at the final moment. Why that night of all nights? And why before nine o'clock? Could itbe that the secret was out, then?"Any further interesting details?" he inquired, bracing himself to an assumption of imperturbableand gay coolness.But there was no answer. And when after some difficulty he got the exchange-girl to disclose thenumber which had rung him up, he found that his interlocutor had been using a public call-office inOxford Street. He returned to his room, donned his frock-coat, took a large envelope from a lockeddrawer and put it in his pocket, and sat down to think a little.At that time Mr. Bruce Bowring was one of the most famous conjurers in the City. He had begun, ten years earlier, with nothing but a silk hat; and out of that empty hat had been produced, first theHoop-La Limited, a South African gold-mine of numerous stamps and frequent dividends, then theHoop-La No. 2 Limited, a mine with as many reincarnations as Buddha, and then a dazzling succession of mines and combination of mines.