“I know about that property,” Mr. Oxley interjected. “I’ve had a deal to do with it one way and another. The old man got it through his wife and it went back to her family at his death.”
“I imagined it must be something of the kind. Well, to continue. Averill’s income, as I said, was passed through the bank. He received it all in cheques or drafts and these he would endorse and send to me for payment. He had a current account, and my instructions were that when any cheque came I was to pay in to this account until it stood at something between £40 and £60—whatever would leave an even £20 over—and I was to send the surplus cash in £20 notes out to Starvel. Averill evidently looked upon this as a sort of revenue account and paid all his current expenses out of it. It never of course rose above the £60 and seldom fell below £20. To carry on my simile, any monies that were over after raising the current account to £60 he considered capital, and they went out to swell the hoard in the safe at Starvel. In addition he kept a sum of £500 on deposit receipt. I don’t know exactly why he did so, but I presume it was as a sort of nestegg in the event of his safe being burgled. You follow me?”
“I follow you all right, but, by Jove! it was a queer arrangement.”
“Everything the poor old man did was queer, but, as you know, he was——” Mr. Tarkington shook his head significantly. “However, to go on with my story. These monies that were to be sent out to Starvel I used to keep until they reached at least a hundred, and then I used to send a clerk out with the cash. The mission usually fell to Bloxham—you know Bloxham, of course? Averill liked him and asked me to send him when I could. Bloxham has seen into the safe on two or three occasions, and it is from him I know that it was packed with notes as well as the gold.”
“I never can get over all that money being burnt,” Mr. Oxley interjected. “It makes me sick to think of even now. Such stupid, needless, wicked waste!” Mr. Tarkington took no notice of this outburst.
“It happened that about a week before the tragedy,” he went on in his precise manner, “a cheque for £346 came in from the Leeds property. The current account was then standing at £27, so I paid £26 into it, raising it to £53, and sent Bloxham with the balance, £320, out to Starvel. The money was in sixteen twenties, the numbers of which were kept. As I said, it was one of the old man’s peculiarities that he liked his money in £20 notes. I suppose it made it easier to hoard and count. Bloxham saw Averill lock these notes away in his safe and brought me the old man’s receipt.”
Mr. Tarkington paused to draw at his cigarette, then continued:—
“In my report about the affair to our headquarters in Throgmorton Avenue, I mentioned among other things that these notes, giving the numbers, had been destroyed in the fire. Well, Oxley, what do you think has happened? I heard from headquarters to-day and they tell me that one of those notes has just been paid in!”
Mr. Oxley looked slightly bewildered.
“Well, what of it?” he demanded. “I don’t follow. You reported that these notes had been destroyed in the fire. But wasn’t that only a guess? How did you actually know?”