Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/213

 was it was utterly illegible! Our cashier brought it to me as a curiosity: I couldn't make it out—none of us could. It was a scrawl—a sheer scrawl that might have been in some foreign style of writing for anything I could tell."

"It evidently attracted you," said Wedgwood.

"It did—I never saw a signature like it. It looked to have been written with one of those wooden pens that gardeners use for the labels of plants and shrubs—you know. However, it was apparently quite in order and well-known to Fentiman's, for the cheque was cleared at once."

"Five thousand, eh?" observed Wedgwood. "And this was—when?"

"Two days ago," answered the manager.

"Then yesterday, when you say Wraypoole closed his account he would have a lot of money standing to his credit in your books?" suggested Wedgwood. "The proceeds of the sale of his brother's property and this five thousand pounds."

"He'd a balance of over eleven thousand pounds," replied the manager. "He drew the lot in Bank of England notes. They were chiefly of large denomination, but he took a certain amount in smaller notes."