“You have forged my father's name to a cheque for £3,000,” said Sylvester.
“Can I see it?”
Sylvester drew the cheque from his pocketbook and held it up for the other's inspection.
“I perceive the bankers have honoured it,” said Roderick. “Mr. Lanyon will not repudiate it.”
“He will not have the chance. I repudiate it. He is lying unconscious,—perhaps at the point of death. By God! if he dies you will have killed him.”
“You are talking rank folly,” said Roderick, leaning against the jamb of the window, his hands in his dressing-gown pockets. “Mr. Lanyon as my solicitor sold out certain of my investments and sent me a cheque for the total amount.”
“A cheque to which there is no counterfoil, taken from a cheque-book in use three years ago?”
Sylvester laughed harshly and buttoned his overcoat, which he had opened so as to get at the cheque. Roderick grew white and passed his hand across his forehead. There was a moment's silence.
“As a matter of elementary justice,” said Sylvester, “I came here first for your explanation. As you can give none, I will now put the matter in the hands of the police, and in an hour or two there will be a warrant out for your arrest.”
He moved towards the door. Roderick staggered away from the window and drew his hand hard across his face in a gesture of utter weariness. The strain of the past week had been too much. Always thriftless and reckless in money matters, he had hitherto stopped short of unredeemed rascality. The burden of a crime had crushed his self-assurance.