THE FORGED CHEQUE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1163, 15 June 1894, Page 8

THE FORGED CHEQUE.

The rays of the morning sun had been beating for nearly an hour on the heavy curtains that guarded the windows of the card-room of tho Pantheon Club.

Suddenly Jacques, the waiter, who wa3 on duty in the card-room that night, threw back the curtains, and a flood of golden ©unshine poured into the room. Four young men looked up from the card-table. Their dishevelled hair and flushed faces showed ghastly in the summer sunlight. " Confound you!" cried one of th© players, scowling at Jacques. "Quite righ\ Time t' shtop!" said another, with tipsy gravity. The third, whose name was Cumberbatch, called for pen and ink, and proceeded to write a cheque for the amount of his losses.

The fourth, a Frenchman named De Marceau, but lately introduced to the club, looked on with evident interest. It was he who was to receive the money. The young man's hand trembled slightly. It was a good deal for a man to pay as the price of an evening's amusement —.£I6OO. ° What is your Christian name, Count ?" asked Cumberbatch, pausing with the pen in his hand.

" Edouard," said the other softly; " Edouard Jules de Marceau." "Otherwise tho Comte de Marceau," said ono of the others. De Marceau smiled. He did not notice that Jacques, who at that moment was removing some glasses, looked at him intently for an instant.

"You will give me my revenge tomorrow night ?" asked Cumberbatch, as he handed over the cheque. "Most willingly/' said the Count, smiling as he spoke.

# * + * Next morning a waiter knocked at the door of the Count's bedroom at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, and handed him a card bearing the name " George D. Cumberbatch." The Count had not yet arisen. " Ask him to wait, and I'll be down in half an hour," he said. "Cumberbatch —that's the man 1 won from last night," the Count said to himself. " I hope he's not going to ask me not to present his cheque for a few days. Looks rather like it, though. I thought he looked rather shaky as he signed it last night." With those unpleasant prognostications in his mind, tho Count hurried over his toilet and went downstairs. Calling up, however, a frank and cheerful smile as he opened tho door of his sitting-room, he held out his hand to welcome his visitor. But his hand dropped, his smile vanished. This was not the man he expected to see. This was a portly, rubicund, white-whiskered, bald-headed Englishman.

The Count knit his brows. " I expected to see Mr Cumberbatch," he said. "I am Mr Cumberbatch/' said the Englishman—" the father of the unhappyboy you met last night." The Comte do Marceau was all politeness, but he felt uneasy. Mr Cumberbatch would not take the chair the Count pressed him to take. He remained standing. " I have been told, sir," he said, abruptly, ignoring tho Count's title, " that you won a large sum of money from my son last night —as much as sixteen hundred pounds, I believe." " And what of that, sir ? Ho had an equal chance of winning. It might have been I who lost the money. I was at his club —not he at mine." The Count spoke rapidly—more warmly, perhaps, than the circumstances demanded. Mr Cumberbatch, with a wave of his hand, declined to discuss the subject. "I am aware, sir," he said, "of tho circumstances under which the money was lost. But that is not my errand here. You were paid, I believe, by a cheque for sixteen hundred pounds ?" " I was." " On the London and Provincial Bank ?" •< I believe so. Let me see—yes," said the Count, as he drew tho cheque from his pocket-book. " I will cash the cheque, sir, if you have no objaction. Or, rather, I will give you one of my own in exchange." The Count stared. «' You mean :"

"Never mind what I mean," said the Englishman, turning away to hide his emotion. Tho Frenchman smiled, and calmly replaced the slip of paper in his pocketbook. , " Thank you, I would rather keep it for tho present, I believe." " But don't you understand ? It is worthless," cried Mr Cumberbatch, turning sharply round. " Why so ? -Your son is a rich man. " " No, indeed ;*h© is indebted to me for every penny he spends. He has no account at the London and Provincial. That is my name—.* George D. Cumberbatch/ My son always signs himself 'George Cumberbatch/ ' D' is no part of his name at all/*

" The cheque is a forged one, then ?" said the Frenchman.

