Page:The orange-yellow diamond by Fletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith).djvu/133

 "For what, mister?" demanded Melky.

"Can't say—nobody can say," answered the solicitor. "All the same, he did—paid it in, himself, to Daniel Multenius's credit, at the Empire and Universal. It went into the ordinary account, in the ordinary way, and was used by Mr. Multenius as part of his own effects—as no doubt it was. Now," continued Mr. Penniket, turning to Zillah, "I want to ask you a particular question. I know you had assisted your grandfather a great deal of late years. Had you anything to do with his banking account?"

"No!" replied Zillah, promptly. "That's the one thing I never had anything to do with. I never saw his pass-book, nor his deposit-book, nor even his cheque-book. He kept all that to himself."

"Just so," said Mr. Penniket. "Then, of course, you don't know that he dealt with considerable sums—evidently quite outside this business. He made large—sometimes very heavy—payments. And—this, I am convinced, is of great importance to the question we are trying to solve—most of these payments were sent to South Africa."

The solicitor glanced round his audience as if anxious to see that its various members grasped the significance of this announcement. And Melky at once voiced the first impression of, at any rate, three of them.

"Levendale comes from those parts!" he muttered. "Came here some two or three years ago—by all I can gather."

"Just so," said Mr. Penniket. "Therefore, possibly this South African business, in which my late client was