I felt my back stiffen as the story finally reached its salient point, and stared more intently at my kinsman, as if by doing so I could better tell the truth of his tale. He continued, lost in his narrative, ' -- whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back with the matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I can't mention, though it's one of the points of my story, but it was a name at least very well known and often printed. The figure was stiff; but the signature was good for more than that, if it was only genuine. I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning and come out of it with another man's cheque for close upon a hundred pounds. But he was quite easy and sneering.

"Set your mind at rest," says he, "I will stay with you till the banks open and cash the cheque myself."

So we all set off, the doctor, and the child's father, and our friend and myself, and passed the rest of the night in my chambers; and next day, when we had breakfasted, went in a body to the bank. I gave in the cheque myself, and said I had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine.'

I made some noise at this point, and Enfield took it for approbation rather than the shock it was, for I was hearing far more in his tale than he knew he was telling me.