The litter had gone. But
just underneath the hearth-rug one of those crumpled slips of paper lay
not quite hidden. I picked it up. It was a check."
"Have you got it? Sylvia, have you got it?" and Garratt Skinner's voice
in steady quietude matched his face.
"Yes."
Sylvia opened the little bag which she carried at her wrist and took out
the slip of paper. She unfolded it and spread it on the table before her.
The inside was pink.
"A check for L480 on the London and County Bank, Victoria Street," she
said.
Garrett Skinner looked over the table at the paper. There was Wallie
Hine's wavering, unfinished signature at the bottom right-hand corner.
Parminter had guided his hand as far as the end of the Christian name,
before he tore the check out and threw it away. The amount of the body of
the check had been filled in in Barstow's hand.
"You had better give it to me, Sylvia," he said, his fingers moving
restlessly on the table-cloth. "That check would be a very dangerous
thing if Parminter ever came to hear of it. Better give it to me."
He leaned over and took it gently from before her, and put it carefully
away in his pocket.
"Now, you see, there's more reason ever why we should get Wallie Hine
away from those two men. He is living a bad life here. Three weeks in the
country may set his thoughts in a different grove.
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