“There is. Do you want it?”
Sir Clinton seemed to disregard the question.
“Would it surprise you, Stenness, if you learned that one of these cheques has been abstracted and that it can’t be found? The bank returned it in due course for all that.”
Stenness gazed stonily at his interlocutor.
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
Sir Clinton paused for a moment before continuing. When he spoke again it was in a different vein.
“These are all plain facts. Now we come to hypothesis; and of course the ground’s not quite so firm. I think, if you don’t mind, we might put it in the form of one of these John Doe and Richard Roe cases, lest you should think . . .”
He left the sentence incomplete.
“Now,” he began briskly, “let’s suppose that John Doe is a rich man who has made his money in rather peculiar ways—like the late Roger Shandon, for example. He employs a secretary. I think one may reasonably suppose that a secretary in that case would need to be somebody who could shut his eyes when necessary, and who wouldn’t be apt to judge things too rigidly. In fact, Stenness, he would need to be a fairly unscrupulous fellow himself.”
Stenness nodded indifferently.