Legendary Women Detectives

THE MAN WHO SCARED THE BANK by Valentine

(Sleuth: Daphne Wrayne)

In the history of British male mystery fiction there are countless heroes of distinguished parentage and sporting nature, who put natural gifts to use detecting crime – Reggie Fortune and Peter Wimsey to name several. On the distaff side, there is Daphne Wrayne. The brainchild of the prolific and pseudonymous Valentine (Archibald Thomas Pechey), Daphne Wrayne is the youngest of all the female sleuths in this volume, whom the author describes in The Adjusters (1930), as “barely out of her teens.” But, she is no Nancy Drew – she is an adult detective and so are the cases that challenge her.

The editor of the Daily Monitor rang his bell.

“Send Mr. Mannering to me at once,” he said when the boy appeared.

He sat drumming on the table with his fingers and frowning at the letter in his hand until a knock sounded on the door. Then:

“Come in, Mannering. Read that letter-” thrusting it at him.

The other took it, scanned it, whistled softly.

“I know the Duchess, sir,” he said.

“Exactly. That’s why I sent for you. Go up and see her at once. Find out all you can about this story. Maybe she’ll get you an interview with these Adjusters people. Hitherto no one’s been able to get one. Get hold of every bit of news you can lay your hands on… The moment we publish the fact that they’ve recovered her necklace the public will be on its toes to know who and what they are. It’s over three months since the necklace was stolen from Hardington House, and the police have owned themselves beat.”

For four weeks the Adjusters had been intriguing public curiosity.

Who and what they were no one seemed to know. Four times had a full-page advertisement appeared in the Daily Monitor:

IF THE POLICE CANNOT HELP YOU

THE

ADJUSTERS

CAN

179, CONDUIT STREET, W.

Just that and no more. Interviewers and reporters had called, but had come away empty-handed. All that they could say was that the Adjusters occupied the whole of the first floor at 179, Conduit Street, that a stalwart commissionaire – an ex-army man with a string of ribbons across his chest – replied to all callers that “Miss Wrayne could see no one except by appointment, and no pressmen in any circumstances whatever.”

Now he gave the same reply when Mannering presented his card. But Mannering merely smiled and produced a letter.

“Perhaps you will be good enough to give that to Miss Wrayne,” he said. “It’s from the Duchess of Hardington.”

Five minutes later the commissionaire came back.

“If you will come this way, sir, Miss Wrayne will see you,” he said.

The next morning the Daily Monitor brought out flaming headlines announcing that the Duchess of Hardington’s world-famous pearl necklace had been recovered by “The Adjusters of 179, Conduit Street.” But it was what followed that made the public rub its eyes in astonishment.

Armed with a letter of introduction from the Duchess of Hardington I succeeded in gaining an interview with Miss Daphne Wrayne, the secretary of the Adjusters. To comment on that interview is impossible. I can merely state what Miss Wrayne told me and leave the public to judge for themselves. Probably they will be as bewildered as I was – and still am.

Followed then an account of a lavishly furnished suite of offices and a beautiful young girl who called herself the secretary, who declined to give the names of her associates, but who said that the Adjusters came into being for the “adjustment of the inequalities that at present exist between the criminal and the victim.” Asked to explain this a little more fully Miss Wrayne said that where the police were chiefly interested in the capture and punishment of the criminal, the Adjusters were solely concerned with the restoration to the victim of the money, or property, out of which he or she had been defrauded. She added, furthermore, that they had unlimited money behind them and charged no fees whatsoever! Then the Monitor man went on:

But, frankly, to me Miss Daphne Wrayne is the most amazing part of this amazing firm. It is well-nigh impossible to believe that this singularly lovely girl, barely out of her teens, who looks as if she had just stepped out of a Bond Street modiste’s, is really in control of an enterprise of this kind. I say “in control” for even if she is not, she is, on her own statement, the only one whom the public will see, and behind the very up-to-date exterior, with its dainty Paris frock, silk stockings, etc., there is obviously a brain out of the ordinary.

I was bewildered at the rapidity with which this pretty, laughing-eyed schoolgirl who smoked cigarettes and used slang, changed into an earnest young woman, with the criminal life of London at her slim fingers’ ends.

