isclosing the steel door of a safe.
This he opened with a key which he selected from a bunch. From the
interior of the safe he removed a cedarwood box, also locked. He threw
back the lid and removed one by one three check books and a pair of
gloves of some thin, transparent fabric. These were obviously to guard
against tell-tale finger prints.

He carefully pulled them on and buttoned them. Next he detached three
checks, one from each book, and, taking a fountain pen from his pocket,
he began filling in the blank spaces. He wrote slowly, almost
laboriously, and he wrote without a copy. There are very few forgers in
the criminal records who have ever accomplished the feat of imitating a
man's signature from memory. Mr. Rex Holland was singularly exceptional
to all precedent, for from the date to the flourishing signature these
checks might have been written and signed by John Minute.

There were the same fantastic "E's," the same stiff-tailed "Y's." Even
John Minute might have been in doubt whether he wrote the "Eight hundred
and fifty" which appeared on one slip.

Mr. Holland surveyed his handiwork without emotion.

He waited for the ink to dry before he folded the checks and put them in
his pocket. This was John Minute's way, for the millionaire never used
blotting paper for some reason, probably not unconnected with an event
in his earlier career. When the checks were in his pocket, Mr. Holland
removed his gloves, replaced them with the check books in the box and in
the safe, locked the steel door, drew the sliding panel, and went to
bed.

Early the next morning he summoned his servant.

"Take the car back to town," he said. "I am going back by train. Meet me
at the Holland Park tube at two o'clock; I have a little job for you
which will earn you five hundred."

"That's my job, sir," said the dazed man when he recovered from the
shock.

Frank sometimes accompanied May to the East End, and on the day Mr. Rex
Holland returned to London he called for the girl at her flat to drive
her to Canning Town.

"You can come in and have some tea," she invited.

"You're a luxurious beggar, May," he said, glancing round approvingly at
the prettily furnished sitting room. "Contrast this with my humble abode
in Bayswater."

"I don't know your humble abode in Bayswater," she laughed. "But why on
earth you should elect to live at Bayswater I can't imagine."

He sipped his tea with a twinkle in his eye.

"Guess what in