“He asked you to cash a cheque; you consented, and lent him your pen. He took a cheque book from his pocket, and wrote or pretended to write out a cheque for ten pounds. He never gave you that cheque; by a sleight of hand, simple enough, he gave you the genuine cheque, and you cashed it.” “But why,” said the manager, “did he go to all this trouble? Why did he not simply walk into Mr er—Freeman’s place of business and say, ‘I have a cheque of mine here for ten pounds, will you cash it for me?’” “I suspect,” said Freyberger, “that he wished to confuse the police. He wished to make us believe that Sir Anthony Gyde was alive and well at ten-twenty a.m. yesterday morning. The fact that he wrote that cheque at ten o’clock yesterday morning would, I confess, have helped to shake a certain theory that I have concerning the case.” “But surely,” said the manager, “Sir Anthony _is_ alive. It is a dreadful business, but I gather, from the papers, that he is alive and being searched for.” “That is as may be,” said Freyberger. Then, suddenly, “Hullo! hullo! what’s this?” He seized the cheque from the table. “It only shows how limited our powers of perception are, and how, in fixing one’s eyes upon one part of a thing, one loses sight of another. To-day is the eighth of the month. What day of the month was yesterday, Mr Freeman?” “The seventh,” said Freeman, in a sulky tone. “And this cheque is dated the sixth.” It was so. In considering the signature they had overlooked the fact that the cheque was anti-dated. “I think,” said Freyberger, “that this fact confirms my suspicion that the cheque was not written yesterday in Messrs Smith and Wilkinson’s shop.” “You may be right,” said Freeman, “but I will swear that the person who gave me that cheque was Sir Anthony Gyde.” “Ah, Mr Freeman,” said Freyberger, in a bitter tone of voice, “if you had only examined that cheque properly, if you had only said to yourself, ‘This could not possibly have been written with my stylograph,’ if you had only jumped across the counter and seized Sir Anthony Gyde, as you call him, you would have helped Justice a long way down a difficult road. But you are a tradesman, suspicious towards the needy, unsuspicious towards the rich. Well, no matter—we will require your evidence at the proper time. Meanwhile, I will impound this cheque, giving the bank a receipt for it.” He did this. “If you will apply to our cashier,” said the manager to Freeman, “you will receive the amount due on the cheque, as it is in order, and we have absolute belief in your integrity in the matter, and the cheque has not been stopped by the only person capable of stopping it, Sir Anthony Gyde.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIX FREYBERGER left the bank and betook himself to the Yard, there to report proceedings.