The Forged Cheque
Sir Clinton had yet another surprise in store for his host. Just
before dinner, he apparently made up his mind to ring up Whistlefield;
and to Wendover’s astonishment he suggested that the Squire should
accompany him to the telephone.
“You’ll hear only one side of the conversation,” he said, with a
rather grim expression, “but I think it may interest you. And perhaps
it will be just as well to have a witness to testify about my end of
the wire. I wish we had two receivers, for then you would have heard
the whole thing.”
He got the connection in a moment or two and then astounded Wendover
by asking for Ernest Shandon instead of Ardsley. After a few minutes,
Wendover heard the beginning of the conversation.
“Sir Clinton Driffield speaking. Mr. Shandon, you must treat this as
absolutely confidential. . . . Absolutely for yourself. Not a breath
of it to anyone else, you understand? . . . I want you to keep an eye
on your secretary . . . Yes, Stenness. I want him kept under
observation. If you see him leave the house, ring me up
immediately . . . Yes, at once . . . It won’t be for long. I’m coming
across very shortly . . . I didn’t catch that . . . Yes, you weren’t
far out in your suspicions. Most fortunate you mentioned the matter of
the cheque . . . Anything further? Do you mean about the
murderer? . . . Oh, I think I’ll have him to-morrow, quite possibly—if
he doesn’t bolt. If he doesn’t bolt, I said. That’s the only thing I’m
afraid of. . . . Yes, I’m sure that would interest you. After all,
one’s skin is one’s dearest possession. Good-night. We shall be across
shortly after dinner.”
Wendover had been able to gather the gist of the conversation from the
side which he had heard.
“You’re afraid of Stenness doing a bolt? And you think he’s the man
you’re after?”
“Really, Squire, you must take a reef in your questions,” Sir Clinton
said, reproachfully. “I stretched a point to let you hear that talk;
and I certainly didn’t intend to stand a cross-examination about it.
You must make what you can out of it for yourself. And that reminds
me, I’m afraid you can’t be present when I interview Master Stenness.
You’ll just have to be a private caller this evening and wait for
results till later.”
Wendover was not particularly pleased with this last news. He had
evidently counted on hearing what Sir Clinton had to say to the
secretary. However, he realised that he was in the hands of the Chief
Constable and must do as he was told; so when they arrived at
Whistlefield, he asked for Ernest Shandon while Sir Clinton went into
the study to interview Stenness.
The secretary arrived in a few moments. He was still looking very
anxious, perhaps even more anxious than in the morning. Sir Clinton
wasted no time but came to grips with the subject at once.
“Now, Mr. Stenness, I’ve one or two questions to put to you. I may as
well caution you that anything you say may be used against you if you
are put on your trial.”
Stenness’s face betrayed less surprise than might have been expected.
“You say ‘if,’ but perhaps you mean ‘when’?”
“I’m picking my words with some care,” Sir Clinton assured him. “I
mean ‘if.’ The point’s still in doubt; but I want to play the game
with you and take no improper advantage.”
The imperturbable face of the secretary showed neither relief nor
depression.
“It’s very good of you,” he said in a colourless voice. Sir Clinton
considered for a moment. Stenness moved over to a chair and sat down.
“I think I can put my cards on the table in your case, Stenness,” the
Chief Constable said at length. “Nothing I’m going to tell you will be
news to you; and there seems no reason why I shouldn’t say it.”
Stenness looked up indifferently. His mind seemed to be occupied with
something quite apart from the affair in hand.
“Go on,” he said, apathetically.
“Here are the facts, then,” Sir Clinton began. “You were employed here
as Roger Shandon’s secretary. In that capacity, you seem to have had
access to his cheque-books. It’s not a usual thing; but I have sound
reasons for supposing that it was so in your case.”
Stenness nodded his assent.
“I don’t deny that,” he admitted.
“You have the key of the safe, haven’t you? Would you mind seeing if
you can find the cheque-book that Roger Shandon used last?”
Stenness walked over to the safe, opened it, and after a few moments’
search he unearthed the cheque-book.
“Now,” Sir Clinton went on, “would you mind turning up the counterfoil
numbered 60073?”
Stenness looked up without showing any emotion on his features.
“There’s no such counterfoil in the book,” he admitted.
“But you find 60072 and 60074 there?”
“Yes.”
“Rather a peculiar state of affairs, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
Sir Clinton turned to another subject.
“There’s a bundle of returned cheques in that drawer of the
writing-desk, isn’t there?”
“There is. Do you want it?”
Sir Clinton seemed to disregard the question.
“Would it surprise you, Stenness, if you learned that one of these
cheques has been abstracted and that it can’t be found? The bank
returned it in due course for all that.”
Stenness gazed stonily at his interlocutor.
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
Sir Clinton paused for a moment before continuing. When he spoke again
it was in a different vein.
“These are all plain facts. Now we come to hypothesis; and of course
the ground’s not quite so firm. I think, if you don’t mind, we might
put it in the form of one of these John Doe and Richard Roe cases,
lest you should think . . .”
He left the sentence incomplete.
“Now,” he began briskly, “let’s suppose that John Doe is a rich man
who has made his money in rather peculiar ways—like the late Roger
Shandon, for example. He employs a secretary. I think one may
reasonably suppose that a secretary in that case would need to be
somebody who could shut his eyes when necessary, and who wouldn’t be
apt to judge things too rigidly. In fact, Stenness, he would need to
be a fairly unscrupulous fellow himself.”
Stenness nodded indifferently.
“Go on.”
