The Red-Headed Man by Fergus Hume — Read

If Torry had found that Donna Maria was an obstinate woman he speedily discovered that Mr. Leighbourne was a fool. Old, narrow-minded, and egotistical, the banker was one of those pig-headed men who are the despair of reasonable mortals. Once an idea was put into his head it could not be got out again, and he constantly referred to his age and worldly experience as legitimate reasons for his entertaining the most preposterous ideas. He resembled closely those dogged, mulish Kings, Charles I. and Louis XVI., and was as bad to deal with as the two of them rolled into one. Never was there a man less open to conviction.

This unpleasant old person regarded his late partner as a martyr, and beyond a tendency to rash speculation, he could not be got to see that Grent had any faults. He denied that Grent could, by any possibility, have taken the money; he declined to believe that the good man had contemplated eloping with Lydia Hargone, and pointedly insulted Torry for daring to make such statements. The end of the interview was that Torry left in a rage, and vowed that he would not see Mr. Leighbourne again until he could prove the truth of his declarations. He might have saved himself the trouble, for the banker was determined to canonise his partner, and in the true spirit of bigotry, would rather have suffered death than believe any single statement detrimental to his intention. By the time the conversation with Leighbourne was ended Torry felt inclined to commit murder himself, and regretted that this patriarchal ass had not been killed instead of Grent.