“There’s pretty well everything in it so far as I can see,” French rejoined. “Murder—quadruple murder—theft, arson and body-snatching.”
Willis whistled.
“Body-snatching? Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “You don’t often hear of that nowadays.”
“You don’t,” French admitted, “but this was not ordinary body-snatching. You remember the case: a fire at Starvel in which the three occupants of the house were supposed to be burned? Well, one wasn’t. He burgled the place and escaped with the swag: those notes that you were on to to-day. But he had to have a body to represent himself, so he murdered a neighbour and burned his in the house.”
“Lord, French! That’s quite a tale. It would make a novel, that would. How did you get on to it?”
French gave a somewhat sketchy résumé of his activities and so led the conversation back to the notes. “The Chief said you would give me the details so that I could get ahead with it to-day.”
“Right-o. The Chief called me in about four yesterday afternoon and said he’d just had a ’phone from the Northern Shires Bank that two of the Starvel notes had been paid in, and as you weren’t there, I’d better take over. So I went and saw the teller. He couldn’t say who had given him the notes, as it was only when he was balancing his cash after the bank closed that he recognised the numbers. I got him to make me a list of the lodgments during the day. That took a bit of time, but he had it at last. Then I went through it with him and we eliminated all the entries at which he was sure that no twenty-pound note was handled. That left just under two hundred possibles. Then I brought the list home and went over it again, ticking off people or firms who do not usually take in cash from the public, like shipowners, manufacturers and wholesale dealers. Of course, these are possibles, but not so likely as the others. It was rough and ready, but I wanted to tackle the most probable first. You follow me?”
“Of course. I should have done the same.”
“I waited up until I had put the probables in location order, and here is the list ready for you.”
“Jolly good, Willis. I’m sorry you had so much trouble. I’ll carry on and hope for the best.”