Thomas Chandler possessed a clear, retentive memory by nature, and he had done nothing to cloud it. After his master, Lawyer Paul—soon to be no longer his master, but his partner—had gone out with Mr. Preen to make inquiries at the post-office for the missing letter, he sat down to bring his memory into exercise.

Carrying his thoughts back to the Wednesday afternoon, some ten days ago, when the letter ought to have been delivered at Mr. Paul’s office, and was not—at least, so far as could be traced at present—he had little difficulty in recalling its chief events, one remembered incident leading up to another.

Then he passed into the front room, and spoke for some minutes with Michael Hanborough, a steady little man of middle age, who had been with Mr. Paul over twenty years. There was one clerk under him, Tite Batley (full name Titus), and there had been young Richard MacEveril. The disappearance of the latter had caused the office to be busy just now, Michael Hanborough especially so. He was in the room alone when Mr. Chandler entered.

“You have not gone to tea yet, Mr. Hanborough!”

“No, sir. I wanted to finish this deed, first. Batley’s gone to his.”

“Look here, Hanborough, I want to ask you a question or two. That deed’s in no particular hurry, for I am sure Mr. Paul will not be ready to send it off to-day,” continued Mr. Chandler. “There’s going to be a fuss over that letter of Preen’s, which appears to have been unaccountably lost. I have been carrying my thoughts back to the Wednesday afternoon when it ought to have been delivered here, and I want you to do the same. Try and recollect anything and everything you can, connected with that afternoon.”

“But, Mr. Chandler, the letter could not have been delivered here; Mr. Paul says so,” reasoned Michael Hanborough, turning from his desk while he spoke and leaning his elbow upon it.

His desk stood between the window and the door which opened from the passage; the window being at his right hand as he sat. Opposite, beside the other window, was Mr. Chandler’s desk. A larger desk, used by MacEveril and young Batley, crossed the lower end of the room, facing the window; and near it was the narrow door that opened to Mr. Paul’s room.

Thomas Chandler remained talking with Hanborough until he saw the lawyer and Mr. Preen return, when he joined them in the other room. They mentioned their failure at the post-office, and he then related to them what he had been able to recall.

Wednesday afternoon, the sixteenth of June, had been distinguished in Mr. Paul’s office by a little breeze raised by Richard MacEveril. Suddenly looking up from his writing, he disturbed Mr. Chandler, who was busy at his desk, by saying he expected to have holiday on the morrow for the whole day. Hanborough was just then in Mr. Paul’s room; Batley was out. Batley had been sent to execute a commission at a distance, and would not be back till evening.

“Oh, indeed!” responded Tom Chandler, laughing at MacEveril’s modest request, so modestly put. “What else would you like, Dick?”

Dick laughed too. “That will serve me for the present moment, Mr. Chandler,” said he.

“Well, Dick, I’m sorry to deny you, but you can’t have it. You have a conscience to ask it, young man, when you know the Worcester Sessions are close at hand, and we are so busy here we don’t know which way to turn!”

“I mean to take it,” said Dick.

“But I don’t mean you to; understand that. See here, Dick: I won’t be harder than I’m obliged; I should like to go to the pic-nic myself, though there’s no chance of that for me. Come here in good time in the morning, get through as much work as you can, and I daresay we can let you off at one o’clock. There!”

This concession did not satisfy MacEveril. When Mr. Hanborough came in from the other room he found the young man exercising his saucy tongue upon Tom Chandler, calling him a “Martinet,” a “Red Indian Freebooter,” and other agreeable names, which he may have brought with him from Australia. Tom, ever sweet-tempered, took it all pleasantly, and bade him go on with his work.

That interlude passed. At half-past four o’clock MacEveril went out, as usual, to get his tea, leaving Chandler and Hanborough in the office, each writing at his own desk. Presently the former paused; looked fixedly at the mortgage-deed he was engaged upon, and then got up to carry it to the old clerk. As he was crossing the room the postman came in, put a small pile of letters into Mr. Chandler’s hand, and went out again. Tom looked down at the letters but did not disturb them; he laid them down upon Mr. Hanborough’s desk whilst he showed him the parchment.

“I don’t much like this one clause, Hanborough,” he said. “Just read it; it’s very short. Would it be binding on the other party?”

