The firm of Dunbar had been established very soon after the English
first grew powerful in India. It was one of the oldest firms in the
City; and the names of Dunbar and Dunbar, painted upon the door-posts,
and engraved upon shining brass plates on the mahogany doors, had never
been expunged or altered: though time and death had done their work of
change amongst the owners of that name.

The last heads of the firm had been two brothers, Hugh and Percival
Dunbar; and Percival, the younger of these brothers, had lately died at
eighty years of age, leaving his only son, Henry Dunbar, sole inheritor
of his enormous wealth.

That wealth consisted of a splendid estate in Warwickshire; another
estate, scarcely less splendid, in Yorkshire; a noble mansion in
Portland Place; and three-fourths of the bank. The junior partner, Mr.
Balderby, a good-tempered, middle-aged man, with a large family of
daughters, and a handsome red-brick mansion on Clapham Common, had never
possessed more than a fourth share in the business. The three other
shares had been divided between the two brothers, and had lapsed
entirely into the hands of Percival upon the death of Hugh.

On the evening of the 15th of August, 1850, three men sat together in
one of the shady offices at the back of the banking-house in St.
Gundolph Lane.

These three men were Mr. Balderby, a confidential cashier called Clement
Austin, and an old clerk, a man of about sixty-five years of age, who
had been a faithful servant of the firm ever since his boyhood.