Walker replied in his leisurely drawl:
“He’s the most dangerous bank swindler you ever saw.”
The girl had been questioned, and the thing was now clear. Walker explained it all on the way to Bartoldi’s in a taxicab. I had my diamond in my pocket, and Walker had Bartoldi’s to exchange for the forged draft. The old man was Vronsky, the most notorious forger in the world. He had bribed this girl, the janitress of the Empire Bank at Bar Harbor, to steal a book of blank drafts and some sheets of stationery. It was easy to do; the book of blanks was lying on the bookkeeper’s desk in the package as it had come from the printer, and the stationery had never been locked up.
With the blanks bearing the secret water mark of the bank, Vronsky was able to forge drafts on New York and place them, establishing his identity by a letter from the bank officials on this stationery, in which they said they were sending him the draft which he intended to pay out, and giving its amount and number.
“It was a clever scheme,” Walker added. “The secret water mark on the draft blanks would show that they were genuine—that’s what convinced Bartoldi; and the forged letter would show the identity of the man who undertook to place it. The forgery gave Vronsky no trouble; the problem was how to get the blanks and letter paper.”
“And he got them with a diamond,” I said.
Walker’s drawl lengthened.
“Precisely as we got him.”
And so this adventure opened with a diamond and closed with the arrest of one of the worst criminals in the world. What was it I wrote in the opening paragraph of this case? Go back and read it.