They were both reading the clause, heads together, when Mr. Paul was heard speaking in haste. “Chandler! Tom Chandler! Come here directly”—and Tom turned and went at once.

“Is Hanborough there?” cried Mr. Paul.

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell him to come in also; no time to lose.”

Mr. Paul wanted them to witness his signature to a deed which had to go off by the evening post. That done, he detained them for a minute upon some other matter; after which, Hanborough left the room. Chandler turned to follow him.

“Bring the letters in as soon as they come,” said Mr. Paul. “There may be one from Burnaby.”

“Oh, they have come,” replied Tom; and he went into the other room and brought the letters to the lawyer.

It was this which Tom Chandler now related to his master and to Mr. Preen. By dint of exercising his own memory and referring to his day-book, Mr. Paul was enabled to say that the letters that past afternoon were four in number, and to state from whom they came. There was no letter amongst them from Mr. Preen; none at all from Duck Brook. So there it was: the letter seemed to have mysteriously vanished; either out of the post bag despatched by Mrs. Sym, or else after its arrival at Islip. The latter was of course the more probable; since, as Dame Sym had herself remarked, once a letter was shut up in the bag, there it must remain; it could not vanish from it.

But, assuming this to be the case, how and where had it vanished? From the Islip post-office? Or from the postman’s hands when carrying it out for delivery? Or from Mr. Paul’s front room?

They were yet speaking when Dale the postman walked in. He came to say that he had been exercising his mind upon the afternoons of the past week and could now distinguish Wednesday from the others. He recalled it by remembering that it was the afternoon of the accident in the street, when a tax-cart was overturned and the driver had broken his arm; and he could positively say that he had that afternoon delivered the letters to Mr. Chandler himself.

“Yes, yes, we remember all that ourselves, Dale,” returned Mr. Paul, somewhat testily. “The thing we want you to remember is, whether you observed amidst the letters one with a large red seal.”

Dale shook his head. “No, sir, I did not. The letters lay one upon another, address upwards, and I took no particular notice of them. There were four or five of them, I should think.”

“Four,” corrected the lawyer. “Well, that’s all, Dale, for the present. The letter is lost, and we must consider what to do in the matter.”

Yes, it was all very well to say that to Dale, but what could they do? How set about it? To begin with, Preen did not know the number of the note, but supposed he might get it from Mr. Todhetley. He stayed so long in discussion with the lawyer, that his son, waiting in the gig outside, grew tired and the horse impatient.

Oliver was almost ready to die of weariness, when an acquaintance of his came out of the Bell. Fred Scott; a dashing young fellow, who had more money than brains.

“Get up,” said Oliver. And Scott got into the gig.

They were driving slowly about and talking fast, when two young ladies came into view at the end of the street. Oliver threw the reins to his friend, got out in a trice and met them. No need to say that one of them was Emma Paul.

“I beg your pardon,” said Oliver to her, lifting his hat from his suddenly flushed face, as he shook hands with both of them. “I left two books at your house yesterday: did you get them? The servant said you were out.”

“Oh, yes, I had them; and I thank you very much,” answered Emma, with a charming smile: whilst Mary MacEveril went away to feast her eyes at the milliner’s window. “I have begun one of them already.”

“Jane said you would like to read them; and so—I—I left them,” returned Oliver, with the hesitating shyness of true love.

“It is very kind of you, Sir. Oliver, to bring them over, and I am sorry I was not at home,” said Emma. “When are you and Jane coming to see me?”

With her dimpled face all smiles, her blue eyes beaming upon him, her ready handshake still tingling in his pulses, her cordial tones telling of pleasure, how could that fascinated young man do otherwise than believe in her? The world might talk of her love for Tom Chandler: he did not and would not believe it held a grain of truth. Oh, if he could but know that she loved him! Mary MacEveril turned.

“Emma, are you not coming? We have that silk to match, you know.”

With another handshake, another sweet smile, she went away with Mary. Oliver said adieu, his heart on his lips. All his weariness was gone, lost in a flood of sunshine.

Mr. Preen was seen, coming along. Scott got out of the gig, and Oliver got into it. Preen took his seat and the reins, and drove off.

Mr. Paul went home to dinner at the usual hour that evening, but the clerks remained beyond the time for closing. Work had been hindered, and had to be done. Batley was the first to leave; the other two lingered behind, talking of the loss.

