Gore started up with an exclamation. "What do you mean? I never received such a large check as that in all my life." "But your grandfather gave you one in September, payable to bearer." "No. He certainly did not. You forget that we had quarrelled. From the moment I left the Hall some months ago I never received a penny from him. I lived, as you know, on what little money I inherited from my father. You gave fifty pounds to me yourself." "I went to the bank," said Durham, with an air of satisfaction, "and asked if such a check had been presented, and by whom?" "But how did you learn about this check?" "Oh! I found it amongst Sir Simon's private papers when he died. It had been honored and returned cancelled with the bank-book. I need not have asked if it had been presented, as it had, and had also been paid. But I wanted to examine the whole thing from the beginning. The teller--who knows you--informed me that you presented the check about the beginning of October, and that he paid you the money." "It is utterly false!" cried Gore, violently. "Keep your temper, old boy," said Durham, soothingly. "I know that as well as you do. The man who presented the check was dressed as an Imperial Yeoman. He told the teller he had enlisted, and the teller, thinking he was you, wished him good luck." "But, Mark," said Bernard, much perplexed, "this double of mine must be extraordinarily like me, for the teller knows me well." "There is a reason for the likeness!" The young man hesitated, wondering if it would be right to tell his friend that Mrs. Gilroy claimed to be the first wife of Walter Gore. On rapid reflection, he decided to say nothing about the matter at present, knowing Bernard's violent temper. He therefore confined himself to bare detail. "Mrs. Gilroy called at my office," he said slowly, "to complain that the one hundred a year left to her by Sir Simon was not enough." "Oh, confound Mrs. Gilroy," said Gore, impatiently. "I want to know about this check. This double who presented it must be the fellow who masqueraded in the kitchen." "And perhaps--who knows?--may have murdered Sir Simon." "It's not unlikely. Mrs. Gilroy said she admitted someone like me--or, as she thought, me--about ten, and----" "We'll come to that presently. I examined Jane Riordan, who was courted by this fellow apparently to get into the house. She described you exactly, but when I showed her your likeness she noticed that the mole on your chin was absent from the man who met her." Bernard involuntarily put up his hand to touch the mole, which was rather conspicuous. "The man had not this mark?" he asked. "No. So the mole you used to curse at school, Bernard, may be the means of saving your life. Also I got a letter from the girl in which this fellow makes an appointment. Here it is." Gore examined the letter thrown to him by Durham. "It's like my writing, but it isn't," he said, staring. "In Heaven's name, Mark, what does it all mean?"