“Happened, sir. Those bank-notes. When I took them to the bank this morning the manager called me into his room and questioned me very closely. They’re forgeries!”
“Forged notes!” I gasped, staring at him.
“Yes, sir. The manager told me that all banks here and abroad had been warned about six months ago that a quantity of spurious five and fifty-pound Bank of England notes were in circulation. They’ve been printed in Argentina. The police made a raid on the factory, seized the printing press and plates and six men were arrested. All of them have been sent to prison for long terms, but at the trial it came out that they were in league with certain confederates in Paris, Madrid and London who were engaged in circulating them—mostly the five-pound ones.”
“And what did you say?” I asked.
“Well, sir, I told the whole story. The manager took the notes, and I believe he’s sent them to the Bank of England.”
“Then the police will start inquiries!” I cried, dismayed, for the situation was becoming daily more complicated.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I understood from the manager that they will!”
CHAPTER XI
LOVE VS. HONOR
Here was a new and extraordinary complication.
Why was Stanley Audley, alias Philip Graydon, in possession of forged notes from the notorious factory in South America? Why had he attempted to destroy one of them, while leaving the others in a drawer?