Explore "The Lazy Detective" by George Dilnot on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was a blow to Labar that Malone's journey to Goodwood in company with the bank cashier should have been wasted. He had fully made up his mind that Mrs. Gertstein was the author of the forgery, and her identification would have been an important link in the evidence.
His view was based upon something more solid than the lady's misadventures with the bookmakers. The bogus cheque had been under much examination. A negative enlarged in the big magic lantern at Scotland Yard showed by the marks of the pen that the signature had most certainly been traced. That betrayed the amateur. No expert would have committed an imitation by such a method. The inspector had made diligent search for an original signature that would fit exactly over the forgery, which would have demonstrated the crime beyond all doubt, for no one ever writes his signature twice in precisely the same manner. He had failed in that, but he had managed to procure one or two letters of Mrs. Gertstein's written from "Maid's Retreat," and these, with the cheque, he had submitted to the scrutiny of a distinguished analyst who held a retainer from the Home Office.