- 4-
Mr. Black examined the counterfoils which he had
brought with him and discovered that the counterfoils of
K
thirty cheques 6 239171 239200 were missing from the
end of the book which should have contained the 600
K
cheques Nos.6 238601
-
239200. He thereupon requested
the Bank to stop payment of any cheques which might be
presented bearing those numbers.
While Mr. Black was at the Bank, Mr. Dallin and Mr.
Maughan, of the Audit Department, arrived.
Mr. Proctor of the bank handed the cheques to Mr.
Dallin and asked what he though of them and Mr. Dallin
replied that on the face of them they looked like Treasury
cheques.
97
All the
bank
officials seen asserted that the signa-
tures were Mr. Messer's and when Mr. Hegarty asked Mr.
Black as to his signature Mr. Black replied, (according
to Mr. Dallin), "If I covered the writing I should say
it was my signature". Mr. Black (according to Mr. Dallin), suggested that he should return to the Treasury and see if
there were any vouchers for the amounts.
Eventually Mr. roctor returned with Mr. Dallin to
Mr. Messer's office and the cheques were shown to Mr.
Messer. According to Mr. Dallin, Mr. Messer said they
were not his signatures.
The conversation then turned to the question of how
blank cheques could get out of the Treasury, and the
counterfoils of earlier cheque books being produced it was
then found that the counterfoils of thirty cheques
K
6 236201 - 236800 were missing from the book which should
K
have contained series 6 236201 - 236800.
Mr. Tsang said that so far as he could remember, the
cheque books came short from the bank.