I came away from Conduit Street trying to tell myself that it was foolish, impossible, ridiculous. And yet there is Miss Wrayne herself. I can still see those clear hazel eyes of hers, and hear her final words: “Is it so strange that some who have unlimited money and brains should want to help their less fortunate brethren?”

One week later, when Sir John Colston – the interview had been arranged that morning by telephone – was ushered into Daphne’s private room, he was conscious of a slight sense of annoyance. To, discover that he, Sir John Colston, the head of one of the biggest banks in London, had to lay his difficulties at the slim feet of a lovely, hazel-eyed girl hardly out of her teens – a girl who coolly waved him to a chair as she lighted another cigarette – it was almost preposterous!

“Well, Sir John, what can we do for you?”

Just as if he were nobody and his affair a trivial matter!

“I understand from the Duchess of-” he began stiffly, but Daphne Wrayne’s eyes narrowed a little as she cut in on him.

“I know, and you’re surprised at finding me so young.” She leant forward suddenly in her chair. “Forgive me for saying so, but you’re a little behind the times. You are obviously in trouble or you wouldn’t be here. If you want my services they are at your disposal. But in that case it will be very much better, both for you and for me, if you will forget that I am a girl and not yet twenty-one. You will excuse my plain speaking, won’t you?”

A little smile curved her lips, but her eyes were steady on his.

“You’re not the first, you know, Sir John,” she went on. “It’s a bit of a handicap sometimes, being a girl!”

His resentment vanished from that moment. Her ingenuousness disarmed him.

“I’m sorry, Miss Wrayne,” he said. “I’m an old man – a bit old-fashioned, I’m afraid, too. You – this place-” he waved a hand “rather took me by surprise.”

“Of course-” sweetly. “Now, let’s get to business. You, I take it, are the head of the Universal Banking Corporation of Lombard Street?”

“I am. I have a client of the name of Richard Henry Gorleston.”

“The bookmaker?”

“I begin to see that what the Duchess told me about you was true,” he smiled. He was becoming more impressed now every minute.

“I have a good memory for names,” she replied.

“He has been a client of mine for nearly three years. His father, I may tell you, left him fifty thousand pounds. The son has banked with us ever since, and until this week has been a trusted client.

“I must tell you,” he went on, “that ever since he opened an account with us it has been his habit to draw out large sums of money in notes and to replace them within a few days. He told me from the start that he lived by gambling.

“On numerous occasions he has presented checks for five or ten thousand pounds, and drawn the money out in notes. Then a few days later he would come and pay it all back, perhaps a little more, perhaps a little less.

“Ten days ago he called at the bank and came into my private room – nothing unusual in that, though. He often does. Now, the moment he came in I noticed that he was wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, a thing which he has never done before. I commented on it and he said that he’d had trouble with his eyes, and had been to an oculist.”

“Mention his name?” casually.

“He did. James Adwinter, of Queen Anne Street.”

Daphne Wrayne made a note of it.

“Please go on, Sir John.”

“I asked him if he was drawing out any money and he said he was – would I tell him what his balance was. I sent out and found it was about thirty thousand pounds. In front of me he took his check-book and wrote a check for twenty-five thousand pounds. I sent for one of my cashiers and we paid it over to him in thousand pound notes. Now comes the amazing part of the story. Two days ago he came into the bank and presented a check for fifteen thousand pounds. The cashier told him he hadn’t got it, and reminded him of the twenty-five-thousand-pound one. He indignantly denied it – said he’d been out of town for nearly a fortnight, and he could prove it. Declared that some one must have impersonated him. This morning we received a letter from his solicitors threatening us with an action.”

“But the signature, Sir John? If it was Richard Henry Gorleston’s usual signature with no irregularity-”

“That’s the trouble, Miss Wrayne. This-” handing her a check “-is his usual signature. This-” handing her another-“is the disputed check.”

Daphne Wrayne’s eyebrows went up as she scanned it.

