Constance reached into the safe and drew out something on which she flashed the pocket light.
There was bundle after bundle of checks, the personal checks of a methodical business man, carefully preserved.
Hastily she looked them over. All seemed to be perfectly straight—payments to tradesmen, to real estate agents, payments of all sorts, all carefully labeled.
"Oh, he'd never let anything like that lie around," remarked Anita, as she began to comprehend what Constance was after.
Constance was scrutinizing some of the checks more carefully than others. Suddenly she held one up to the light. Apparently it was in payment of legal services.
Quickly she took the little bottle of brownish fluid which she had brought with the sponge.
She dipped the sponge in it lightly and brushed it over the check. Then she leaned forward breathlessly.
"Eradicating ink is simply a bleaching process," she remarked, "which leaves the iron of the ink as a white oxide instead of a black oxide. The proper reagent will restore the original color—partially and at least for a time. Ah—yes—it is as I thought. There have been erasures in these checks. Other names have been written in on some of them in place of those that were originally there. The sulphide of ammonia ought to bring out anything that is hidden here."
There, faintly, was the original writing. It read, "Pay to the order of—Helen Brett—"
Mrs. Douglas with difficulty restrained an exclamation of anger and hatred at the mere sight of the name of the other woman.