CHAPTER XXVIII
the hotel ravenna
Once closeted together in the private room at Halfpenny and Farthing’s office, Mr. Halfpenny, who had seemed somewhat mystified by the happenings at the bank, looked inquiringly at Professor Cox-Raythwaite and snapped out one suggestive monosyllable:
“Well?”
“Very well indeed,” answered Cox-Raythwaite. “I consider we have done good work. We have found things out. That bank manager is a pompous ass; he’s a man of asinine, or possible bovine, mind! Of course, he ought to have revealed these things at both the inquest and the magisterial proceedings!—they’ll certainly have to be put in evidence at Barthorpe Herapath’s trial.”
“What things?” demanded the old lawyer, a little testily.
“Two things—facts,” replied the Professor, composedly. “First, that Jacob Herapath drew five thousand pounds in hundred pound notes at three o’clock on the day of his death. Second, that at some hour of that day he drew a cheque in favour of one Luigi Dimambro, which cheque was cashed as soon as the bank opened next morning.”
“Frankly,” observed Mr. Halfpenny, “frankly, candidly, Cox-Raythwaite, I do not see what these things—facts—prove.”
“Very likely,” said the Professor, imperturbable as ever, “but they’re remarkably suggestive to me. They establish for one thing the fact that, in all probability, Jacob Herapath had those notes on him when he was murdered.”
“Don’t see it,” retorted Mr. Halfpenny. “He got the fifty one-hundred-pound notes from the bank at three o’clock in the afternoon. He’s supposed to have been murdered at twelve—midnight. That’s nine hours. Plenty of time in which to pay those notes away—as he most likely did.”