He dropped into a chair, burying his face in his hands, and the utter despair in his voice tore at Ann’s heart. What had happened—what could have happened that Tony should seek to take his own life? Mechanically she stooped to replace the revolver in the opened drawer from which he had evidently taken it. A few loose cartridges still lay there, together with some torn scraps of paper and a blank cheque. Almost unconsciously her glance took in the contents of the drawer. Then suddenly it checked—concentrated. She caught her breath sharply and looked at Tony, a horrified, incredulous question in her eyes. But he was still sitting with his head buried in his hands, silent and motionless.
Very slowly, as though she approached her hand to something nauseous and abhorrent, Ann reached out and withdrew one of the torn sheets of paper and stared at it. It was covered with repeated copyings of a single name—sometimes the whole name, sometimes only one or other of the initial letters to it. And the name which some one was taking such pains to learn to write was that of her godfather, Philip Brabazon... Philip Brabazon... the sheet was covered with it, and some of the signatures were a very fair imitation of the old man’s handwriting.
Ann snatched up the blank cheque. It was one that had been torn from Sir Philip’s cheque-book. She could see that at a glance—remembered so clearly noticing the same heading on the cheque which he had given her towards her trousseau—the Watchester and Loamshire Bank. She held out to Tony the two pieces of paper—the sheet of scribbled signatures and the blank cheque.
“Tony,” she said, her voice cracking a little. “What—what are these?”
The tense, vibrating horror in her tones roused him. He looked up wearily. Then, as he saw what she held, a dull red flush mounted slowly to his face. For a moment he did not speak. When he did, his voice sounded dead—flat and toneless.
“Those,” he said, “are attempts on my part to forge my uncle’s signature.”
She stared at him speechlessly. Then, a sudden new fear shaking her, she went quickly to his side, thrusting the blank cheque under his eyes.
“Tony—you haven’t done it before?... This—this isn’t.... How many cheques of his have you had?”
“One,” he said. “That one”—nodding towards the narrow pink slip she held. Ann gave, a gasp of relief. “Yes,” he went on, “I found I couldn’t do it. The old man’s been decent to me, after all. He’d have hated the old name muddied by—by forgery.”
“And do you think he’d like it stained by suicide?” she demanded fiercely. “Oh, Tony, you coward! You coward!”