s out at Riversbrook
expecting to get on the track of something that would show some one had
been trying to blackmail him over an entanglement with a woman, but I
found nothing. I couldn't even find any feminine correspondence. If Sir
Horace was in the habit of getting letters from ladies he was also in the
habit of destroying them. No doubt he adopted that precaution when his
wife was alive, and found it such a wise one that he kept it up when
there was less need for it. But a weakness for the ladies costs money,
Rolfe, as you know, and that is why I had a look at his banking account.
He made some payments that it would be worth while to trace--payments to
West End drapers and that sort of thing. Of course, Sir Horace, being a
cautious man and occupying a public position, might not care to flaunt
his weakness in the eyes of West End shopkeepers, and instead of paying
the accounts of his lady friend of the moment, may have given her the
money and trusted to her paying the bills--a thing that women of that
kind are never in a hurry to do. In that case the payments to West End
shopkeepers are for goods supplied to his daughter. However, I've taken a
note of the names, dates, and amounts of a number of them, and I want you
to see the managers of these shops."

"We are getting close to it now," said Rolfe, approvingly.

"I think so," was the modest reply of his superior. "There is one thing
about Sir Horace's account which struck me as peculiar. Every four weeks
for the past eight months Sir Horace drew a cheque for L24, and every
cheque of the kind was made payable to Number 365. Now, unless he wished
to hide the nature of the transaction from his bankers, why not put in
the cheque in the name of the person who received the money? It couldn't
have been for his personal use, for in that case he would have made the
cheques payable to self. Besides, a man with a banking account doesn't
draw a regular L24 every four weeks for personal expenses. He draws a
cheque just when he wants a few pounds, instead of carrying five-pound
notes about with him. I asked the bank manager about these cheques and he
looked up a couple of them and found they had been cashed over the
counter. So he called up the cashier and from him I learnt that Sir
Horace came in and cashed them. As far as he can remember Sir Horace
cashed all these L24 cheques. I assume he did so because he realised that
there was less likely to be comment in the bank than if a