VI

It was with the conviction that Penelope Noelson was the key to the mystery that Labar made his way back to town. The hint that she would be detained would scarcely have stirred Larry Hughes as it had, unless she was in the plot. True, Labar was not as certain as he might have wished. He had not been entirely candid with Larry Hughes. She had not been identified as changing the forged cheque, although Malone had that morning reported that so far as the cashier recollected it had been a woman who passed it over the counter. And according to the man he had left to keep observation upon her, she had not gone from Streetly House the previous night. If that was so she could not be the lady of the sandbag. There remained the episode of the hundred pound note⁠—the only definite thing that he could prove against her.