“It is the most surprising thing that has happened for a long while,” remarked Hanborough. He had locked his desk and had his hat and gloves at his elbow. “That letter has been stolen, Mr. Chandler; it has not been accidentally lost.”

“Ay,” assented Tom. “Stolen—I fear—from here. From this very room that you and I are standing in, Hanborough.”

“My suspicions, sir, were directed to the Islip post-office.”

“I wish mine were,” said Tom. “I don’t think—think, mind, for we cannot be sure—that the post-office is the right quarter to look to. You see the letters were left here on your desk, while we were occupied with Mr. Paul in his room. About two minutes, I suppose, we stayed with him; perhaps three. Did anyone come in during that time, Hanborough, and take the letter?”

Mr. Hanborough drew off his spectacles, which he wore out of doors as well as in; he was sure to take them off when anything disturbed him.

“But who would do such a thing?” he asked.

Tom laughed a little. “You wouldn’t, old friend, and I wouldn’t; but there may be people in the neighbourhood who would.”

Doubts were presenting themselves to Michael Hanborough’s mind: he did not “see” this, as the saying runs. “Why should anyone single out that one particular letter to take, and leave the rest?” he resumed.

“That point puzzles me,” remarked Tom. “If the letter was singled out, as you put it, from the rest, I should say the thief must have known it contained money: and who could, or did, know that? I wish I had carried the letters in with me when Mr. Paul called to me!”

“If the letters had been left alone for a whole day in our office, I should never have supposed they were not safe,” said the clerk, impulsively. “But, now that my attention has been drawn to this, I must mention something, Mr. Chandler.”

“Yes. Go on.”

“When the master called me in after you, I followed you in through that door,” he began, pointing to the door of communication between the two rooms. “But I left it by the other, the passage door, chancing to be nearest to it at the moment. As I went out, I saw the green baize door swinging, and supposed that someone had come in; MacEveril, perhaps, from his tea. But he had not done so. I found neither him nor anyone else; the room here was vacant as when I left it.”

The green baize door stood in the passage, between the street door, always open in the daytime, and the door that led into the front office.

“Seeing no one here, I concluded I was mistaken; and I have never thought of it from that hour to this,” continued the clerk. “No, not even when it came out that a letter had been lost with a bank-note in it.”

Tom nodded his head several times, as much as to say that was when the thief must have come in. “And now, Hanborough, I’ll tell you something in turn,” he went on. “Dale put the letters into my hand that afternoon, as you know; and I laid them on your desk here while showing you that clause in the mortgage deed. Later, when I took up the letters to carry them to Mr. Paul, an idea struck me that the packet felt thinner. It did indeed. I of course supposed it to be only fancy, and let it slip from my mind. I have never thought of it since—as you say by the green door—until this afternoon.”

Michael Hanborough, who had put his spectacles on again, turned them upon his young master, and dropped his voice to a whisper.

“Who is it that—that we may suspect, sir?”

“Say yourself, Hanborough.”

“I’m afraid to say. Is it—MacEveril?”

“It looks like it,” replied Tom, in the same low tone. “But while there are reasons for suspecting him, there are also reasons against it,” he added, after a pause. “MacEveril was in debt, petty little odds and ends of things which he owes about the place and elsewhere; that’s one reason why money would be useful to him. Then his running away looks suspicious; and another reason is that there’s positively no one else to suspect. All that seems to tell against him; but on the other hand, MacEveril, though random and heedless, is a gentleman and has a gentleman’s instincts, and I do not think he would be guilty of such a thing.”

“Well, and I can’t think it, either,” said Michael Hanborough; “despite his faults and his saucy tongue, I liked him. He did not come in again that afternoon till half-past five, I remember. I told him he was late; he answered, laughing, that he had dropped asleep over his tea—though I didn’t believe a word of it.”

“If MacEveril really took the letter, how had he ascertained that it contained money?” mused Tom Chandler. “Hanborough, at present I think this suspicion had better lie entirely between ourselves.”

“Yes, Mr. Chandler, and so do I. Perhaps a few days may bring forth something to confirm or dispel it.”

II

Preen was a great deal too anxious and restless to let the following day pass over quietly; and on that Sunday afternoon when we were all sitting in the garden at Crabb Cot, under the scent and shade of the large syringa trees, he walked in. His little dark face looked darker than ever, the scowl of pain on his brow deeper.

