“Ah! I see. Yes. I wonder how it was? Now, ’pon my word, Mr. Croak, I can’t tell for the life of me at this moment how it was. I’ll rub up my memory. I’ll let you know to-morrow.”
The client and attorney parted company. The former, on his return home, at once sent his pass-book to the bank, and got his account made up. The cheques which had been cashed since the last balancing of his account were of course returned in the pass-book, and among them the cheque made payable to “Clockwork or bearer,” and not crossed.
Whoever wrote the signature of “Jno. Crapp,” there could be no doubt that the date and the amount (in words and in figures) were written by Thinshanks. This, however, was not remarkable. The clerk usually wrote the body of cheques, for his master to sign.
Mr. Crapp pondered long and anxiously over the document. He compared the signature “Jno. Crapp” with the same autograph on other cheques. Did he doubt who had written his name at the foot of that order to pay? No. He knew it was his own writing. He was only looking at it to see whether he could find a sufficient excuse to say it was not his writing. Strangely enough, the “Jno. Crapp” on this cheque was not exactly like that on the others. This signature was a little more extended, or sprawling, than his customary autograph. How was that? He recollected perfectly well. He wrote it in a frightful hurry. He had on the day he wrote it—in the afternoon—promised to take his dear wife, Mrs. Crapp, to the theatre. He was racing through his business that afternoon. It was also very odd that he neglected to cross the cheque. That neglect arose through the same cause. Dare he venture to say, on his oath, with all the consequences of perjury before his eyes, that he had not written “Jno. Crapp” on that slip of paper? Why not? Who should contradict him? Who could do so? Only Thinshanks. Was that possible? Yes, he might from the dock contradict him, but his evidence could not be taken; and the unlikeness of the signature was a further guarantee against harm to the prosecutor from such a denial. He (Mr. Crapp) was a respectable man. Could he swear to the lie without blushing? He was afraid not. Yes, he could—he would. He couldn’t afford the loss of 50l. It was a heavy sum for him to lose. It was a fleabite to Undertails. They were rich beyond computation. He would venture to say it was not his signature, and risk discovery. Nobody could give legal evidence to the contrary—that was very certain.
At the next examination Mr. Snayke opened the case as one of forgery. The learned counsel argued that the prisoner at the bar had doubtless seized an opportunity, when his master’s back was turned, to tear out a blank cheque from the book, had filled up the stump; he had filled up the body of the cheque (which was not unusual), but he had also written his master’s name underneath—a course never allowed by Mr. Crapp, never before done by this young man, and which he had no authority whatever for doing. Of course he had not crossed the cheque, which showed his intention to misapply the proceeds, so that he might get those proceeds to dissipate in that haunt of vice from which he had been taken. It was (Mr. Snayke proceeded to say) an artful contrivance, and had so well succeeded, that his master, guided by the stump-cheque, was really led, in the absence of reflection, to suppose that he had, in the usual way, signed the draft itself with his own hand; but on looking carefully at the signature he immediately saw that, although a clever imitation of his autograph, this “Jno. Crapp” had never been written by him. He (Mr. Snayke) could very well understand how even a bank-clerk might, without pausing to compare signatures, honour the forged draft; but the worthy magistrate, or any one, upon making the comparison between the several cheques he now offered for comparison with the one payable to Messrs. Clockwork, see that it was not in the same handwriting as the others. His highly respectable client would distinctly swear that the signature was forged, and there could be no doubt about it. The case was now complete, or would be when he had laid the evidence he had in court before his worship; and he should ask for the prisoner’s committal to the next sessions, to stand his trial on the charge he had described.
The evidence sustained the learned gentleman’s address. The prisoner, who was not a little astonished at the extraordinary blunder of his master, as he thought it, saw no object in explaining how the case really stood. If he could get rid of the proof of the one alleged forgery—that of “Jno. Crapp”—he could not hope to grapple with the other charge. He saw that the robbery of the cheque and its proceeds could be proved. He did not know the object his master had in swearing that his own signature was not his handwriting, and if he had been informed, the same authority might have told him that his purpose would not have been very effectually served by trying to expose the fraud and villany of his master.
What did happen in the progress of this very remarkable case, the reader will learn.
The prisoner’s committal was reported in the newspapers. His family, with whom he had not communicated, thus got to know of his situation. They communicated with him. They employed an attorney for him, whose name I shall call Shark.
Mr. Shark, who is a notable man in the transpontine region of the metropolis, and looked upon as almost a deity, at least in power or skill, by the criminal heathen “across the border,” had private interviews with the culprit in his temporary gaol. Mr. Shark told his client to make a clean breast of it with him—that he must know the whole truth, if he was to do him any good, &c.
The unhappy client was as candid as the attorney could wish. He pleaded guilty at this investigation—not of forgery, but of the other offence. He insisted that the “Jno. Crapp” had been written by the hand of his master, in a hurry, as described, and that the neglect to cross the cheque had been the clerk’s temptation. He saw that by intercepting the course of the cheque from Crapp’s to Clockwork’s, and that by presenting it at Messrs. Undertail’s himself, he could easily get the sum of 50l. 4s. 1½d. Under an evil impulse he determined to do so, and was foolish and guilty enough to obey that impulse.