“Yes.”
“But who can have got hold of your cheque-book?” asked Dora. “You have found it, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but this is no use. The cheque in question was drawn before I began this book. I suppose I left it at the flat.”
Dora had continued writing her note as she talked, for it was only a matter of a few formal phrases of regret, but at this moment, her hand suddenly played her false, and her pen sputtered on the paper. And though she did not know at that second why this happened, a moment afterward she knew.
Below his cheque-book in the drawer lay Claude’s passbook. It had been very recently made up, for his allowance from Uncle Alfred, paid on June 28, appeared to his credit, and on the debit side a cheque to Dora of £150, cashed on the previous date. That, no doubt, was the cheque for “books” of which she had spoken.
She had gone on writing again, and Claude apparently had noticed nothing of that pen-splutter.
“Yes, here are cheques I have drawn up till the 29th,” he said, “and none of £500. It looks rather queer. I’ll be back again in five minutes. I must just see Mr. Humby, and tell him I can’t trace it.”
Claude went rather slowly downstairs again. The matter was verging on certainty. He had drawn a cheque for five hundred pounds, on June 24, and it had not been presented till two days ago. The cheque for the car was entered, and the cheque for books to Dora. He hated to think that Parker had forged his name, but if he had, good servant though he was, there was no clemency possible.
“May I look at the cheque again?” he asked.