over Uncle
Jacob's desk, just after I found him dead, you know, I found a
hundred-pound note lying there. I put it in my pocket. Hundred-pound
notes weren't plentiful, you know," he went on with a grim smile. "Of
course, it was a shabby thing to do, sort of robbing the dead, you know,
but----"

"Do you see any way in which that can help?" asked Selwood, whose mind
was not disposed to dwell on nice questions of morality or conduct.
"Does anything suggest itself?"

"Why, this," answered Barthorpe, rubbing his chin. "It was a brand-new
note. That's puzzled me--that it should be lying there amongst papers.
You might go to Uncle Jacob's bank and find out when he drew it--or
rather, if he'd been drawing money that day. He used, as you and I know,
to draw considerable amounts in notes. And--it's only a notion--if he'd
drawn anything big that day, and he had it on him that night, why,
there's a motive there. Somebody may have known he'd a considerable
amount on him and have followed him in there. Don't forget that I found
both doors open when I went there! That's a point that mustn't be
overlooked."

"There's absolutely nothing else you can think of?" asked Selwood.

Barthorpe shook his head. No--there was nothing--he was sure of that.
And then he turned eagerly to the question of finding Burchill.
Burchill, he was certain, knew more than he had given him credit for,
knew something, perhaps, about the actual murder. He was a deep, crafty
dog, Burchill--only let the police find him!----

Time was up, then, and Peggie and Selwood had to go--their last
impression that of Barthorpe thrusting his hands in his pockets and
lounging away to his enforced idleness. It made the girl sick at heart,
and it showed Selwood what deprivation of liberty means to a man who has
hitherto been active and vigorous.

"Have we done any good?" asked Peggie, drawing a deep breath of free air
as soon as they were outside the gates. "Any bit of good?"

"There's the affair of the bank-note," answered Selwood. "That may be of
some moment. I'll go and report progress on that, anyway."

He put Peggie into her car to go home, and himself hailed a taxi-cab and
drove straight to Mr. Halfpenny's office, where Professor Cox-Raythwaite
and Mr. Tertius had arranged to meet him.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE LAST CHEQUE

The three elderly gentlemen, seated in Mr. Halfpenny's private room,
listened with intense, if silent, interest to Selwood's account of t