The treasurer of a Manchester charity reported that its red leather ledger had been stolen.

Cryer found the theft suspicious because the safe had not been forced.

The ledger was eventually recovered from a coal cellar, apparently ruined by damp. Yet several pages had been carefully removed.

Those pages contained the signatures authorising withdrawals.

Cryer compared the handwriting with old correspondence and discovered that the charity's secretary had created fictitious recipients for years.

The missing pages were meant to conceal the pattern.

They did not.

The secretary was arrested before he could leave the city.