Mr. Thomlinson, however, was anything but
obdurate. He was eager to oblige, but he was helpless. The instructions
he had received were simple but imperative, and he had gone to unusual
lengths in suggesting to Mr. Sheratt, the manager of the Bank, a course
of greater leniency. That gentleman's only reply was a brief order to
proceed with the case.
With Mr. Sheratt, therefore, Mr. Rae proceeded to deal. His first move
was to invite the Bank manager to lunch, in order to discuss some rather
important matters relative to one of the great estates of which Mr. Rae
was supposed to be the guardian. Some fifty years' experience of
Mr. Sheratt as boy and man had let Mr. Rae into a somewhat intimate
knowledge of the workings of that gentleman's mind. Under the mollifying
influences of the finest of old port, Mr. Rae made the discovery that as
with Mr. Thomlinson, so with Mr. Sheratt there was every disposition to
oblige, and indeed an eagerness to yield to the lawyer's desires; it was
not Mr. Sheratt, but the Bank that was immovable. Firm-fixed it stood
upon its bedrock of tradition that in matters of fraud, crime should be
punished to the full limit of the law.
"The estate of the criminal, high or low," said Mr. Sheratt
impressively, "matters not. The Bank stands upon the principle, and from
this it cannot be moved.
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