'I have always kept it,' Mr. Dering replied, 'on the chance of using it to prove the crime and convict the criminal. You will find it, Checkley, in the right-hand drawer of the safe. Thank you. Here it is. "Pay to the order of Edmund Gray;" and here is his endorsement. So we have his handwriting at any rate.'
George took it. 'Strange,' he said. 'I should without any hesitation swear to your handwriting here as well. And look—the signature to the cheque is exactly the same as that of these letters. The two dots missing after the name, and the flourish after the last "n" curtailed.'
It was so. The handwriting of the cheque and of the letters was the same: the signatures were slightly, but systematically, altered in exactly the same way in both letters and cheque.
'This again,' said George, 'can hardly be coincidence. It seems to me that the man who wrote that cheque also wrote those letters.'
The endorsement was in a hand which might also be taken for Mr. Dering's own. Nothing to be got out of the endorsement.
'But about the transfer papers,' said George. 'They would have to be witnessed as well as signed.'
'They were witnessed,' said the broker, 'by a clerk named Lorry.'
'Yes, we have such a man in our office.—Checkley, send for Lorry.'
Lorry was a clerk employed in Mr. Dering's outer office. Being interrogated, he said that he had no recollection of witnessing a signature for a transfer paper. He had witnessed many signatures, but was not informed what the papers were. Asked if he remembered especially witnessing any signature in February, March, or April, he replied that he could not remember any, but that he had witnessed a great many signatures: that sometimes Mr. Dering wanted him to witness his own signature, sometimes those of clients. If he were shown his signature he might remember. Lorry, therefore, was allowed to depart to his own place.
'There can be no longer any doubt,' said George, 'that an attempt has been made at a robbery on a very large scale.'