“Just a moment,” he muttered, and rose from his chair. Wendover could see that the man’s knees were trembling. Ernest walked across to the door, opened it gently, and peered out with a caution which had in it a touch of the ludicrous. “Nobody there,” he explained, as he came back again. “You never know.” “What’s behind this, Mr. Shandon?” Sir Clinton demanded, impatiently. “If you’ve any information, it’s your duty to give it to me at once. Have you anything to tell me about Mr. Stenness?” Ernest made a gesture, appealing piteously for a lowering of Sir Clinton’s voice. “You remember,” he continued, almost in a whisper, “that the other night—I mean last night, the night of the burglary—I was going through Roger’s papers. I think I told you before that I was doing that, didn’t I? And amongst his papers I came across his cheque-books and some stubs. I was looking through these, just to see what things he’d been spending money on—the firms he’d been dealing with, and so forth, you understand? And quite by accident, I noticed something funny. The counterfoil of the last missing cheque had been cut out of the book. I’d never have noticed it if it hadn’t been that I was looking at the numbers. It was cut away very carefully, very neatly indeed, you know. But there was the counterfoil for the cheque before it numbered something like 60072 and the next one in the book was numbered 60074 or some figures like these. There was a missing number in the series. And there was another funny thing. I happened to look at the last bundle of returned cheques in Roger’s drawer. He hadn’t destroyed them, it seems, for some reason or other. I can’t think why, myself. But there they were. And one of them was missing from the series.” “There’s nothing mysterious in that,” Wendover objected. “It may have been a cheque that went abroad, and hasn’t been returned to the bank yet. Your brother had interests overseas.” Ernest’s dull eyes brightened slightly in triumph. “That’s where you’re wrong, Wendover. That’s a mistake. I was curious about the thing, it seemed to me so funny. So I looked up the counterfoil of that missing cheque in Roger’s stub; and it was a cheque for some hundreds and it was made payable to his stockbrokers. That seemed funnier than ever, didn’t it? A cheque like that would go right back to the bank with no delay. It would be paid in immediately, I’m sure it would. Wouldn’t it? Of course, sure to be, you know?” Sir Clinton had been following this with keen interest. “And where does Mr. Stenness come in?” he asked. Ernest looked round the room again as though he feared that Stenness might be concealed somewhere. “Well,” he said, reluctantly, “Stenness had access to Roger’s papers. He could have got at this cheque-book, I’m sure. Roger was a bit careless, sometimes. I’ve seen his cheque-book lying about on the table often. I remember I saw it last Tuesday, was it? Or was it Wednesday? It was in the morning, I know that.”