Mr. Dering reflected. Then he looked up and said: 'Look again in the safe. In the left-hand compartment over the drawer, I think you will find an old cheque book. It belonged to a separate account--a Trust. That has been closed. The book should be there.--Ah! There it is.--I wonder now,' the lawyer went on, 'how I came to remember that book? It is more than two years since I last used it or even thought of it. Another trick of memory. We forget nothing, in fact, nothing at all. Give it to me. Strange, that I should remember so slight a thing. Now--here are the cheques, you see--colour the same--lettering the same--size the same--the only difference being the style and title of the Company. The fellow must have got hold of an old book left about, as you say, carelessly. Ah!' His colour changed. 'Here's the very counterfoil we wanted! Look! the number corresponds. The cheque was actually taken from this very book! a book in my own safe! in this very office! Checkley, what does this mean?' Checkley took the book from his master with a trembling hand, and read feebly the writing of the counterfoil, March 4th, 1883. Edmund Gray, 720_l_.' 'Lord knows what it means,' he said. 'I never came across such a thing in my life before.' 'Most extraordinary! It is two years since I have given a thought to the existence of that book. Yet I remembered it the moment when it became useful. Well, Checkley, what have you got to say? Can't you speak?' 'Nothing--nothing. O Lord, what should I have to say. If you didn't draw that cheque with your own hand----' 'I did not draw that cheque with my own hand.' 'Then--then it must have been drawn by somebody else's hand.' 'Exactly.' 'Perhaps you dictated it.' 'Don't be a fool, Checkley. Keep your wits together, though this is a new kind of case for you. Criminal law is not exactly in your line. Do you think I should dictate my own handwriting as well as my own words?' 'No. But I could swear--I could indeed--that it is your writing.'