ed.

Polke led him out of the room, and Starmidge turned to Neale.

"We're gradually getting at something, Mr. Neale," he said. "All this
leads somewhere, you know. Now, since we found that incomplete cheque,
there's a question I wanted to ask you. You've left Chestermarke's Bank
now, and under the circumstances we're working in you needn't have any
delicacy about answering questions about them. Do you know of any recent
transaction of theirs which involved ten thousand pounds?"

"No!" replied Neale. "I certainly don't."

"Nor any sum approaching it?" suggested Starmidge. "Or exceeding it?"

"Nothing whatever!" reiterated Neale. "I know of all recent banking
transactions at Chestermarke's, and I can't think--I've been thinking
since we saw that cheque--of anything that the cheque had to do with."

"Well--it's a queer thing," remarked the detective meditatively. "I'll
lay anything Hollis brought that cheque down here for some specific
purpose--and who on earth is there in this place that he could bring it
to but Chestermarke's? However, we'll see if I don't trace something
about it when I get up to town, and then----"

Polke and the dead man's brother came back, talking earnestly. The
superintendent carefully closed the door, and begging his visitor to be
seated again, turned to Starmidge.

"I've told Mr. Hollis all the main facts of the case," he said. "Of
course, he identified his brother at once."

"When did you see him last, sir!" asked Starmidge.

"Some eight or nine months ago," replied Hollis. "He came to see me, in
Birmingham. Previous to that, I hadn't seen him for several years. I
ought to tell you," he went on, turning to Polke, "that for a great many
years I have lived abroad--tea-planting in Ceylon. I came back to
England about a year ago, and eventually settled down at Edgbaston. I
suppose my brother's clerk found my address on an old letter or
something last night, and wired to me in consequence."

"When Simmons was here," observed Starmidge, "he said that your brother
seemed to have no relations."

"I daresay Simmons would get that impression," remarked Hollis. "My
brother was a very reserved man, who was not likely to talk much of his
family. As a matter of fact, I am about the only relation he had--except
some half-cousins, or something of that sort."

"Can you tell us anything about your brother's position?" asked
Starmidge. "The clerk said he didn't practise very much, and had means
of