“I can find no trace of drawing any such cheque,” he said, “and I believe it is a forgery. It is very like my handwriting, but I don’t believe I wrote it.”
“That is what we thought,” said Mr. Humby.
“Then what are you going to do?” asked he.
“Find out who presented the cheque, and prosecute. I am very sorry: it is an unpleasant business, but the bank can take no other course.”
He folded up the cheque again, put it in his pocket and left the room. But Claude did not at once go back to Dora. There had started unbidden into his mind the memory of a morning at Grote before they were married, of a game of croquet, of a sovereign. Next minute he too had left the room, and the minute after he was in the road, walking quickly to Mount Street. His old cheque-book no doubt was there, and he would be able to find it. And all the way there, he tried desperately to keep at bay a suspicion that threatened to grip him by the throat. And upstairs Dora waited for him: the same doubt threatened to strangle her.
Jim was out, but was expected back every moment, and Claude went into his small room, and began searching the drawers of his writing table. There was a sheaf of letters from Dora in one, a copy of his speech on municipal taxation in another, and in the third a heap of old cards of invitation and the butt end of his cheque-book.
Sun blinds were down outside the windows, the room was nearly dark, and he carried this out into the large sitting room and sat down to examine it. There was a whole batch of cheques, most of which he could remember about, drawn on June 22. Then came a blank counterfoil and then the last counterfoil of the book, bearing a docket of identification as cheque to Dora for £150. That was drawn on the 27th.
He heard a step outside; the door opened and Jim entered. He was whistling as he came round the corner of the screen by the door. Then he saw Claude, his whistling ceased, and his face grew white. Once he tried to speak, but could not.
Claude saw that, the blank face, the whitened lips; it was as if Jim had been brought face to face with some deadly spectre, instead of the commonplace vision of his brother-in-law sitting in his own room, looking through the useless but surely innocuous trunk of an old cheque-book. And instantaneously, automatically, Claude’s mind leaped to the conclusion which he had tried to keep away from it. But it could be kept away no longer: the inference closed upon him like the snap of a steel spring.
In the same instant there came upon him his own personal dislike of Jim, and his distrust of him. How deep that was he never knew till this moment. Then came the reflection that he was doing Jim a monstrous injustice in harbouring so horrible a suspicion, and that the best way of clearing his mind of it was to let the bank trace the cheque and prosecute. But he knew that it was his dislike of his brother-in-law that gave birth to this, not a sense of fairness. And on top of it all came the thought of Dora and his love for her, and mingled with that a certain pity that was its legitimate kinsman.