'Say a miracle at once, my dear mother. It is just as likely to happen.'
The first to arrive at the office in the afternoon was Elsie herself, carrying a handbag.
'You were going to bring your brother, Elsie,' said Mr. Dering. 'Where is he? And what is your important business with me? I suppose it is something about this wretched forgery, which really seems destined to finish me off. I have heard of nothing else—I think of nothing else—ever since it happened.'
'First, has anything new been discovered?'
'I hardly know,' Mr. Dering replied wearily. 'They seem to have found the man Edmund Gray; but Checkley has suddenly cooled. Formerly, he clamoured perpetually that we must lose no time in getting a warrant for his arrest; he now wants to put it off and put it off. He was going on very strangely this morning. My dear, I sometimes think that my old clerk is off his head.'
'And you yourself—have you had any return of your forgetfulness?'
'Worse—worse.—Every day, worse. I now know when to look for a return of these fits. Every morning I ask myself what I did the day before. Always there are the same hours of forgetfulness—the morning and the evening. Last night, where was I? Perhaps somebody will find out for me—for I cannot remember.'
'Shall I find out for you, Mr. Dering? If I were to tell you where you spent the evening yesterday, would you—would you?——'
'What? How can you find out?'