“How did you come to pass this check without comment?” she queried. “The difference is not very great, I admit, but still-”

“Miss Wrayne, I put it to you! You have an old client whom you know well. He comes in, sits down and talks to you, writes out a check. You send for your cashier who knows him equally well. You’ve seen him write the check. You’re satisfied. You cash it without question.”

“Oh, I know. But will the law exonerate you?”

“I’m afraid it won’t,” a little ruefully.

“Tell me, Sir John-” after a slight pause “-had you any shadow of doubt when this man presented that twenty-five-thousand-pound check but that he was Richard Gorleston?”

“Not the faintest, Miss Wrayne.”

“When he came in two days ago was he wearing spectacles?”

“He wasn’t. He said he’d never worn them in his life, and never heard of Adwinter.”

“What was his manner like?”

“Oh, he was naturally very upset, but he quite appreciated our position, though he said, of course, that we should have noticed the difference in the signature. He went on to say that he’d known for some time that he had a ”double,“ but he’d never been able to run him to earth.”

The girl wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully.

“He told you he’d been out of London all the time. Did he say where?”

“Yes. He gave me his address. ”The Golden Crown, Portworth, Tavistock“ – trout fishing. Incidentally I have verified this by one of our local branches. He was there the whole time.”

“Well, Sir John, in about a week’s time I’ll report to you. In the meanwhile say nothing to anybody.”

“What am I to tell my solicitors to do?” a little perplexedly.

She laughed merrily.

“Oh, come, Sir John, you don’t want to throw in your hand yet! Instruct ”em to say that you repudiate all liability. After all, if you have to climb down – still, let’s hope you won’t!“

In a comfortably furnished room in the Inner Temple four men sat round a table talking. Just an ordinary room, but certainly no ordinary men, these four. Actually, you could have found them all in Who’s Who.

The big, tanned, curly-haired, merry-eyed giant, who sat next to the empty chair at the head of the table, was none other than James Ffolliott Plantagenet Trevitter, only son of the Earl of Winstanworth – Eton and Oxford, with half a page of athletic records added. Next to him, lounging a little in his chair, thin, lean, bronzed, almost bored-looking, with his gold-rimmed monocle, sat Sir Hugh Williamson, most intrepid of explorers. Opposite to him, elderly, grey-haired, almost benevolent-looking, Allan Sylvester, the best-loved actor-manager in England. And lastly, leaning forward talking, a smile on his clean-cut handsome face, Martin Everest, K. C., the greatest criminal barrister in England.

And these were the four Adjusters…

The clock on the mantelpiece chimed out the hour, and as it did so the door opened and the four men rose to their feet, as Daphne Wrayne stood in the doorway.

“Well, Peter Pan!” exclaimed Sylvester.

“Well, you dear Knights!”

Very lovely she looked as she came forward, and her eyes were for all of them. But it was Lord Trevitter who, as if by tacit understanding, helped her off with her cloak and put her into her chair. Very naturally, yet quite openly too, she slipped her hand into his and let it stay there. But the other three only smiled indulgently though their smiles spoke volumes. You felt, somehow, that they had known her from childhood – looked on her now almost as a beloved child. That even if she had singled out Trevitter – as indeed she had – she loved none of them less dearly for that.

“Oh, it’s great to be here!” she exclaimed with shining eyes. “I can still hardly believe it’s true.”

“It’s a wonderful stunt,” murmured Everest thoughtfully.

“We’ve been lucky, Martin,” answered the girl. “If it hadn’t been for the Duchess’s pearls-”

“And then you giving an interview to the Monitor,” chimed in Lord Trevitter. “That was the master stroke, Daph.”

“Well, it was just the right moment, Jim. Having had a big success it seemed to me to be the very wisest thing to do.”

“By Jove, it was, my dear,” chuckled Sylvester. “It couldn’t have come at a better time. If you’d given it before, the public would only have scoffed. But as we had recovered that necklace they couldn’t afford to scoff.”

“Incidentally,” remarked the girl, “the Duchess sent us a check for five hundred pounds.”

“Good for her,” said Lord Trevitter. “I suppose you’ve – oh, of course, Jim! Anonymously, needless to say.”