“No, I can’t take anything,” he said, in answer to the Squire’s hospitable offers of having wine, or ale, or lemonade brought out. “Thirsty? Yes, I am thirsty, Squire, but it is with worry, not with the walk. Wine and lemonade won’t relieve that.”

And, sitting down to face us, in a swinging American chair, which Tod had brought out for his own benefit, Gervais Preen surprised us with the history of his mysterious loss, and inquired whether the Squire could give him the number of the note.

“Yes, I can,” replied the Squire; “my name is on the note also; you made me write it, you know. How on earth has it got lost?”

“It is just one of those things there’s no accounting for,” said Preen, bending forward in his earnestness. “The letter left Duck Brook in safety; I posted it myself, and Mrs. Sym took notice of it when she shut it up in the bag. That is as far as it can be traced. The Islip post-office, though not remembering it in particular, have no doubt it reached them, as it could not have been lost from the bag, or that they sent it out for delivery to Mr. Paul by Dale, who is cautious and trustworthy. Paul declares it never reached him; and of course he is trustworthy. Dale says, and it is a fact, that he delivered the letters that afternoon into Mr. Chandler’s own hands. One cannot see where to look for a weak point, you perceive, Todhetley.”

The Squire was rubbing his face, the account having put it into a white heat. “Bless my heart!” cried he. “It reminds me of that five-pound note of mine which was changed in the post for a stolen one! You remember that, Johnny.”

“Yes, sir, that I do.”

“Wednesday, the sixteenth, was the day it ought to have reached old Paul!” exclaimed Tod, who was balancing himself on the branch of a tree. “Why, that was the day before the pic-nic!”

“And what if it was?” retorted Preen, enraged that everybody should bring up that pic-nic in conjunction with his loss. “The pic-nic had nothing to do with my bank-note and letter.”

“Clearly not,” agreed Tod, laughing at his ire.

“I should advertise, Preen,” said the Squire, “and I should call in the detectives. They——”

“I don’t like detectives,” growled Preen, interrupting him, “and I think advertising might do more harm than good. I must get my money back somehow; I can’t afford to lose it. But as to those detectives—— Mercy upon us!”

In the ardour of declamation, Mr. Preen had bent a little too forward. The chair backed from under him, and he came down upon the grass, hands and knees. Tod choked with laughter, and dashed off to get rid of it. The man gathered himself up.

“Nasty tilting things, those chairs are!” he exclaimed. “Please don’t trouble, ma’am,” for Mrs. Todhetley had sprung forward; “there’s no harm done. And if you don’t mind giving me the number of the note to-day, Squire, I shall be much obliged.”

He declined to stay for tea, saying he wanted to get back home. When he and the Squire went indoors, we talked of the loss; Mrs. Todhetley thought it strangely unaccountable.

As the days went on, and the bank-note did not turn up, Mr. Preen fell into the depths of gloom. He had lost no time in proceeding to the Old Bank, at Worcester—from whence Mr. Todhetley had drawn the note, in conjunction with other notes—recounting to its principals the history of its loss, and giving in its number, together with the information that Mr. Todhetley’s name was written on it. The bank promised to make inquiries of other banks, and to detain the note should it be paid in.

“As if that were likely!” groaned Preen. “A rogue filching a note would not go and pay it into the place it came from.”

Thomas Chandler was gazetted the partner of Mr. Paul, the firm to be known henceforth as Paul and Chandler. In the first private conference that the young man held with his partner, he imparted to him the suspicions which he and Hanborough held of Dick MacEveril. For as that erratic gentleman continued to absent himself, and the time was going on without bringing a shadow of doubt upon anyone else, the new partner felt that in duty he must speak to his chief and elder. Old Paul was overwhelmed.

“What a dreadful thing!” he exclaimed testily. “And why couldn’t you or Hanborough mention this before?”

“Well,” said Tom, “for one thing I was always expecting something might crop up to decide it one way or another; and, to tell the truth, sir, I cannot bring myself to believe that MacEveril did it.”

“He is a villainous young dog for impudence, but—to do such a thing as that? No, I can hardly think it, either,” concluded the lawyer.

That same evening, after his dinner, Mr. Paul betook himself to Oak Mansion, to an interview with his old friend, Captain MacEveril. Not to accuse that scapegrace nephew of the Captain’s to his face, but to gather a hint or two about him, if any might be gathered.

