Storm hesitated and then replied with seeming candor:
“Well, if you want the truth, Mr. Langhorne, I—er, I believed that you yourself were one of his intended victims.”
“I, sir?” The president stared.
“Yes. I met this man in the Rochefoucauld grill one night, and he worked his usual game; told me of the loan he was attempting to negotiate and said Whitmarsh had turned it down because it wasn’t a big enough proposition for him. Du Chainat, as he called himself, showed me your letter, and as I had reason to distrust him I ventured to mention the matter to you, thinking that I might be of service in warning you of the whispers I had heard against him.”
“My letter?” Langhorne gripped the arms of his chair. “I never wrote a letter to the man in my life!”
“When you denied having heard of him,” Storm continued, unmoved by the other’s expostulation, “I naturally concluded that you resented my intrusion into your private affairs, and said nothing more. The man was exposed in the evening papers that very night, as I remember.”
“You saw a letter purporting to have been written by me?” the president demanded.
“I would have been willing to swear to your signature, Mr. Langhorne,” replied Storm.
“Forgery!” The clenched hand came down upon his desk. “That signature was forged! I’ll look into this when the fellow is caught. His effrontery is astounding! What was the gist of this letter, Storm?”
“An intimation that you would advance the loan,” he responded dully. There was no mistaking now the sincerity of the other’s indignation. “The letter was a forgery, of course, as you say, but it was a remarkably clever one. The signature was almost identical in every detail with yours.”