“A capital system, too!” answered the secretary, seizing on a pamphlet and pushing it into his visitor’s hand.  “I don’t believe there’s better in England!  If you read that—­”

“I’ll take a look at it some time,” said Jettison, putting the pamphlet in his pocket.  “Well, now, I also understand that Collishaw was in the habit of bringing you a bit of saved money now and then a sort of saving fellow, wasn’t he?” Stebbing nodded assent and reached for a ledger which lay on the farther side of his desk.

“Collishaw,” he answered, “had been a member of our society ever since it started—­fourteen years ago.  And he’d been putting in savings for some eight or nine years.  Not much, you’ll understand.  Say, as an average, two to three pounds every half-year—­never more.  But, just before his death, or murder, or whatever you like to call it, he came in here one day with fifty pounds!  Fairly astounded me, sir!  Fifty pounds—­all in a lump!”

“It’s about that fifty pounds I want to know something,” said Jettison.  “He didn’t tell you how he’d come by it?  Wasn’t a legacy, for instance?”

“He didn’t say anything but that he’d had a bit of luck,” answered Stebbing.  “I asked no questions.  Legacy, now?—­no, he didn’t mention that.  Here it is,” he continued, turning over the pages of the ledger.  “There! 50 pounds.  You see the date—­that ’ud be two days before his death.”

Jettison glanced at the ledger and resumed his seat.

“Now, then, Mr. Stebbing, I want you to tell me something very definite,” he said.  “It’s not so long since this happened, so you’ll not have to tag your memory to any great extent.  In what form did Collishaw pay that fifty pounds to you?”

“That’s easy answered, sir,” said the secretary.  “It was in gold.  Fifty sovereigns—­he had ’em in a bit of a bag.”  Jettison reflected on this information for a moment or two.  Then he rose.

“Much obliged to you, Mr. Stebbing,” he said.  “That’s something worth knowing.  Now there’s something else you can tell me as long as I’m here—­though, to be sure, I could save you the trouble by using my own eyes.  How many banks are there in this little city of yours?”

“Three,” answered Stebbing promptly.  “Old Bank, in Monday Market; Popham & Hargreaves, in the Square; Wrychester Bank, in Spurriergate.  That’s the lot.”

“Much obliged,” said Jettison.  “And—­for the present—­not a word of what we’ve talked about.  You’ll be hearing more —­later.”

He went away, memorizing the names of the three banking establishments—­ten minutes later he was in the private parlour of the first, in serious conversation with its manager.  Here it was necessary to be more secret, and to insist on more secrecy than with the secretary of the Second Friendly, and to produce all his credentials and give all his reasons.  But Jettison drew that covert blank, and the next, too, and it was not until he had been closeted for some time with the authorities of the third bank that he got, the information he wanted.  And when he had got it, he impressed secrecy and silence on his informants in a fashion which showed them that however easy-going his manner might be, he knew his business as thoroughly as they knew theirs.