“Quite right,” murmured Everest. “Well, what’s the big idea this evening?”

“How do you know I’ve got one?”

“Listen to her!” exclaimed Williamson. “Breaking off a dance at twelve o’clock and keeping us out of our beds-

“But it’s rather a puzzling one, Hugh-” interrupting him. “We shall want all our ingenuity to get home this time.”

“Splendid! Let’s have it, my dear.”

Leaning forward in her chair, slim hands clasped, Daphne Wrayne outlined the story to them. Then, as she came to the end:

“But I can add a good deal to this. It seemed obvious to me from the start that there was no double at all – it was just a ruse, carefully planned.”

“Particularly why, Daph?” queried Lord Trevitter.

“The signature, Jim, alone. In a forgery of this size your forger never makes a mistake with the signature. It’s miles too risky. Besides, assuming that it was Gorleston himself, look at all there is to support the idea. If they detect the flaw in the signature they can’t collar him – it’s merely a slip. But if it gets by, what happens then? Why the bank’s in the cart and they’re liable for carelessness.”

“You’re a true woman, my dear,” smiled Everest. “Jump to a conclusion first and fit your facts to it afterwards.”

Daphne pouted adorably.

“I hate you, Martin,” she said. “Still, I was right.”

“You’re sure?” demanded Williamson.

“Absolutely. All the same, as my legal friend here will tell you – laying her hand on Everest’s arm with a smile – ”it’s going to be very difficult to prove. However, let me first give you all the facts I have.“

She paused for a moment to light a cigarette, and they all waited eagerly.

“I sent Rayte up to interview Adwinter,” she went on, “and established pretty satisfactorily that a man wearing glasses and answering in all other descriptions to Gorleston called there recently in the name of John Elwes, of 124, Unwin Street, Bloomsbury. He wanted new glasses and got them. So to Unwin Street, where apparently John Elwes has had a bedroom and sitting-room for over a year. Now, according to his landlady he is a man of no occupation who used to come once or twice a week and stay the night there. He turned up there, on the day the forgery was committed, at two-fifteen in the afternoon – note the time – stayed a few minutes, during which he told his landlady he was going to the bank, got into his taxi saying he’d look in in a few days’ time. He has never been near there since.”

She paused a moment to relight her cigarette which had gone out. Then she went on.

“Now as regards Gorleston. Gorleston’s been stopping, as he declared, at the Golden Crown, Portworth, two miles out of Tavistock. Every morning he’s breakfasted at eight and gone out, with his lunch, till ten o’clock at night. Now on the day that this forgery is supposed to have been committed, Gorleston swears he was fishing all day. But the curious fact turns up that a ticket collector at Tavistock – who is a fisherman himself, and who had apparently seen Gorleston fishing there that week – swears that he saw him on that particular day going up to London on the nine-eleven. The booking clerk can’t help us, but it’s funny that there was only one return ticket to London issued that day. Funnier still that the return half should have been given up that evening, and funniest of all that Gorleston should have come in on that night – the only one – to say that he had had a blank day.”

“How can you fix the day, Daph?”

“It was a brilliantly fine day, Martin, and the people at the Inn remember it as strange because two other men staying there had had big catches.”

“And the trains? How do they fit in?”

“The nine-eleven gets to town at one-fifty-six. A taxi would take him to Bloomsbury at 2:15 P.M.; would get him to the bank at two-thirty – the time we know he was there. While another one would give him the three-sixteen to land him at Tavistock at eight-forty-one.”

“If you could only find the taxi man who drove him-” began Sylvester, but Daphne cut him short.

“Oh, I have, Allan! He remembers it well. Described his fare as tall and thin, wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Drove him to Unwin Street and waited a few minutes. Then to the bank, where he was given a ten-shilling note and dismissed.”

“Seems to me,” said Lord Trevitter, “that you’ve proved it up to the hilt.”

But Everest shook his head.

“Circumstantially, Jim,” he said, “it’s excellent. But it’s not a good case to go to a jury with. Brief me for Gorleston and I’ll find a hundred flaws.”

“I was afraid you’d say that, Martin,” said Daphne, a little ruefully.

