Page:Edgar Wallace - The Man who Knew.djvu/137

 knew this from statements which had been made by other tenants.

"It comes to this," said John Minute grimly; "that nobody has seen Mr. Holland but you, Frank."

Frank stiffened.

"I am not suggesting that you are in the swindle," said Minute gruffly. "As likely as not, the man you saw was not Mr. Holland, and it is probably the work of a gang, but I am going to find out who this man is, if I have to spend twice as much as I have lost."

The police were not encouraging.

Detective Inspector Nash, from Scotland Yard, who had handled some of the biggest cases of bank swindles, held out no hope of the money being recovered.

"In theory you can get back the notes if you have their numbers," he said, "but in practice it is almost impossible to recover them, because it is quite easy to change even notes for five hundred pounds, and probably you will find these in circulation in a week or two."