"Certainly not!" roared John Minute. "Why the devil should I give him checks? I have never heard of the man."
The manager grasped the counter for support.
He explained the situation in a few halting words, and led the way to his office, Frank accompanying him.
John Minute examined the checks.
"That is my writing," he said. "I could swear to it myself, and yet I never wrote those checks or signed them. Did you note the commissionaire's number?"
"As it happens I jotted it down," said Frank.
By this time the manager was on the phone to the police. At seven o'clock that night the commissionaire was discovered. He had been employed, he said, by a Mr. Holland, whom he described as a slimmish man, clean shaven, and by no means answering to the description which Frank had given.
"I have lived for a long time in Australia," said the commissionaire, "and he spoke like an Australian. In fact, when I mentioned certain places I had been to he told me he knew them."
The police further discovered that the Knightsbridge flat had been taken, furnished, three months before by Mr. Rex Holland, the negotiations having been by letter. Mr. Holland's agent had assumed responsibility for the flat, and Mr. Holland's agent was easily discoverable in a clerk in the employment of a well-known firm of surveyors and auctioneers, who had also received his commission by letter.
When the police searched the flat they found only one thing which helped them in their investigations. The hall porter said that, as often as not, the flat was untenanted, and only occasionally, when he was off duty, had Mr. Holland put in an appearance, and he only knew this from statements which had been made by other tenants.