“I don’t want to say it, dear, but I must. Mind you, I haven’t the slightest doubt from all you’ve told me that John Elwes has never existed, but I’m equally certain that even with the evidence you’ve got, it’s going to be hard to establish. You see, who’s going to prove that the taxi man’s passenger was Gorleston from Tavistock? It might have been John Elwes from, say, Surbiton! Frankly, it’s a very clever fraud that has got home and looks like staying home. He’s got overwhelming evidence that he was at Tavistock, and all that we can produce is a ticket collector who’s only seen him once or twice. While he, Gorleston, can produce a hundred intimate pals who will swear that he has never worn spectacles, and a thousand or two checks all bearing his accurate and original signature. No, no, it won’t do!”

“Of course there is another way,” murmured Daphne thoughtfully, “but the question is, will you agree to it?”

The four men exchanged glances.

“It’s one of Peter Pan’s very choicest, right off the ice!” smiled Sylvester. “Now I’ll lay any one a quid-”

“Oh, Allan-” laughing and blushing- “don’t be a beast! All right, I’ll tell you then. You can laugh at me afterwards.”

But there was little laughter in their faces as she talked.

When she had finished, Lord Trevitter threw back his head and laughed like a schoolboy.

“Daphne, you’re a marvel!” he exclaimed. “my dear, how do you think of these things?”

“Is it good, Jim?”

“Good?” echoed Everest. “It’s glorious, magnificent! Of course, he may not fall for it, but if he’s guilty I believe he will. If, on the other hand, he’s innocent, well – we’re no worse off than we were before.”

“I’m in this, mind!” exclaimed Williamson.

“We’re all in it, the four of us!” answered Lord Trevitter, with his boyish laugh. “Another success for the Adjusters!”

“Oh, I’m so glad you like my ideal” exclaimed the girl. “Let’s thrash it out!”

Richard Henry Gorleston was entirely pleased with himself. As he sat in a West End restaurant eating his dinner he smiled complacently to himself. Twenty-five thousand pounds for nothing, he told himself, was the finest day’s work he had ever done. His solicitors, furthermore, had hinted to him that the bank, rather than court publicity, would settle with him. He signed to his waiter and ordered himself another bottle of champagne and a Corona.

“Have you any objection to my sitting here?”

A suave, smiling, elderly gentleman with white hair and gold-rimmed pince-nez was standing at the table, hesitating, but Gorleston answered his smile cheerfully.

“Not a bit in the world. Crowded here tonight.”

“Somewhat. I don’t know my London well. I’m from the country – North Wales. My annual trip to London. I come up once a year, I see all the sights. And-” with a smile “-I have a little opportunity to indulge my pet hobby – billiards.”

Gorleston was interested in a moment.

“Funny that,” he said. “It’s a particular hobby of mine.” And they were hard at it in a moment. Finally, when the stranger, who volunteered his name as Professor Lucas, called for his bill, Gorleston ventured to suggest that he and his new friend should adjourn for a game.

They played several games. The professor was charmed with his new acquaintance and pressed him to dine with him the following evening. Gorleston accepted with alacrity.

The following evening they met again, but soon after the meal had started the professor was claimed by three friends of his. He expressed extraordinary surprise at seeing them, introduced them to Gorleston, and insisted on their dining with him. It was a merry dinner, and a considerable amount of wine was consumed. Later on the quintet adjourned – this time it was to a pet place of the professor’s. They had a private room there, and Gorleston trounced the professor soundly. Then, in boisterous mood, he took on his three friends and administered severe hidings to each of them. So pleased was he that he sent for two magnums of champagne and after trying ineffectually to play with the rest, which he had previously chalked, he subsided gracefully onto the couch. Eventually Gorleston, hopelessly drunk, was assisted into a taxi. The professor gave the driver the address of 124, Unwin Street, Bloomsbury.

Inside the taxi the behaviour of the four men was a little strange, for they proceeded to extract a good many things from the drunken man’s pockets. They also carefully placed a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles on his face.

“Capital!” murmured the professor as he gazed at the unconscious man. “John Elwes, surely?”

