“Now I want you to sit down here and write me out a check for forty-five thousand dollars. To-day is the seventeenth, and I want you to date your check the twenty-seventh. That gives me ten days, and if at the end of that time Winthrop Crawford is still troubling you, all you have to do is to go to your bank and stop payment on your check. Is that fair?”
CHAPTER X.
THE RAISED CHECK.
“I couldn’t ask anything more than that,” Stone admitted.
He felt sure now that Follansbee would do all he wished, despite the fact that he had been able to pin him down. He assumed that that was merely the doctor’s caution and cleverness, and the offer to allow him to date the check ahead came with an unexpected sense of relief.
To be sure, Follansbee had put it with his customary vagueness. He had not said, “if at the end of that time, Crawford is still alive,” but only “if he’s still troubling you.”
That might mean any one of a number of things, but, as was his way, Stone interpreted it as best suited him. He drew a check book from his pocket, and, pulling a chair forward, seated himself at the desk. His head was bent, and he could not see Follansbee’s face. Had he been able to do so, he might have been struck by the curious look that was now in the little eyes.
When Stone had filled in the check, all except the signature, he found that the ink on the point had given out, and he stretched out his hand to dip the pen into the inkwell again. At the same moment Follansbee also reached out, apparently to push the well nearer to his visitor. Between them, in some manner the well was upset, and a small quantity of the black fluid it contained made a round patch on the top of the desk.
“Never mind!” Follansbee hastened to say, in answer to Stone’s regretful exclamation. “It doesn’t matter. Let it be. You can finish with this.” As he spoke, he took another ink bottle from the back of the desk, removed the cork, and placed it within easy reach.
Stone mechanically dipped the pen into the new receptacle and scrawled his signature at the bottom of the check, after which he handed the slip of paper to Follansbee.