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Playbourne at once exhibited to his visitors. "There you are, gentlemen," he said. "Quite a curiosity! certainly the last cheque ever drawn by our poor friend. There, you see, is his well-known signature with his secret little mark which you wouldn't detect secret between him and us, eh! big, bold handwriting, wasn't it? Sad to think that that was very likely the last time he used a pen!"
And he suddenly thrust out his arm and put the tip of a big yellow finger on one particular entry. "There!" he exclaimed. "Look at that. 'Self, £5,000. Paid out, you see, on November 12th. Do you see?" Mr. Playbourne laughed cynically. "My dear sir!" he said. "Do you mean to say that you attach any importance to an entry like that?
Professor Cox-Raythwaite, who appeared to have fallen into a brown study for a moment, suddenly looked up. "Now I wonder if we might be permitted to see that cheque as a curiosity?" he said. "Can we be favoured so far?" "Oh, certainly, certainly," answered Mr. Playbourne. "No trouble. I'll ah, here's your information about the other cheque the self cheque for five thousand."
"There's an entry there the last," observed Mr. Halfpenny. "That. 'Dimambro: three thousand guineas. That's the same date." Mr. Playbourne suddenly showed some interest and animation. His eyes brightened; he sat up erect. "Ah!" he said. "Well, now, that is somewhat remarkable, that entry! though of course there's nothing out of the common in it.
But you don't know what our opinion might be. Now, I suggest that we all go at once to see this Mr. Playbourne; there's ample time before the bank closes for the day." "Very well," assented Mr. Halfpenny. "All the same, I'm afraid Playbourne will only say just what he said before." Mr.
Playbourne, the manager of their West End branch, in Piccadilly. He assured me that there was nothing whatever out of the common in Jacob Herapath's transactions with them just before his death, and nothing at all in their particulars of his banking account which could throw any possible light on his murder." "In his opinion," said the Professor, caustically, "in his opinion, Halfpenny!
Playbourne, a good typical specimen of the somewhat old-fashioned bank manager, receiving this formidable deputation of four gentlemen in his private room, said precisely what he had said before, and seemed astonished to think that any light upon such an unpleasant thing as a murder could possibly be derived from so highly respectable a quarter as that in which he moved during the greater part of the day.
You can't have a better index to his affairs with us than you'll find in it. Sellars," he went on, as a clerk appeared, "bring me the late Mr. Herapath's pass-book Mr. Ravensdale has it." The visitors presently gathered round the desk on which Mr. Playbourne laid the parchment-bound book one of a corresponding thickness with the dead man's transactions.
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