ABSTRACT
Sir Claude Mulhammer, financier, is sitting in the spacious private office of his London house. Enter to him the elderly Eggerson, his former confidential clerk, who has now, except for purposes of consultation, retired. The reason he has been summoned on this occasion is, we learn, so that he can undertake the task of meeing Sir Claude’s wife (Lady Elizabeth) shortly due to arrive at Northolt. This is too delicate a matter, Sir Claude explains, to be entrusted to Eggerson’s young successor, Colby Simpkins, of whose appointment Lady Elizabeth has not yet been told. But there is something else about the new confidental clerk of which Lady Elizabeth is ignorant. Colby Simpkins is Sir Claude’s natural son. And we gather that Sir Claude wishes that he could tell his wife about Colby, wishes, since before her marriage she had a son of her own, that she would accept Colby in the missing boy’s place.
