“So what did you do?” Mason asked.
“I went to the bank,” she said. “I handle Uncle Alden’s financial matters — keeping his bank account in balance and his correspondence and things like that. I told the bank I was having trouble in my accounts and asked them to give me the amount of Uncle Alden’s balance and the canceled checks. I think the bank cashier knew what I was after, and was really relieved. He got the checks for me at once. The last one was a check for twenty thousand dollars signed by Uncle Alden, and payable to L. C. Conway. It was endorsed on the back, ‘L. C. Conway’ and down below that appeared in Uncle’s handwriting, ‘This endorsement guaranteed. Check to be cashed without identification or further endorsement.”
“The effect,” Mason said, “being virtually to make it a check payable to bearer. Why didn’t he do that in the first place?”
“Because,” she said, “I don’t think he wanted this young woman’s name to appear on the check.”
“It was cashed by the bank without her endorsement?”
“Yes. The bank cashier insisted on her endorsing the check. She refused to do so. Then he rang up Uncle Alden and had the conversation Emily overheard. After that, the cashier told this woman she didn’t need to endorse the check, but that she’d have to leave her name and address and give a receipt before he’d let her have the money.”
“Then what happened?”
“The girl was furious. She wanted to telephone Uncle Alden, but she either didn’t know his number or pretended she didn’t. The cashier wouldn’t give her Uncle Alden’s unlisted number. So finally she wrote her name and address, and gave him a receipt.”
“Fictitious?” Mason asked.
“Apparently, it wasn’t. The cashier made her show her driving license, and an envelope addressed to her at that address.”