Page 56 (1/2)

And so there was left on the official hands, at the close of the War, a

quantity of jute which nobody wanted, at a price which nobody would

pay And then somebody asked a question in the House of Commons, and

the responsible Secretary went hot all over, and framed the reply which

an Under-secretary subsequently made in such terms as would lead the

country to believe that the jute purchased at a figure beyond the

market value was a valuable asset, and would one day be sold at a

profit

Mr Augustus Tibbetts knew nothing about jute But he did read, al in the daily newspapers, how one person or another had

made enormous purchases of linen, or of cloth, or ofoff almost immediately

with colossal profits; and every tiled in his chair and made unhappy noises

Then one afternoon there ca with him a card which was inscribed "Ministry of

Supplies" And the end of that conversation was that Bones, all a

twitter of exciteloomy office in Whitehall, where he

interviewed a most sacred public official, to whom members of the

public were not admitted, perhaps, more than four tis with interest and suspicion When

Bones was ht

in such a condition of

detective could have unravelled him