The “note” proved to be simply an envelope, directed in Doctor Grantley’s characteristic hand, and containing a number of small fragments of torn paper.
The detective had pieced together only a few of the bits when he gave an exclamation of amazement.
Grantley had sent him Baldwin’s check for the quarter of a million dollars, torn into pieces!
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHAT DID IT MEAN?
What in the world did it mean?
This new development was certainly startling in the extreme, and even more incomprehensible in its way, if that were possible, than the appalling crime itself.
It was unnecessary for Nick to piece the check together in its entirety in order to be fairly certain that it had not been cashed. Any one with the slightest knowledge of banking methods would have understood at a glance that the check had either never been deposited, or else that it had been stolen afterward. There is no legitimate way in which a payer’s check can fall into the hands of the payee after the money has been paid, except when payer and payee are one and the same.
Moreover, in the ordinary course, supposing Grantley had cashed or deposited the check at once, it would not even have returned to Baldwin in such a short time.
To make absolutely sure that it had not been stolen from the bank after being deposited, Nick arranged all of the fragments, not because he believed it necessary, but for the purpose of eliminating any such possibility at once.
As he had anticipated, the back of the check bore neither indorsement nor bank stamp of any sort.