'Yes—I can see her,' he repeated.—'George'—he returned to the old subject—'do you know the exact particulars of that robbery?'
'There was a forged cheque, and the Bank paid it across the counter.'
'The cheque,' Athelstan explained, 'was made payable to the order of a certain unknown person named Edmund Gray. It was endorsed by that name. To prove that forgery, they should have got the cheque and examined the endorsement. That was the first thing, certainly. I wonder how they began.'
'I do not know. It was while I was in my articles, and all we heard was a vague report. You ought not to have gone away. You should have stayed to fight it out.'
'I was right to give up my berth after what the chief said. How could I remain drawing his pay and doing his work, when he had calmly given me to understand that the forgery lay between two hands, and that he strongly suspected mine?'
'Did Mr. Dering really say so? Did he go so far as that?'
'So I walked out of the place. I should have stayed at home and waited for the clearing up of the thing, but for my own people—who—well—you know—— So I went away in a rage.'
'And have you come back—as you went—in a rage?'
'Well—you see, that is the kind of fire that keeps alight of its own accord.'
'I believe that some sort of a search was made for this Edmund Gray; but I do not know how long it lasted or who was employed.'