'Don't be a fool, Checkley. Keep your wits together, though this is a new kind of case for you. Criminal law is not exactly in your line. Do you think I should dictate my own handwriting as well as my own words?'
'No. But I could swear—I could indeed—that it is your writing.'
'Let us have no more questions and answers. It is a forgery. It is a forgery. It is not a common forgery. It has been committed in my own office. Who can have done it? Let me think'—he placed the cheque and the old cheque book before him. 'This book has been in my safe for two years. I had forgotten its very existence. The safe is only used for my private papers. I open it every morning myself at ten o'clock. I shut it when I go up-stairs to lunch. I open it again when I return. I close it when I go away. I have not departed from this custom for thirty years. I could no more sit in this room with the safe shut—I could no more go away with the safe open—than I could walk the streets in my shirt sleeves. Therefore, not only has the forgery been committed by some one who has had access to my safe, but by some one who has stolen the cheque in my very presence and before my eyes. This consideration should narrow the field.' He looked at the cheque again. 'It is dated March the 4th. The date may mean nothing. But it was presented on the 5th. Who came to my room on the 4th or the days preceding? Go and find out.'
Checkley retired and brought back his journal.
'You saw on the 4th——' He read the list of callers.
'That doesn't help,' said Mr. Dering.
'On the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th you had Mr. Arundel working with you here every day from ten till twelve.'
'Mr. Arundel. Yes, I remember. Anybody else?'
'Nobody else.'
'You forget yourself, Checkley,' Mr. Dering said. 'You were, as usual, in and out at different times.'