Chapter FIFTEEN: He stared at the entry for a long time

"Can I get a trunk call through to this bank in Birmingham?" he asked.

Apparently there was some arrangement for facilitating inter-banking calls, for in a few minutes he was connected. The Birmingham bank manager confirmed all that he already knew. He did not know Mr. Washington Wirth, though he had seen him once in his hotel. Apparently, when Mr. Wirth opened his account, he was suffering from some complaint which confined him to bed and made it necessary that the blinds should be drawn. The manager's chief clerk who interviewed him had taken his signature, and that was the last that had been seen of him. He had an arrangement by which he could draw cash against cheques at three other branches of the bank, one at the London office, one at Bristol, and a third, which had never been used, at Sheffield. He invariably notified the Birmingham branch by telegraph that he was drawing money twenty-four hours before the cheque was presented; and although huge sums passed through his account, he had very little to his credit at that moment.

Surefoot Smith sent a detective to Birmingham with a number of specimen signatures, and instructions to bring back Wirth's.

Whoever was the giver of these midnight parties was certainly the man to whom large sums of money had been paid out of Hervey Lyne's account--possibly his murderer. He called up Dick, and, finding him working at his new model, told him as much as he thought was necessary of his discoveries.

"You're his next of kin and I suppose you ought to know this," he said.

Dick was staggered when he learned the amount of money that was missing.

"You haven't overlooked the possibility of Mr. Wirth being Hervey Lyne himself, have you?"

"I've thought of that," said Surefoot. "The fact that he couldn't move without a bath-chair means nothing; that's one of the oldest fakes in the world. The cheques were undoubtedly signed by him. I've seen the last one; in fact, I've got it here."

He took it from his pocket. Turning it over, he saw what he had not noticed before--a scrawling pencil mark on the back. The mark was faint; it had evidently been written by one of those patent pencils which occasionally function and occasionally do not. Even so, an attempt had been made, which was partially successful, to rub off the inscription. With the aid of a magnifying glass the detective examined the writing and presently deciphered it.

"Don't send any more Chinese e...." Evidently the writing had wandered off the back of the cheque on to the blotting-paper where the old man wrote.

"Now what the devil does that mean?" asked Smith irritably. "There's no doubt about it being his writing. What does 'Chinese' mean? And who took the trouble to rub it off?"

He scratched his head in his exasperation.

"I ought to have asked the clerk if he'd got any Chinese bonds."

Dick lunched with Mary Lane and passed on to her all that the detective had told him. He was telling her about the cheque with the inscription on the back when he heard an exclamation, and looked at her in amazement. Her eyes and mouth were wide open; she was staring at him.

"Oh!" she said.

Dick smiled.

"Do you know anything about Chinese bonds?"

She shook her head.

"Tell me it all over again, and tell me slowly, because I'm not particularly clever."

He repeated the story about the faked account and the big cheques that had been drawn obviously to the credit of Mr. Washington Wirth. Whenever she could not understand she pressed him for explanations, which he was not always able to give. When he had finished she sighed and leaned back in her chair. Her eyes were bright.

"You look terribly mysterious."

She nodded.

"I am mysterious."

"Do you think you know who killed that unfortunate old man?"

She nodded slowly.

"Yes; I wouldn't dare name him, but I really do think I have what the police call a clue. You see, I lived in Mr. Lyne's house when I was a little girl, and there are some things I've never forgotten."

"I'll tell Surefoot----" he began.

"No, no." She was very insistent "Dick, you mustn't. If you make me look foolish I'll never forgive you. My theory is probably utterly silly. I'll make a few enquiries before I even hint at it."

"In fact you're going to be a detective, darling," said Dick. "By the way, poor old Lyne's will has been discovered. I am his heir. The will is full of restrictions. For example, if I marry anybody outside my own nationality and religion I lose something, and if I reside out of England I lose something, and if I don't give his dog a good home I lose something more--his dog has been dead sixteen years, by the way--but, generally speaking, he's very generous and gives you about forty thousand pounds free of death duty----"

"Really!"

