Detective and mystery stories, English; Private investigators -- Fiction
The first bank was quite close to Liddle, Neal & Liddle's. There the
cashier who had dealt with Laker the day before remembered nothing in
particular about the interview. Many other walk-clerks had called
during the morning, as they did every morning, and the only
circumstances of the visit that he could say anything definite about
were those recorded in figures in the books. He did not know Laker's
name till Plummer had mentioned it in making inquiries on the previous
afternoon. As far as he could remember, Laker behaved much as usual,
though really he did not notice much; he looked chiefly at the bills. He
described Laker in a way that corresponded with the photograph that
Hewitt had borrowed from the bank; a young man with a brown moustache
and ordinary-looking, fairly regular face, dressing much as other clerks
dressed--tall hat, black cutaway coat, and so on. The numbers of the
notes handed over had already been given to Inspector Plummer, and these
Hewitt did not trouble about.
The next bank was in Cornhill, and here the cashier was a personal
friend of Laker's--at any rate, an acquaintance--and he remembered a
little more. Laker's manner had been quite as usual, he said; certainly
he did not seem preoccupied or excited in his manner. He spoke for a
moment or two--of being on the river on Sunday, and so on--and left in
his usual way.
"Can you remember _everything_ he said?" Hewitt asked. "If you can tell
me, I should like to know exactly what he did and said to the smallest
particular."
"Well, he saw me a little distance off--I was behind there, at one of
the desks--and raised his hand to me, and said, 'How d'ye do?' I came
across and took his bills, and dealt with them in the usual way. He had
a new umbrella lying on the counter--rather a handsome umbrella--and I
made a remark about the handle. He took it up to show me, and told me it
was a present he had just received from a friend. It was a gorse-root
handle, with two silver bands, one with his monogram C.W.L. I said it
was a very nice handle, and asked him whether it was fine in his
district on Sunday. He said he had been up the river, and it was very
fine there. And I think that was all."
"Thank you. Now about this umbrella. Did he carry it rolled? Can you
describe it in detail?"
"Well, I've told you about the handle, and the rest was much as usual, I
think; it wasn't rolled--just flapping loosely, you know. It was rather
an odd-shaped handle, though. I'll try and sketch it, if you like, as
well as I can remember." He did so, and Hewitt saw in the result rough
indications of a gnarled crook, with one silver band near the end, and
another, with the monogram, a few inches down the handle. Hewitt put the
sketch in his pocket, and bade the cashier good-day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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