“We’ll hope so,” replied one of the others. “We’ll knock up his landlady and if she greets him as such we’re home.”

“When will he wake up?”

“About eleven tomorrow,” replied the other. “I got that drug from the natives on the West Coast, and I know it backwards. Still, we’ll be on the safe side and turn up at ten o’clock tomorrow.”

One hour later the landlady, profuse in her thanks for bringing Mr. Elwes home, showed the four men out of 124, Unwin Street. In a quiet street they proceeded to remove beards, moustaches and wigs – the professor becoming Allan Sylvester and his three companions – Martin Everest, Sir Hugh Williamson and Lord Trevitter!

“It was a brain-wave of Daphne’s!” chuckled Everest as he lit a cigarette. “We know he’s Gorleston, he knows he’s Gorleston, but his landlady and Adwinter are prepared to swear he’s John Elwes. Besides, he’s in Elwes’s rooms in Elwes’s bed, all his clothes are marked with Elwes’s name, and even his cards are in the name of John Elwes. If I were on the bench,” thoughtfully, “I should have to come to the conclusion that he was Elwes.”

“Of course, the amusing thing to me,” said Williamson, “is that we’ve done it so carefully that even if he can prove he’s Gorleston, he’s in a worse mess. For that establishes definitely that he’s been runnin” a dual personality in order to defraud the bank.“

“Ali, but his attitude tomorrow morning will decide that. If he refuses to give in, we may be wrong. But he won’t. He’ll throw up the sponge. You see if he doesn’t.”

When Richard Henry Gorleston awoke the next morning he stared dazedly round the room. Then with a startled cry he leapt out of bed. But he stopped short, for at that moment the door opened and two men, complete strangers to him, came into the room, and locked the door.

“Well, John Elwes – the game’s up!”

“Wh – wh – what d’you mean? My name’s not John Elwes!

“Really! Then may I ask what you’re doing in John Elwes’s room, sleeping in John Elwes’s bed?” He took a quick step forward, picked up a coat which lay on a chair, glanced at it. “And how come you to be wearing John Elwes’s clothes?”

The other gasped.

“John Elwes’s – clothes?”

“See for yourself! Name in coat – name on the shirt – name on the collar – card-case here on the dressing-table-” he took it up and examined it, “-with John Elwes’s cards in it! If you’re not John Elwes perhaps you’ll not only tell us how you come to be in possession of all his things, but who you are and how you are here.”

For a space of seconds Gorleston glared at him like a rat caught in a trap.

“My name’s Gorleston,” he blurted out desperately. “Richard Henry Gorleston. How I got here I don’t know.”

The taller of the two men smiled pityingly.

“Come again, sonnie,” he answered. “We’re acting on behalf of the Universal Banking Corporation who are rather interested in getting hold of John Elwes for forging Gorleston’s signature to a twenty-five-thousand-pound check. Adwinter, of Queen Anne Street, will swear to you anywhere, and so will your landlady.”

Gorleston moistened his dry lips.

“It’s going to trouble you to prove I’m Elwes,” he said.

“It’s going to trouble you to prove you’re not,” laughed the other easily. “We’ve got your four pals of last night who swear that while you were drunk you let out the whole story.”

“It’s a plant!” Gorleston muttered at length. “A frame-up! You know!”

“Try that on the magistrate,” smiled the other. “Of course, it’s always open to you, when you get to Bow Street, to subpoena Gorleston himself. If there is such a strong likeness between the two of you, you might get off that way.”

“My dear Allan,” chimed in his friend sarcastically, “do think of what he’s told us! He is Gorleston. Though if he can prove it, then Heaven help him, because we can quite easily establish that he is Elwes as well. So all the bank does is to charge him with trying to obtain twenty-five thou” by means of a trick.“

“Well, hop it and call a policeman,” replied his friend. “I’m sick of all this cackle.”

But as the other moved over to the door Gorleston sprang up trembling.

“Can’t we – can’t we settle this?” he exclaimed desperately.

The man at the door smiled.

“There’s Gorleston to be considered,” he replied.

“I tell you I am Gorleston.”

The other strode back, his hands clenched.

