ment. And now it seemed not
improbable that this same man was one of those concerned in the fraud.

Hunt applied himself once again to a study of the blocks, and then he
made a third discovery, which, though he could not at first see its
drift, struck him nevertheless as being of importance. He found that the
faked block was always one of a pair. Within a few pages either in front
of or behind it was another block containing particulars of a similar
consignment, identical, in fact, except that the brandy item was
missing.

Hunt was puzzled. That he was on the track of the fraud he could not but
believe, but he could form no idea as to how it was worked. If he were
right so far, the blocks had been made out in facsimile in the first
instance, and later the brandy item had been added to one of each pair.
Why? He could not guess.

He continued his examination, and soon another INTERESTING fact became
apparent. Though consignments left the works at all hours of the day,
those referred to by the first one of each between the hours of four and
five. Further, the number of minutes past one and past four were always
identical on each pair. That showed the brandy item was nearly always
the later of the two, but occasionally the stuff had gone with the one
o'clock trip.

Hunt sat in the small office, of which he had been given undisturbed
possession, pondering over his problem and trying to marshal the facts
that he had learned in such a way as to extract their inner meaning. As
far as he could follow them they seemed to show that three times each
day driver Charles Fox took a lorry of various liquors into Hull.
The first trip was irregular, that is, he left at anything between
seven-thirty and ten-thirty a.m., and his objective extended over the
entire city. The remaining two trips were regular. Of these the first
always left between one and two and the second the same number of
minutes past four; both were invariably to the same one of the five
large tied houses already mentioned; the load of each was always
identical except that one--generally the second--had some kegs of brandy
additional, and, lastly, the note of this extra brandy appeared always
to have been added to the certificate after the latter had been made
out.

Hunt could make nothing of it. In the evening he described his
discoveries to Willis, and the two men discussed the affair
exhaustively, though still without result.

That night Hunt could not sleep.