THE MISSING NOTES.
It was late in the afternoon before Prout hit upon the trail he was
looking for. He had been keeping the telegraph and the telephone busy.
The scent was still hot, and it was just possible that he might come
upon some trace of the missing notes before they left the country.
At any rate, it could only have been hours since they found their way
into the hands of the murdered man. According to his letter, he had
received £400 in gold--probably the result of some blackmailing
transaction--after which he had hastened to turn them into banknotes
for transmission, probably abroad.
Now there is only one place of business where a man can turn so large
a sum of money into notes, and that place must be a bank. There are a
great many banks in London, and the difficulty in finding the right
one was enhanced by the fact that nobody besides Prout knew that there
was anything wrong about these particular notes. On the face of it,
the transaction was a very casual one.
It was nearly four o'clock before Prout raised the trail. On the
previous day but one a cashier at the National Credit Bank had changed
£400 in gold into notes for a stranger who answered to the description
of the murdered man. Prout dashed down to Leadenhall Street in a fast
hansom. The cashier was a little nervous, but quite willing to speak
freely.
"I remember the transaction perfectly well," he said. "We do a lot of
money-changing and that kind of thing, as our foreign connection is a
large one. I should not have heeded the matter but for noticing the
curious disfigurement of the man's hands."
"Covered all over with orange blotches, eh?" asked Prout.
"Quite so. The man was all twisted from his hip, and he had a crooked
nose."
"You needn't say any more," Prout said crisply. "That's the man. You
changed the gold for the victim of the Corner House tragedy. Got the
numbers?"
The numbers were forthcoming, of course--190753 to 190832, the first
half of which eighty £5 notes had been alluded to in the murdered
man's letter.
"So far so good," Prout remarked. "It's not a very pleasant
experience, but I am sorry I have not finished yet. I shall have to
trouble you to come as far as Raven Street with me and identify the
body."
It was well over at length, but the mild little cashier had nothing to
say except that he really must go over to the Raven's Arms and have a
little brandy. Abstemious man as he was, he felt it was necessary.
Presently the blood came back to his face again, and his dilated
pupils contracted.
"That's the man, sergeant," he said. "And I hope I have seen the last
of him. Are you going to advertise those notes?"
Prout replied for the present he had no intention of doing anything of
the kind. The thief knew nothing about the letter, or he assuredly
would have destroyed it. He would imagine that he had got off scot
free with his booty, and thus might walk into the trap prepared for
him.
"We shall lie low for the present," Prout said. "And I will ask you to
do the same. You may mention this matter to your manager, but not to
another soul. I'll try and get down before five and see your manager
myself."
It was not a bad day's work, and it spurred on Prout to fresh
endeavours. He carefully examined the fireplace, he tested the
windows, but nothing rewarded his endeavours beyond a blacklead-brush
thrown into the corner of the scullery together with a cake of
blacklead recently opened.
"Now where does this come in?" he asked himself. "There isn't a grate
in the house that has been touched for years. And this cake is not
quite dry yet. And a bit of yellow soap in the tray over the sink that
would be as hard as a chip if it had been here since the people left.
But it hasn't. Murderer may have washed his hands, which is
exceedingly likely, but what did he want blacklead for?"
Prout looked keenly around him. He opened the back door into a yard
that gave on to a lane at the back of the house. The bricks were damp
and mossy, and on them was something that looked like the print of
wheels. The door leading to the lane was wide, and on the edge on both
sides something patchy glistened. Prout touched it with his fingers.
"Now what does it mean?" he asked himself. "What game were they
playing?"
The black edging of the gate-posts was fresh blacklead.
The little discovery gave a new twist to Prout's thoughts as he drove
down to the National Credit Bank. He had no particular object save to
see the manager and impress upon him that in the interests of justice
the whole thing must be kept a profound secret. There was no
difficulty about that: the cashier was indignant, for he had already
given his promise on the matter.
"Not that you will ever see those notes again, sir," Prout said. "By
this time they are probably on their way to the Continent, whence they
may begin to dribble back one by one in the course of months. Still,
one never can tell."
The manager was sympathetic; at the same time he looked at the clock,
which was drawing very near to closing time. There was a lull outside
in the traffic. Prout took up his hat and prepared to depart.
But the same moment his friend, the cashier, came rushing in. His eyes
were gleaming behind his spectacles.
"A most extraordinary thing, sir," he stammered. "Those notes that
Sergeant Prout came about just now are----"
"Get on," the manager said impatiently, "Get on."
"Have been paid in to the credit of a customer, or part of them."
"Numbers?" Prout snapped. "Which part of them?"
"190753 to 190792," the cashier replied.
"Every note," Prout cried, "every blessed note mentioned in the dead's
man's letter."