Sir Clinton seemed for a moment to lose interest in his narrative. He sat for a time in silence, eyeing the secretary as though he hoped to surprise something. But Stenness showed no sign of either guilt or confusion.
“I congratulate you on your nerves, Stenness,” Sir Clinton began once more. “Now that’s an hypothesis which I should not be very loath to adopt as an explanation of this affair of the cheques. It seems to me to cover the ground neatly. In fact, I’m quite convinced that it’s a good hypothesis so far as it goes. But some people might be prepared to carry it a stage further. I’ll just sketch out what they would say.”
At this point Stenness seemed to find some interest in the matter. He sat up and looked across at the Chief Constable.
“Please go on,” he requested.
“We have assumed that Richard Roe is an acute person. Now an alert mind might quite conceivably see a further step which would bring him on to safer ground. If things took their course, the forgery would be spotted in a very short time. One can’t take thousands out of a man’s account without raising inquiry. So, normally, the reasonable thing to do would be to bolt and chance getting out of the country with the cash. That’s what would occur to most people at once. But there’s another way of making sure of things.”
Sir Clinton’s voice took on a graver tone.
“Let us suppose that immediately the cheque has been cashed, the employer happens to die. What evidence of forgery is left then? None whatever, if the tracing of the signature has been decently executed. The supposed writer is dead; and no one else can deny his signature. And the cheque, we assume, has been cashed before the death takes place. On that basis, there would be no need for any flight on the part of the forger. He would simply have to sit tight and behave normally.”
Sir Clinton surprised a fresh look on Stenness’s face. It was only a fleeting change; but it was quite unmistakable. But the secretary remained obstinately mute and waited for the rest of the argument.
“That’s assuming a natural death of the employer. But such coincidences are rather rare. An acute mind would not count on a chance like that. However, rare as such coincidences may be, they are not beyond possibility, if a human agent should happen to take a hand in the business. Suppose that the acute Richard Roe perceived this, and decided that it was worth his while to produce that coincidence by murdering his employer. …”
Sir Clinton swung round in his chair, surprised by the opening of the door. Ardsley stood on the threshold, and a glance at his face showed that something serious had happened.
“It’s all up, Sir Clinton. They can pull down the blinds.”
“Miss Hawkhurst?” was all Sir Clinton could say.
Ardsley made a gesture of despair.
“Some things are beyond us,” he said despondently.
XV
The Secretary’s Affairs
Sir Clinton received Ardsley’s news almost as if he had feared that the end was inevitable. He made no attempt to express his feelings, however.
“I think you’d better let the others know,” he suggested.
Ardsley agreed, with a faint grimace of reluctance for the task, and left the room.
Stenness had listened to the interchange between the two with an air of a man trying to persuade himself that he is in a dream and that by a violent effort he may be able to shake off his nightmare. At last he seemed to master his feelings.
“It’s all over, is it?” he asked in a choked voice, as though hoping even at the last moment to be reassured by good news.
“It’s all over,” Sir Clinton admitted, gravely.
Stenness seemed to pull himself together.
“Then in that case,” he said, “there seems to be no reason why I shouldn’t make a clean breast of things. Nothing matters much, now; and you may as well get the true story. It’ll make no difference to me.”
Sir Clinton made a vague gesture of assent, but refrained from speaking. After a moment or two, Stenness began.
“This is how it happened. Not so long ago, I was a cub with no near relations to look after me and keep me straight. I’m not whining; I’m simply explaining. I had a few thousands of capital; and naturally a good deal of it got frittered away. I learned something about the world in the process, so perhaps it wasn’t a total loss.”
Sir Clinton noticed that even at this stage Stenness retained his conciseness and stuck to the main facts. The secretary was sparing him useless details; and, as he had said, he was not whining over his losses.
“When I had been at it for a year or two, I had run myself down to a little over five thousand pounds. That’s a good enough nest-egg. But I hadn’t the sense to see it in that light. I wanted a good deal more than three or four hundred a year. So I looked about for some way of increasing my capital.”
A faintly contemptuous expression crossed his face.
“I must have been a very green hand in those days. I had a sort
