“Ah! but the police must not catch me. It’s precisely for that that you are going to take the extra three hundred. It will be your part of the business to throw them off the scent, you will find that an easy job enough.”
“How am I to be paid? that is, supposing I agree to this?”
“I will tell you. I have five hundred and fifty pounds standing as a deposit in the Joint Stock Bank, in the name of Rogers; here is the pass-book. When I paid it in, a year ago, I said that I should probably draw it out in a lump for investment. I have written a letter here to the manager, saying that I have given a cheque for five hundred—at least I have left the figures blank at present, and that I shall be obliged if he will fill up and return my pass-book, and let me know the amount remaining to my credit. So that he will be prepared for the cheque when it is presented. In what name shall I fill it in?”
Mr. Barton thought for a minute, and then said, “John Halfourd; he is a lawyer, it will be better through him, we do business together.”
David Symes filled up the cheque.
“I have dated it the day after to-morrow,” he said. “I sail to-morrow in the ‘Louisa,’ for America. She warps out of the docks this evening. Put the police on the track of the Australian ships. I depend on you to do this. If I am taken, I shall, of course, stop the payment of the cheque. Good-morning, Mr. Barton.”
“Good-morning, Mr. Symes, a pleasant voyage.”
And the ex-clerk went down the street, whistling gaily.
“That is a monstrous clever fellow,” Mr. Barton said, admiringly; “cool as a cucumber. It is as well, before I do anything else, to see if this money really is at the Bank. There, Reuben, run round with this pass-book to the Joint Stock, and ask them to be good enough to see if it is all right, and then bring it back here. Don’t say who you come from, but do it in a regular way of business.”
While the boy was gone, Mr. Barton sat thinking deeply, till he returned with the message that the book was correct with the exception of the interest, which could not be added unless the book was left.