so than his salary might cover, particularly if he was careful in earlier years which report says that he was.
“But he gives the impression of having money under control. There was an occasion when he avoided scandal by paying what must have been a large sum, though we haven’t been able to find out yet what the figure was.
“No one would have worried themselves to enquire into these matters but for the fact that the London & Northern Bank has been the victim of a succession of forgeries of such a character that there has been a growing suspicion that they could not have been carried out successfully without the assistance, if not the actual direction, of someone with inside knowledge, particularly of the balances lying in the accounts on which the forged cheques were drawn.
“The Texall Enquiry Agency, of which I am one of the humbler members, was instructed, about a year ago, to make the most searching investigation into the records and occupations of about twenty of the bank staff, each of which could have assisted one or other of the robberies at different branches.
“The trouble was that no one man could have been in touch with them all, and when we’d failed to discover anything to connect any of them with the incidents in question, though we’d stirred up some unexpected mud in one or two cases, we received instructions to investigate the private life and connections of some of the higher officials, who had been regarded as above such suspicion before.”
“With Mr. Rabone top of the list? Well, I hope you’ll prove he’s in it up to the neck, as no doubt he is.”
Miss Jones smiled. “You don’t love him. It’s easy to see that. Neither do I.... But we haven’t found anything yet, beyond that, if he’s really in with a criminal gang, as I think he is, he’s an exceptionally circumspect man.
“The only really unpleasant thing that we should be able to prove as yet is that he has a habit of making friends with lonely girls in his lodgings, or when he goes on holidays, and in some other ways, and seducing them without telling them that he has a wife very much alive.
“It was in connection with one of these incidents some years ago that he found it prudent to pay a sufficient sum to a girl, who had a baby coming, to go out to New Zealand with her mother without making a fuss. And when I tell you that, you’ll understand why I’m here.”
“I should have thought it would have been a better reason for keeping a good distance away.”
“Then you didn’t listen when I told you what my profession is. I’m a poor girl who’s out of a job, and her money down to about ten shillings. I’m rather timid, and more frightened than attracted as yet, but he’s very patient and kind, and, in the end, when my money’s gone, and—well, what can a poor girl be expected to do...? He’s trying hard now to get me a job at the bank, but it’s a sure bet that he’ll fail in that.”
She smiled slightly, and did not change her expression when she saw the lack of response on her hearer’s face.
“I wonder,” he said, “that you can talk to the filthy beast.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said lightly. “Being seduced isn’t so bad, when it’s being done in a cautious way, and you’re playing the timid part.”
“And so you’ve found out nothing yet?”
“Not quite nothing. There have been two dark nights when he’s been visited by callers who come over the roof. The second time, I followed them back. Not closely enough to see who they were, but to find where they went. It was the fourth house from here toward Windsor Terrace. It’s quite easy to get along from roof to roof. There’s a parapet a foot high, and the dormer windows are close to its inner side.”
“It must have been a very dangerous thing to do.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. It’s all in the day’s work, or perhaps night’s might be a better word.... But if you should see anyone knocking at the front door that you’re not anxious to meet, it might be worthwhile trying. I don’t know what sort of reception you’d have in the other house, but you might get down before anyone’d try to stop you, and they’re not likely to be the sort to call in the police.”
“Haven’t you found out who they are?”
“Not much yet, but of course we shall. There’ll be someone else digging that up now. I have to concentrate here.”
“It doesn’t sound very circumspect to have criminals crawling over the roofs.”
“No? It would be easy to think of other ways more likely to be observed, and not so difficult for us to prove. But I wasn’t thinking of that. Most people who make money in criminal ways give themselves away by how they let it slip through their hands. There’s not much fun in risking your liberty or your neck for money you never spend, and it’s astonishing how little use it is, even if you risk throwing it round. There isn’t much that people of bad character can buy, especially in a quiet way, that’s much satisfaction to them, and they daren’t get drunk for fear of what they might let out.
“But Mr. Rabone lives a quiet frugal life, except for his one annual spree, and this habit I’ve told you about, which may be the only one he’s been able to think of in which he can make his money buy what he wants, without behaving in a way that might come to the bank’s ears.”
Francis had been sufficiently interested in Miss Jones’s narrative to forget, as it had proceeded, the passage of time, and the urgency of his own position; but, as she came to this point, his eyes fell on the clock, and the process of simple mental arithmetic necessitated by Mrs. Benson’s explanation of its eccentricity enabled him to see that the question of visiting the bank had answered itself so far as that afternoon was concerned; and this realization brought his mind sharply back to consider how far, if at all, Mr. Rabone’s character affected his own precarious security.
“I don’t quite see why his being a rotter should make him anxious for me to clear out, even though he may believe that I was one of the Welch lot.”
“No?” she said, “but don’t you see that if he’s in with any criminal gang, the last thing he would wish would be to draw enquiry upon himself, as one who appeared to have been associating with you?
“You know how you walked in through an open door, but the police don’t, and they’ll do some lively guessing if they find you’ve been harboured here. There may be more in it even than that. These gangs are often more or less in touch with one another, and we don’t know how closely Tony Welch’s arrest may have come to some of Mr. Rabone’s own associates—that is, of course, if we’re right in our suspicions about himself.
“The fact that he knew your assumed name, and recognized you so quickly, makes that rather more likely than not.
“It’s easy to see, without bringing me into the picture, that he might prefer you a good distance away; but it doesn’t follow that he’d put the police on to you. If we’re right as to what he is, it’s about the last thing he’d be likely to try.”
“Well, the question I’ve got to decide is whether I’m to clear out as I’m told, or to risk staying another night.”
“And you want to get hold of some money first? It’s because of that that I’ve been explaining all this about why I’m here. I wanted you to understand that if you can trust me enough, I really could help you, and in a better way than taking a cheque to the bank counter, though it mightn’t be quite so quick. But
