“Don’t! You hurt! It was about some bills.”
“Some bills of yours which you had given to Mr. Lawrence?”
“No, it wasn’t then. Don’t! It was about some bills which he got me to—to fake.”
“I see. And might some of them have borne the name of Mr. Philip Lawrence?”
“Who told you? How do you know?”
“Never mind who told me. Answer!”
“It was all his fault! I should never have thought of such a thing if it hadn’t been for him; he egged me on. I—I owed him a few pounds, and he said if I were to fake up some bills, with his brother’s name on them, he’d let me off.”
“And put the forgeries on the market, dividing the proceeds of the fraud with you?”
“Nothing of the kind, I’ll take my oath to it; I swear I never had a penny. I never dreamt that he’d discount them, not for a moment! I thought it was a game he was going to play off on his brother—some sort of joke.”
“Keen sense of humour yours, Mr. Moore.”