When the police searched the flat they found only one thing which helped them in their investigations. The hall porter said that, as often as not, the flat was untenanted, and only occasionally, when he was off duty, had Mr. Holland put in an appearance, and he only knew this from statements which had been made by other tenants.
“It comes to this,” said John Minute grimly; “that nobody has seen Mr. Holland but you, Frank.”
Frank stiffened.
“I am not suggesting that you are in the swindle,” said Minute gruffly. “As likely as not, the man you saw was not Mr. Holland, and it is probably the work of a gang, but I am going to find out who this man is, if I have to spend twice as much as I have lost.”
The police were not encouraging.
Detective Inspector Nash, from Scotland Yard, who had handled some of the biggest cases of bank swindles, held out no hope of the money being recovered.
“In theory you can get back the notes if you have their numbers,” he said, “but in practice it is almost impossible to recover them, because it is quite easy to change even notes for five hundred pounds, and probably you will find these in circulation in a week or two.”
His speculation proved to be correct, for on the third day after the crime three of the missing notes made a curious appearance.
“Ready-Money Minute,” true to his nickname, was in the habit of balancing his accounts as between bank and bank by cash payments. He had made it a practice for all his dividends to be paid in actual cash, and these were sent to the Piccadilly branch of the London and Western Counties Bank in bulk. After a payment of a very large sum on account of certain dividends accruing from his South African investments, three of the missing notes were discovered in the bank itself.
John Minute, apprised by telegram of the fact, said nothing; for the money had been paid in by his confidential secretary, Jasper Cole, and there was excellent reason why he did not desire to emphasize the fact.
VIII
Sergeant Smith Calls
The big library of Weald Lodge was brilliantly lighted and nobody had pulled down the blinds. So that it was possible for any man who troubled to jump the low stone wall which ran by the road and push a way through the damp shrubbery to see all that was happening in the room.
Weald Lodge stands between Eastbourne and Wilmington, and in the winter months the curious, represented by youthful holiday makers, are few and far between. Constable Wiseman, of the Eastbourne constabulary, certainly was not curious. He paced his slow, moist way and merely noted, in passing, the fact that the flood of light reflected on the little patch of lawn at the side of the house.
The hour was nine o’clock on a June evening, and officially it was only the hour of sunset, though lowering rain clouds had so darkened the world that night had closed down upon the weald, had blotted out its pleasant villages and had hidden the green downs.
He continued to the end of his beat and met his impatient superior.
“Everything’s all right, sergeant,” he reported; “only old Minute’s lights are blazing away and his windows are open.”
“Better go and warn him,” said the sergeant, pulling his bicycle into position for mounting.
He had his foot on the treadle, but hesitated.
“I’d warn him myself, but I don’t think he’d be glad to see me.”
He grinned to himself, then remarked: “Something queer about Minute—eh?”
“There is, indeed,” agreed Constable Wiseman heartily. His beat was a lonely one, and he was a very bored man. If by agreement with his officer he could induce that loquacious gentleman to talk for a quarter of an hour, so much dull time might be passed. The fact that Sergeant Smith was loquacious indicated, too, that he had been drinking and was ready to quarrel with anybody.
“Come under the shelter of that wall,” said the sergeant, and pushed his machine to the protection afforded by the side wall of a house.
It is possible that the sergeant was anxious to impress upon his subordinate’s mind a point of view which might be useful to himself one day.
“Minute is a dangerous old man,” he said.
“Don’t I know it?” said Constable Wiseman, with the recollection of sundry “reportings” and inquiries.
“You’ve got to remember that, Wiseman,” the sergeant went on; “and by ‘dangerous’ I mean that he’s the sort of old fellow that would ask a constable to come in to have a drink and then report him.”
“Good Lord!” said the shocked Mr. Wiseman at this revelation of the blackest treachery.
Sergeant Smith nodded.
“That’s the sort of man he is,” he said. “I knew him years ago—at least, I’ve seen him. I was in Matabeleland with him, and I tell you there’s nothing too mean for ‘Ready-Money Minute’—curse him!”
“I’ll bet you have had a terrible life, sergeant,” encouraged Constable Wiseman.
The other laughed bitterly.
“I have,” he said.
Sergeant Smith’s acquaintance with Eastbourne was a short one. He had only been four years in the town, and had, so rumor ran, owed his promotion to influence. What that influence was none could say. It had been suggested that John Minute himself had secured him his sergeant’s stripes, but that was a theory which was pooh-poohed by people who knew that the sergeant had little that was good to say of his supposed patron.
Constable Wiseman, a profound thinker and a secret reader of sensational detective stories, had at one time made a report against John Minute for some technical offense, and had made it in fear and trembling, expecting his sergeant promptly to squash this