“Yes,” he snapped, his voice like a whiplash, “and John Elwes as well! Don’t you dare to interrupt me-” as Gorleston made as if to speak. “What about the nine-eleven up to London from Tavistock on the day the forgery was committed? What about the chauffeur who drove you here the moment you arrived so that your landlady could prove that John Elwes was in town that day? What about your telling her that you were in a hurry to get to the Universal Bank to cash a check? Excellent corroborative evidence, eh, that John Elwes was a real live person? And then you drove on to the bank, gave the chauffeur ten shillings and walked in as Richard Henry Gorleston – and caught the three-sixteen back to Tavistock, picked up your fishing rod en route to Portworth and walked into the hotel and said you’d had a blank day. Want any more, you lying devil?”

But evidently Gorleston didn’t. He fell back in his chair the picture of absolute rage and despair.

“I – don’t know – who on earth you are-”

“And you won’t!” interrupted the other. “Now, then, which is it to be – the police, or a confession?”

“A con – con – confession!” stammered Richard Henry Gorleston.

Once more Sir John Colston sat opposite Daphne Wrayne in her private room.

“You will probably agree with me, Sir John,” she began in her cool little voice, “that if Richard Henry Gorleston decided to drop his action, gave you a written undertaking to that effect, agreed furthermore to accept the loss and never proceed against you on the same count – you would then, I think, be quite satisfied? In other words, you would sooner let the matter drop – providing your bank didn’t suffer – rather than he should get, say, seven years, and the public should know that although you had been swindled, you had been just a little careless?”

“Why, of course, my dear young lady. Publicity is the thing we’re most anxious to avoid. But you don’t mean to say that Gorleston will do that?”

Daphne Wrayne unlocked a drawer in her table and drew out a paper.

“Please listen to this, Sir John,” she said:

“I, Richard Henry Gorleston, of 849, The Albany, London, W., being of sound mind, do declare as follows that the check for twenty-five thousand pounds, cashed under my signature at the Universal Banking Corporation, of 99, Lombard Street, in the City of London, on June 15th, 1927, was written by me, and that the error in the signature was made wilfully by me with intent to deceive. Furthermore, that the name of John Elwes was invented by me, and the person and identity of John Elwes was no other than myself.”

“Great Heavens! May I – may I see it?”

“Sir John!” Daphne Wrayne leant forward in her chair and her hazel eyes were earnest on his. “You have perhaps a right to ask to see this paper, but I am going to ask you as a gentleman not to exercise that right. This paper bears the signatures, as witnesses, of two men whose names are household words for uprightness, and integrity, throughout England – two of my colleagues – the Adjusters!”

Just for a moment silence, while he gazed at her spellbound. Then she went on:

“In asking you not to insist on seeing this paper. I know that I am asking you a favour. But so that there shall be no uneasiness in your mind, I will give you a letter which will no doubt satisfy you equally.”

Daphne took out of her drawer a sealed envelope and handed it to him. He slit it open. Then:

“Do you know what is in this letter, Miss Wrayne?”

“Well, I think I do,” with a smile.

“It is from Gorleston’s solicitors! In it they say that he has discontinued his action against us, that he exonerates us from all liability, and that no further proceedings will be taken over this matter.”

“And you can go on cashing his checks, Sir John,” she added sweetly, “and can henceforward reckon him the most scrupulously honourable client – so far as you’re concerned – whom you have on your books. You see, he knows that if he tries such a thing again well, we produce this paper!”

For some moments he gazed at her, too bewildered to speak.

“Miss Wrayne,” he said at length, “words simply fail me. How on earth have you managed this?”

For answer she lay back in her chair, merriment dancing in her hazel eyes.

“Ever play poker, Sir John?”

“Why, certainly, Miss Wrayne-” surprised.

“Ever been bluffed out and induced to chuck in a good hand?”

“Afraid I have once or twice,” he admitted, “and been a bit mad afterwards.”

Smiling she put out a slim hand to him.

“Oh, Sir John,” she exclaimed merrily, “if Richard Henry Gorleston ever knows what a good hand he threw in on, he’ll be a million times madder than you’ve ever been!”