“Mr. Rae,” replied the young man, his voice trembling and husky, “I tell you I can't understand this. I ought to say that for the last two weeks I haven't been quite myself, and whiskey always makes me forget. I can walk around steadily enough, but I don't always know what I am doing—”
“That's so, Sir,” said Dunn quickly, “I've seen him.”
“—And just what happened with these cheques I do not know. This cheque,” picking up the one endorsed to Potts, “I remember giving to Potts. The only other cheque I remember is a five-pound one.”
“Do you remember cashing that five-pound cheque?” inquired Mr. Rae.
“I carried it about for some days. I remember that, because I once offered it to Potts in part payment, and he said—” the white face suddenly flushed a deep red.
“Well, Mr. Allan, what did he say?”
“It doesn't matter,” said Cameron.
“It may and it may not,” said Mr. Rae sharply. “It is your duty to tell us.”
“Out with it,” said his father angrily. “You surely owe it to me, to us all, to let us have every assistance.”
Cameron paid no attention to his father's words. “It has really no bearing, Sir, but I remember saying as I offered a five-pound cheque, 'I wish it was fifty.'”
“And what reply did Mr. Potts make?” said Mr. Rae, with quiet indifference, as if he had lost interest in this particular feature of the case.
Again Cameron hesitated.
“Come, out with it!” said his father impatiently.
His son closed his lips as if in a firm resolve. “It really has nothing whatever to do with the case.”
“Play the game, old man,” said Dunn quietly.
“Oh, all right!” said Cameron. “It makes no difference anyway. He said in a joke, 'You could easily make this fifty; it is such mighty poor writing.'”
Still Mr. Rae showed no sign of interest. “He suggested in a joke, I understand, that the five-pound cheque could easily be changed into fifty pounds. That was a mere pleasantry of Mr. Potts', doubtless. How did the suggestion strike you, Mr. Allan?”
Allan looked at him in silence.
“I mean, did the suggestion strike you unpleasantly, or how?”
“I don't think it made any impression, Sir. I knew it was a joke.”
“A joke!” groaned his father. “Good Heavens! What do you think—?”
“Once more permit me,” said Mr. Rae quietly, with a wave of his hand toward the Captain. “This cheque of five pounds has evidently been altered to fifty pounds. The question is, by whom, Mr. Allan? Can you answer that?” Again Mr. Rae's eyes were searching the young man's face.
“I have told you I remember nothing about this cheque.”
“Is it possible, Mr. Allan, that you could have raised this cheque yourself without your knowing—?”
“Oh, nonsense!” said his father hotly, “why make the boy lie?”
His son started as if his father had struck him. “I tell you once more, Mr. Rae, and I tell you all, I know nothing about this cheque, and that is my last word.” And from that position nothing could move him.
“Well,” said Mr. Rae, closing the interview, “we have done our best. The law must take its course.”
“Great Heavens!” cried the Captain, springing to his feet. “Do you mean to tell me, Allan, that you persist in this cursed folly and will give us no further light? Have you no regard for my name, if not for your own?” He grasped his son fiercely by the arm.
But his son angrily shook off his grasp. “You,” he said, looking his father full in the face, “you condemned me before you heard a word from me, and now for my name or for yours I care not a tinker's curse.” And with this he flung himself from the room.
“Follow him,” said Mr. Rae to Dunn, quietly; “he will need you. And keep him in sight; it is important.”
“All right, Sir!” said Dunn. “I'll stay with him.” And he did.
CHAPTER IV
A QUESTION OF HONOUR
Mr. Rae in forty years' experience had never been so seriously disturbed. To his intense humiliation he found himself abjectly appealing to the senior member of the firm of Thomlinson & Shields. Not that Mr. Thomlinson was obdurate; in the presence of mere obduracy Mr. Rae might have found relief in the conscious possession of more generous and humane instincts than those supposed to be characteristic of the members of his profession. Mr. Thomlinson, however, was anything but obdurate. He was eager to oblige, but he was helpless. The instructions he had received were simple but imperative, and he had gone to unusual lengths in suggesting to Mr. Sheratt, the manager of the Bank, a course of greater leniency. That gentleman's only reply was a brief order to proceed with the case.
With Mr. Sheratt, therefore, Mr. Rae proceeded to deal. His first move was to invite the Bank manager to lunch, in order to discuss some rather important matters relative to one of the great estates of which Mr. Rae was supposed to be the guardian. Some fifty years' experience of Mr. Sheratt as boy and man had let Mr. Rae into a somewhat intimate knowledge of the workings of that gentleman's mind. Under the mollifying influences of the finest of old port, Mr. Rae made the discovery that as with Mr. Thomlinson, so with Mr. Sheratt there was every disposition to oblige, and indeed an eagerness to yield to the lawyer's desires; it was not Mr. Sheratt, but the Bank that was immovable. Firm-fixed it stood upon its bedrock of tradition that in matters of fraud, crime should be punished to the full limit of the law.
“The estate of the criminal, high or low,” said Mr. Sheratt impressively, “matters not. The Bank stands upon the principle, and from this it cannot be moved.” Mr. Sheratt began to wax eloquent. “Fidelity to its constituency, its shareholders, its depositors, indeed to the general public, is the corner-stone of its policy. The Bank of Scotland is a National Institution, with a certain National obligation.”
Mr. Rae quietly drew from his pocket a pamphlet, opened it slowly, and glanced at the page. “Ay, it's as I thought, Mr. Sheratt,” he said dryly. “At times I wondered where Sir Archibald got his style.”
Mr. Sheratt blushed like a boy caught copying.
“But now since I know who it is that writes the speech of the Chairman of the Board of Directors, tell me, Sheratt, as man to man, is it you or is it Sir Archibald that's at the back of this prosecution? For if it is you, I've something to say to you; if not, I'll just say it where it's most needed. In some way or other I'm bound to see this thing through. That boy can't go to prison. Now tell me, Tom? It's for auld sake's sake.”
“As sure as death, Rae, it's the Chairman, and it's God's truth I'm telling ye, though I should not.” They were back again into the speech and spirit of their boyhood days.
“Then I must see Sir Archibald. Give me time to see him, Tom.”
“It's a waste of time, I'm tellin' ye, but two days I'll give ye, Sandy, for auld sake's sake, as you say. A friendship of half a hundred years should mean something to us. For your sake I'd let the lad go, God knows, and there's my han' upon it, but as I said, that lies with Sir Archibald.”