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CHAPTER VIII
THE COMPANY FINDS AN INVESTMENT

We drove to my rooms in the Temple, where we found Bottiger awaiting us. He told us that he had cashed the check without any difficulty, and we gave him the news of the resurrection of Albert Amsted Pudleigh. Our natural depression at the unforeseen thickness of the financial skull, which had balked our well-planned efforts to remove him, was deep indeed. It was but little relieved by the comfortable size of the subscription the effort had brought in, or by the thought that his return had relieved us utterly of all uneasiness about the doings of the police. We were sure that Pudleigh would do his best to hush up a business which might reveal to the East Surbiton widow how he came to lie by the Oval at midnight.

Bottiger handed over to me notes and gold to the amount. of £4,115 8s. 6d. for the Children's Hospital. They warmed my heart. Two thousand pounds would have been good, but £4,000 seemed too good to be true. I burned to get off to Jamaica Place with them, but it was too late to go that