"I think he saw something," she answered. "Whether he knew that it was I whom he saw, I can't tell." Garratt Skinner sat for a little while smoking his cigar in short, angry puffs. "I wouldn't have had that happen for worlds," he said, with a frown. "I have no doubt whatever that the slips of paper on which poor Hine was trying to write were I.O.U's. Heaven knows what he lost last night." "I know," returned Sylvia. "He lost £480 last night." "Impossible," cried Garratt Skinner, with so much violence that the people lunching at the tables near-by looked up at the couple with surprise. "Oh, no! I'll not believe it, Sylvia." And as he lowered his voice, he seemed to be making an appeal to her to go back upon her words, so distressed was he at the thought that Wallie Hine should be jockeyed out of so much money at his house. "Four hundred and eighty pounds," Sylvia repeated. Garratt Skinner caught at a comforting thought. "Well, it's only in I.O.U's. That's one thing. I can stop the redemption of them. You see, he has been robbed--that's the plain English of it--robbed." "Mr. Hine was not writing an I.O.U. He was writing a check, and Mr. Parminter was guiding his hand as he wrote the signature." Garratt Skinner fell back in his chair. He looked about him with a dazed air, as though he expected the world falling to pieces around him. "Why, that's next door to forgery!" he whispered, in a voice of horror. "Guiding the hand of a man too drunk to write! I knew Archie Parminter was pretty bad, but I never thought that he would sink to that. I am not sure that he could not be laid by the heels for forgery." And then he recovered a little from the shock. "But you can't be sure, Sylvia! This is guesswork of yours--yes, guesswork." "It's not," she answered. "I told you that the floor was littered with slips of the paper on which Mr. Hine had been trying to write." "Yes." There came an indefinable change in Garratt Skinner's face. He leaned forward with his mouth sternly set and his eyes very still. One might almost have believed that for the first time during that luncheon he was really anxious, really troubled. "Well, this morning the carpet had been swept. The litter had gone. But just underneath the hearth-rug one of those crumpled slips of paper lay not quite hidden. I picked it up. It was a check." "Have you got it? Sylvia, have you got it?" and Garratt Skinner's voice in steady quietude matched his face. "Yes." Sylvia opened the little bag which she carried at her wrist and took out the slip of paper. She unfolded it and spread it on the table before her. The inside was pink. "A check for £480 on the London and County Bank, Victoria Street," she said.