"I did not hear him say anything, sir: he went out early, to catch the first train. But Mr. Cleveland is back." "Back!" echoed Mr. Howard, surprised into the interference. "Yes, sir, just now, and went out again as soon as he had dressed. He is gone to dine at the Army and Navy." "Then no elucidation can now take place until morning," observed Mr. Grubb, as the servant withdrew. "When he has gone out lately on these dining bouts he does not get home till late, sometimes not at all. But rely upon it, Howard, this matter will be cleared up satisfactorily, so far as he is concerned. Though what the mystery attending the cheque can be, I am not able to imagine." "I'm sure I am not, looking at it from your point of view," returned the elder man. "See here: you come down to Leadenhall Street on Saturday morning, and find you have left the cheque-book of the firm at home here. You send Charles Cleveland for it, telling him to take a cab and to make haste. After being away three or four times as long as he need be, he comes back with the cheque-book, having found it, he says, where you had told him it probably would be found--in the room where you breakfasted. He does not account for his delay, except by the excuse that he was doing an errand for himself, and begs pardon for it. Well and good. Today we find that a cheque has been abstracted from that same cheque-book, filled in for five hundred pounds, and was cashed by Cleveland himself; all during this same interval on Saturday morning when he declines to account for his time. What do you make of it?" Put thus plainly before him, Mr. Grubb did not know what to make of it, and his faith in Charles Cleveland began to waver. The most confiding mind cannot fight altogether against palpable facts. Mr. Howard opened his pocketbook, took the cheque in question from it, and laid it, open, before his senior partner. "This is not Cleveland's writing," remarked Mr. Grubb. "Of course not. It is an imitation of yours. That is, not his ordinary handwriting. He has done it pretty cleverly. Glyn's were deceived. Not but that I consider Glyn's clerk was incautious not to see the difference between 'self' and 'selves.' He says he did not notice the word at all: but he ought to have noticed it." "It is a singular affair altogether," observed Mr. Grubb, in a musing tone. "To begin with, my bringing home the cheque-book at all was singular. You were not in the City on Friday, you know, Howard, and----" "I couldn't come when I was ill," grunted out Mr. Howard.