“Alas! it is only too true. The bank has lost nearly three thousand pounds.”
Then Mrs. Beverley, having explained how her late guest had left for Paris that morning, refused to believe that she could be guilty of any such fraud.
Here Geoffrey interrupted, and related how he had unconsciously endeavoured to pass a forged note at Tours, and he recalled to her mind the incident at the jewellers in Dinard. Both those circumstances pointed to the fact that the woman had taken from the purses of both Geoffrey and her hostess real notes, substituting false ones, with the idea of watching whether they would be passed or not.
“I would like a word with the police,” Geoffrey added, and with the bank manager he left the ladies to recover from their sudden shock.
In the library he saw the detective-inspector, and briefly related the mysterious messages received by Mr. Mildmay, and the circumstance of the electric motor and the locked room.
Within half an hour a priority telegram had been sent by wireless by Scotland Yard to the commissary of police at the Gare du Nord, in Paris, to arrest madame on her arrival, while a visit to Mr. Mildmay’s chambers revealed in the locked room a perfect plant for the reproduction of French and Spanish bank notes of various denominations, the most scientific and complete ever found in the possession of bank-note forgers.
Two hours later, when Mildmay returned, he found himself suddenly in the hands of the police, and both he and madame—who was not a widow at all, but his wife who had been distributing forged French and Spanish notes all over Europe, and reaping a rich harvest—later on received exemplary sentences at the Old Bailey.