“A chilly evening, Inspector,” he said pleasantly. “Won’t you sit down?”
French thanked him, and after apologising for the hour of his call, went on:
“My visit, sir, is in connection with certain banknotes which I am trying to trace. Some time ago there was a robbery in the City in which a number of Bank of England notes were stolen. The owner fortunately was able to find out their numbers from his bank. When the matter was reported to us, we naturally asked the banks generally to keep a lookout for them. Nothing was heard of them until today, but this afternoon, just before closing time, two of them were paid into the Reading Branch of the City of London Bank. The teller, though not certain, believed that you had paid them in. You can see, therefore, the object of my call. It is to ask you if you can possibly help me to trace the thief by telling me where you received the notes. There were two, both for ten pounds, and the numbers were A/V 173258 W and N/L 386427 P.”
Colonel FitzGeorge looked interested.
“I certainly called at the bank this afternoon and lodged some money,” he answered. “It was mostly in the form of dividend warrants, but there were a few notes. Now where did I get those? I should be able to tell you offhand, but I’m not at all sure that I can. Let me think, please.”
For some moments silence reigned in the luxuriously-furnished room. French, always suspicious, surreptitiously watched his new acquaintance, but he had to admit that he could discern none of the customary signs of guilt. But he reminded himself that you never knew, and determined that unless he was completely satisfied by the coming reply, he would make an investigation into Colonel FitzGeorge’s movements on the night of the murder.
“I believe,” said the Colonel suddenly, “I know where I got those notes. I am not by any means certain, but I think I can tell you. Unless I am very much mistaken, it was from the manager of the Hotel Beau-Sejour in Chamonix.”
“Chamonix?” French repeated in surprise. This was by no means what he had expected to hear.
“Yes. I have been for the last six weeks in Switzerland and Savoy, and two days ago, on last Tuesday afternoon, to be exact, I left Chamonix. I caught the night train from Geneva, was in Paris next morning, and reached Charing Cross yesterday, Wednesday, afternoon. Today I went through my correspondence, and after lunch took in my dividends and some spare cash to lodge in the bank.”
“And the two ten-pound notes, sir?”
“The two ten-pound notes, as I say, I believe I received at the Chamonix hotel. I found I had to return home sooner than I had intended, and as I was leaving the country I wanted to change back all but a small amount of my foreign money. It was convenient to do it at the hotel, and besides, you can’t always be sure of getting enough change at Calais or on the boat. I asked the manager of the Beau-Sejour to give me English money for my francs, and he did so at once.”
“Why do you think these particular notes were handed over by him?”
“He paid me in ten-pound notes only. He gave me five of them—I changed fifty pounds’ worth of francs altogether. It is true that I had some other English notes, and there were some at home here, but so far as I can remember, there were no tens among them—only fives and Treasury notes.”
With this, French had to be content. Though he asked many other questions he could learn nothing further to help him. But on the pretext that the notes might have been received at some other place, he obtained a note of the Colonel’s itinerary while abroad. According to this, it appeared that on the night of Charles Gething’s murder, the traveller had slept in the Bellevue Hotel at Kandersteg, prior to walking over the Gemmi Pass on the following day. This French noted as a point capable of being checked, should checking become desirable.
He had kept his taxi, and after a little trouble he found the address of the teller of the City of London Bank, and paid him a late call. But from him he learnt nothing new, except that the man seemed much more certain that Colonel FitzGeorge had really handed in the notes than the letter of his manager had led French to believe. He admitted that he was relying on memory alone, but said he had checked over his money just before the Colonel’s visit, and he was positive the stolen notes were not then there.
Inspector French was in a distinctly pessimistic frame of mind as he sat in the corner of a smoking compartment of the last train from Reading to town, and next morning as he put the facts he had learnt before his chief, he was but slightly more sanguine. Two of the stolen notes had been discovered; that was really all that could be stated with certainty. That Colonel FitzGeorge had paid them into the bank was by no means sure, still less that he really had received them from a hotel manager in Chamonix. But even assuming the Colonel’s recollection was accurate, it did not greatly help. It was unlikely that the manager could state from whom he in his turn had received those particular notes. Indeed, even were he able to do so, and by some miracle were French able to trace the giver, in all probability the latter also would turn out to be innocent, and the goal would be no nearer. The whole episode seemed to French, as he expressed it to his chief, a washout.
But the great man took a different view. He replied