She was staggered at the old man's munificence; genuinely relieved, too, that in a moment of caprice he had not carried out the threat to disinherit his unpopular nephew.

Surefoot Smith did not know that the will had been found until he got back to his office, and, calling up Dick to congratulate him that afternoon, was annoyed to find that his news was old.

"As you're an interested party you'd better come down to the Yard right away. I've the bank accountant here and he's got something to say that will interest you."

Dick arrived to find the accountant looking rather bored in his shabby surroundings. Evidently the office arrangements at Scotland Yard did not impress him. He certainly shifted frequently in the hard-seated kitchen chair which had been placed at his disposal. On Surefoot's table was a number of typewritten sheets of paper.

"This is the point," said Smith impressively, pushing the sheets for Dick to see them. "This gentleman, Mr----"

"Smith," said the accountant.

"That's very awkward," said Surefoot gravely, "Have you got any other name, such as Huxley or Montefiore?"

"Just Smith," smiled the accountant.

"Very awkward indeed," said Surefoot. "Most Smiths adopt another name. This is his name," he went on to explain. "Our friend here" (he studiously avoided calling his brother Smith by that name, and never afterwards did he employ it to describe the accountant) "says that the statement that was sent to Miss Lane was not typed at the bank or on any bank typewriter. He proved this conclusively from my point of view by giving me specimens from all the typewriters used at the bank. A very good bit of detective work, though I don't see that it carries us much farther forward, because, if, as we believe, Moran has been bilking these funds, he probably typed the statements at home. The blanks or forms are not difficult to get?"

The accountant shook his head.

"Oh no; they are printed by hundreds of thousands----"

"Could anybody outside the bank secure them?"

The accountant thought it was possible.

"It comes to this, then," said Surefoot, "that you're satisfied this statement was not typewritten in your bank?"

"Or by any bank machine," said the accountant. "Every branch office uses a"--he mentioned the name of an American make of machine--"and always the same type face is used, the same colour ribbon, the same carbons. The ribbon here is purple; we invariably use black. I didn't realise that till I made enquiries. The type face is entirely different."

He suggested the make of machine on which the statement had been written, and this afterwards proved to be correct.

Surefoot could not remember having seen a typewriter at Moran's flat. He accompanied Dick, after the accountant had gone, to Parkview Terrace, and made a more careful search. They found a portable typewriter, though it was unusable. Remembering the flat in Baynes Mews, Smith was not greatly depressed by his failure to discover the machine. It was possible, and even likely, that if Moran was the tenant of Baynes Mews, he would also have other places of call. In London there might be two or three flats engaged in false names (that in Baynes Mews had been engaged in the name of Whiteley), which Moran used for his own purpose--supposing it was Moran.

"Have you any doubts?" said Dick.

"I'm full of doubts," said Surefoot. "Some of 'em may be set at rest when I find Jerry Dornford. You remember, after we left Naylors Crescent and were going over to see the old man, Dornford passed in a car that was raising a noise like hell? And do you remember he slowed down just about opposite the place where the old man was sitting?"

"Well?" said Dick, when he paused.

"Well," said the other, indignant at his denseness, "didn't he have a gun of yours?"

"Good God! You don't think that Dornford killed him?"

"Why shouldn't he?" asked the other truculently. "He owed Lyne money, and Lyne had threatened to put him into the court unless he paid on the very day of his murder. If you know Dornford's reputation as well as I do, you know that that's the one thing he'd want to avoid. He prides himself upon being a swell, though his father was a horse dealer and his mother--well, I won't talk about her! Bankruptcy means being kicked out of all his clubs. A bird like that would do almost anything to avoid social extinction--is that the right word? Thank you very much."

"Where is he?"

"That's what I'd like to know," said Surefoot grimly. "He hasn't been seen since we saw him!"