The Englishman was silent. "It is worthless to you," he said at last, ' I will give you one of my own in exchange for it." " For how much ?" " Sixteen hundred, of course. I supposo my poor foolish son lost the money." "It must bo more than that," said the Count, with an unpleasant smile. Mr Cumberbatch opened his eyes. " What do you mean ?" " I mean that I think Mr George Cumberbatch, or his friends, would pay a good deal more than that, rather than have this bit of paper put in the hands of a lawyer." Mr Cumberbatch appeared to be dumb with indignation. " You scoundrel!" he ejaculated at last. The Frenchman only smiled again. "Make it three thousand," he said, gently. " I won't! Do your worst! You sha'n't levy blackmail on me!" and he began walking up and down tho room. Tho Count turned to his breakfast with an appetite, and left his guest to take care of himself.

" I'll give you two thousand," said the Englishman gruffly. The Count shook his head.

"I am really very lenient," he said, placidly; " many would have asked a good deal more."

After some further resistance, Mr Cumberbatch consented to close with the Count's offer. He sat down at a side table, pulled out his cheque-book, and wrote a I cheque for .£3OOO. * } | " I must ask you to endorse this," he said, as he took the other cheque from the ] Frenchman's fingers. " I mean to keep it ■. hanging over my sun's head for some time | to come. No! I see it is payable to j bearer; it is not necessary." And the ! Englishman walked off, without deigning | to bid the Count " good morning." ; " Barbarous islanders!" muttered tho j Frenchman to himself, as ho resumed his . breakfast. I

Soon afterwards he set out for Goodwood, taking the precaution, however, of leaving Mr Cumberbatch's cheque in a sealed envelope with the manager, since, the cheque being crossed, he could not cash it before leaving town.

When he returned to town in the evening, De Marceau thought he would go and dine at tho Pantheon Club." "It will be amusing," ho said to himself, "to see how the young scamp will demean himself. He will never expect to see me there, for I daresay the old gentleman has give a it to him pretty hotly by this time, and told him I laid on an additional fourteen hundred. Ton my soul! I let that old boy off far too easily; but I always had a weakness for a father with an erring son." Thus soliloquising, the Count entered the Pantheon dining-room. H«a had hardly shown himself, when young Cumberbatch called out to him from one of the tables. " Hallo !" he said, " going to give me my re\ enge to-night I hope ?" " Doesn't the young rascal carry it off well? Evidently he has not seen his father," thought the Frenchman to himself, as he muttered some reply. During his dinner, he debated with himself whether, if fortune should favour him, he should become tho possessor of another forged cheque He thought he could if he chose. Reluctantly, however, he came to the conclusion that it was too risky. Tho first he had taken innocently; tho second he would take knowing it to bo forged. They sat down to play soon after ten, and when they rose, at three next morning, young Cumberbatch found he owed the Count fifty pounds. As on the preceding night, he rang for writing materials. The bell was answered not by Jacques, but by one of the other waiters.

" Haven't you .the money about you ?" said the Count, in a wonderfully good English accent, when tho man left the room. "No," returned Cumberbatch, shortly. He was annoyed, probably at the Frenchman's good fortune. " I'd rather have it in cash. The truth is, I don't fancy your cheques, my dear fellow,"

Cumberbatch ODly stared at the Frenchman, while two or three of the men, who were lighting fresh cigars, paused and looked on in some astonishment.

" No," continued the Count, with an insolent smile, " I've had an interview with —you understand?" " I don't know what you mean," said the youug man, turning white in spite of himself.

" Oh, nothing," rejoined the Count. " Only I saw your father this morning." " By Jovo ! then you have the advantage of most of us," cried Cumberbatch, recovering himself. "My poor father's been dead these five years." " Your father—dead! Why, he called on me, and " But the Count stopped in time. How was he to show the cheque he had received, and account for the strange addition of fourteen hundred pounds ? " You father—no—a strange mistake of mine another man altogether. • Very happy to take your cheque, I am sure, Monsieur Cumberbatch."

But tho young man was annoyed at the Frenchman's behaviour. He borrowed tho money from the club manager, and handed it to tho Count, who received it with a subdued expression very unusual with him. "By tho way, Murray, what has become of that fellow Jacques ?" asked one of the men, speaking to the manager. "Jacques Ponseau? He asked for a holiday early this morning." The Frenchman started violently. "Ponseau!" he exclaimed to himself. " I might have known the rascal. It was he, then, who put up that vagabond to rob me!" It was not until he was in the street that the unhappy Frenchman gave way to his rag**. He had the cheque for three thousand pounds presented for payment

but, of course, it was returned, marked "No account." Jacques Ponseau took a long holiday. He never retnrned to his duties at the Pantheon Club.— The Million,