“I’m putting a hypothetical case, remember,” Sir Clinton cautioned
him. “This is what might be said—I don’t necessarily accept it myself.
I’m only trying to show you how it could be made to look, you
understand? Well, then, this secretary, Richard Roe, sooner or later
sees the chance which Providence has thrown in his way. His employer
is in the habit of drawing bearer cheques for large amounts—some
thousands—from time to time. And, rather carelessly, he has dropped
into the way of getting his secretary to cash them for him and bring
him the money. So the bank is accustomed to paying over these things
to the secretary, and no questions asked.”
Stenness gave no sign of special interest. His normal reserve was
sufficient to veil his thoughts.
“The secretary, we may assume, is an acute fellow. I think we may take
it that he may see a chance when it comes his way. But forgery
requires a certain amount of manual skill if it is carried out in some
ways; and possibly the secretary is sufficiently acute to distrust his
powers as a forger. But it’s always possible to trace a signature.”
Sir Clinton pulled out his cigarette case and lit a cigarette before
going on. He seemed determined to infuse informality into the
proceedings.
“It’s always possible to trace a signature,” he continued. “But one
needs a model signature for that—a signature from a cheque, of course,
because sensible people don’t use their letter signature on their
cheques. They have a special one with some specific trick in it—the
position of a dot, or something of the sort. I hope I’m not boring you
with these elementary things.”
“Not at all,” said Stenness, with a certain show of polite interest.
“The model, in the case of the secretary Richard Roe,” went on Sir
Clinton, “could easily be chosen from one of the old cheques returned
by the bank. He had access to these, we may suppose. But then comes in
a point which is sure to strike his acute mind. A man never writes his
signature twice in precisely the same way; there’s always a faint
difference between any two signatures. Hence, if two cheques turn up
with identical signatures, a sharp detective might suspect something
wrong. You follow me?”
Stenness nodded in silence.
“The acute secretary, Richard Roe, therefore traces his employer’s
signature from one of these old cheques. And to cover his trail, to
make certain that the thing cannot be shown to be a traced signature,
he then destroys the old cheque. Thus there are not two identical
signatures in existence; and the only thing missing is a cancelled
cheque—not a thing anyone is likely to make a fuss about at the worst,
even if its disappearance is noted. I make myself clear?”
“Quite,” said Stenness, still with his air of formal interest.
“So far, then,” Sir Clinton went on, “all is plain sailing. But now
comes a sticky bit. In fact, _the_ sticky bit of the whole affair.
Every cheque has its counterfoil; and Mr. John Doe, the employer, has
had an awkward habit of always filling in his counterfoils. Hence when
Mr. Richard Roe traces his employer’s signature on, let us say, cheque
No. 60073, he has to do something about the counterfoil of that
cheque. If he leaves it blank, it will catch the attention of the good
Mr. Doe the next time he uses the cheque-book. If the acute secretary
fudges an entry on counterfoil No. 60073, then Mr. Doe, who is by no
means a dull fellow, may spot the thing and cause trouble. What is to
be done? The obvious thing is to remove counterfoil No. 60073 from the
cheque-book and trust that its absence will not be noticed. I think
that is the course I’d have followed myself if I had got into that
fix.”
Sir Clinton seemed for a moment to lose interest in his narrative. He
sat for a time in silence, eyeing the secretary as though he hoped to
surprise something. But Stenness showed no sign of either guilt or
confusion.
“I congratulate you on your nerves, Stenness,” Sir Clinton began once
more. “Now that’s an hypothesis which I should not be very loath to
adopt as an explanation of this affair of the cheques. It seems to me
to cover the ground neatly. In fact, I’m quite convinced that it’s a
good hypothesis so far as it goes. But some people might be prepared
to carry it a stage further. I’ll just sketch out what they would
say.”
At this point Stenness seemed to find some interest in the matter. He
sat up and looked across at the Chief Constable.
“Please go on,” he requested.
“We have assumed that Richard Roe is an acute person. Now an alert
mind might quite conceivably see a further step which would bring him
on to safer ground. If things took their course, the forgery would be
spotted in a very short time. One can’t take thousands out of a man’s
account without raising inquiry. So, normally, the reasonable thing to
do would be to bolt and chance getting out of the country with the
cash. That’s what would occur to most people at once. But there’s
another way of making sure of things.”
Sir Clinton’s voice took on a graver tone.
“Let us suppose that immediately the cheque has been cashed, the
employer happens to die. What evidence of forgery is left then? None
whatever, if the tracing of the signature has been decently executed.
The supposed writer is dead; and no one else can deny his signature.
And the cheque, we assume, has been cashed before the death takes
place. On that basis, there would be no need for any flight on the
part of the forger. He would simply have to sit tight and behave
normally.”
Sir Clinton surprised a fresh look on Stenness’s face. It was only a
fleeting change; but it was quite unmistakable. But the secretary
remained obstinately mute and waited for the rest of the argument.
“That’s assuming a natural death of the employer. But such
coincidences are rather rare. An acute mind would not count on a
chance like that. However, rare as such coincidences may be, they are
not beyond possibility, if a human agent should happen to take a hand
in the business. Suppose that the acute Richard Roe perceived this,
and decided that it was worth his while to produce that coincidence by
murdering his employer. . . .”
Sir Clinton swung round in his chair, surprised by the opening of the
door. Ardsley stood on the threshold, and a glance at his face showed
that something serious had happened.
“It’s all up, Sir Clinton. They can pull down the blinds.”
“Miss Hawkhurst?” was all Sir Clinton could say.
Ardsley made a gesture of despair.
“Some things are beyond us,” he said despondently.