‘All right; if there was, find it out. It wasn’t the bill business.’
‘I always thought it was.’
‘You were wrong, then. Every acceptance old Isaacs discounted for me was genuine—as genuine as this one.’
Mr. Marston drew gently from his waistcoat-pocket a dirty and creased piece of paper, and held it out for Dr. Birnie to read.
It was Birnie’s acceptance for £500.
The doctor looked at it, read it, as Marston held it out before him.
‘You didn’t discount that, then?’ he said quietly. ‘I wondered it had never been presented.’
‘Isaacs wouldn’t take it. He said it wasn’t worth the stamp it was written on.’
‘It wasn’t,’ said Birnie, with a smile.
‘But it is now,’ replied Marston, folding it up carefully and putting it into his pocket.