'Has the name of Edmund Gray ever been mentioned in any letters that have come here?' It was notorious in the office that Checkley read all the letters that came, and that he never forgot the contents of any. If you named any letter he would at once tell you what was written in it, even if it were twenty years old. 'I have never even heard the name of Edmund Gray in any letter or in any connection whatever,' the clerk replied firmly. 'I put all these questions, Checkley, because I was pretty certain myself from the beginning; but I wanted to make myself quite certain. I thought it might be a trick of failing memory. Now, look at the name carefully'--the clerk screwed up his eyes tightly in order to get a good grip of the name. 'You see I have given him a cheque for 720_l_., only three weeks ago. I am not the kind of man to give away 720_l_. for nothing. Yet I have actually forgotten the whole business.' Certainly he did not look the kind of man to forget such a simple thing as the giving away of 720_l_. Quite the contrary. His grave face, his iron-grey hair, his firm lips, his keen, steady eyes, apart from the methodical regularity with which his papers were arranged before him, all proclaimed that he was very far from being that kind of man. Very much the reverse, indeed. 'You don't mean to say, sir,' Checkley began, with a change in his face from watchfulness to terror--'you can't mean----' 'I mean this, Checkley. I know of no Edmund Gray; and unless the bank has made a mistake, there has been committed--a--what do they call it in the law-courts?' The clerk held the bank book in his hand, staring at his master with open eyes. 'What?' he repeated. 'What do they call it? Good Lord! They call it forgery--and for 720_l_.! And on you, of all people in the world! And in this office! In our office!--our office! What a dreadful thing, to be sure! Oh, what a dreadful thing to happen! In our office--here!' The clerk seemed unable to express his astonishment. 'First of all, get me the returned cheques.' The cheques always came back in the pocket of the bank book. Checkley was accustomed to take them out and to file them in their proper place. Again, Mr. Dering neither drew his cheques nor wrote his letters with his own hand. He only signed them. One clerk wrote the letters; another drew the cheques by his instruction and dictation. Checkley went back to his own room and returned with a bundle of returned drafts. He then looked in the safe--a great fireproof safe--that stood open in one corner of the room, and took out the current cheque book. 'Here it is,' he said. 'Check drawn by you yourself in your own handwriting, and properly signed, payable to order--not crossed--and duly endorsed. Now you understand why I know nothing about it. Edmund Gray, Esquire, or order. Seven hundred and twenty pounds. Signed Dering & Son. Your own handwriting and your own signature.'