The very first mention of Dick’s name set the old sailor off. His right foot was showing symptoms of gout just then; between that and Dick he had no temper at all. Calming down presently, he called his man to produce tobacco and grog. They sat at the open window, smoking a pipe apiece, the glasses on a stand between them, and the lame foot upon a stool. For the expost-captain made a boast that he did not give in to that enemy of his any more than he had ever given in to an enemy at a sea-fight. The welcome evening breeze blew in upon them through the open bow window, with the sweet-scent of the July roses; and the sky was gorgeous with the red sunset.

“Where is Dick, you ask,” exploded the Captain. “How should I know where he is? Hang him! When he has taken his fill of London shows with that Australian companion of his, he’ll make his way back again here, I reckon. Write? Not he. He knows he’d get a letter back from me, Paul, if he did.”

Leading up to it by degrees, talking of this and that, and especially of the mysterious loss of Preen’s note, the lawyer spoke doubtingly of whether it could have been lost out of his own office, and, if so, who had taken it. “That young rascal would not do such a thing, you know, MacEveril,” he carelessly remarked.

“What, Dick? No, no, he’d not do that,” said the Captain, promptly. “Though I’ve known young fellows venture upon queer things when they were hard up for money. Dick’s honest to the backbone. Had he wanted money to travel with, he’d have wormed it out of my wife by teasing, but he wouldn’t steal it.”

“About that time, a day or so before it, he drew out the linings of his pockets as he sat at his desk, and laughingly assured Hanborough, that he had not a coin of ready money in the world,” remarked Mr. Paul.

“Like enough,” assented the Captain. “Coin never stays in his pockets.”

“I wonder where he found the money to travel with?”

“Pledged his watch and chain maybe,” returned the Captain with composure. “He would be quite equal to that. Stockleigh, the fellow he is with in London, had brought home heaps of gold, ’twas said; he no doubt stands treat for Dick.”

John Paul did not, could not, say anything more definite. He thought of nothing else as he walked home; now saying to himself that Dick had stolen the money, now veering over to the Captain’s opinion that Dick was incapable of doing so. The uncertainty bothered him, and he hated to be bothered.

The man to whom the money was owing, Robert Derrick, was becoming very troublesome. Hardly a day passed but he marched into Mr. Paul’s office, to press for payment, threatening to take steps if he did not get it shortly. The morning following the lawyer’s visit to Captain MacEveril, he went in again, vowing it was for the last time, for that he should cite Mr. Preen before the County Court.

“And mark you this,” he added to Hanborough, with whom the colloquy was taking place, “some past matters will come out that Preen wants kept in. He’ll wish he had paid me, then.”

Now, old Paul overheard this, for the door was partly open. Rugged in look, and in manner too when he chose to be, he was not rugged at heart. He was saying to himself that if this money had really been lost out of his office, stolen possibly by one of his clerks, he might replace it from his own pocket, to ward off further damage to Preen. Preen had not at present a second ten-pound note to give, could not find one anyway; Preen wished he could. Ten pounds would not affect the lawyer’s pocket at all: and his resolution was taken. Ringing his bell, which was answered by Batley, he bade him show Derrick to his room.

The man came in with a subdued face. He supposed he had been overheard, and he did not care to offend Mr. Paul.

“I cannot have you coming here to disturb my clerks, Derrick,” said the lawyer, with authority. “If you write out a receipt, I will pay you.”

“And sure enough that’s all I want, sir,” returned Derrick, who was Irish. “But I can’t let the thing go on longer—and it’s Preen I’d like to disturb, Lawyer Paul, not you.”

“Sit down yonder and write the receipt,” said the lawyer, shortly. “You know how to word it.”

So Derrick wrote the receipt and went off with the ten pounds. And Gervais Preen said a few words of real thanks to Mr. Paul in a low tone, when he heard of it.

On Tuesday morning, the thirteenth of July, exactly four weeks to the day since the bank-note left Mr. Preen’s hands, he had news of it. The Old Bank at Worcester wrote to him to say that the missing note had been paid in the previous day, Monday, by a well-known firm of linen-drapers in High Street. Upon which the bank made inquiry of this firm as to whence they received the note, and the answer, readily given, was that they had had it from a neighbour opposite—the silversmith. The silversmith, questioned in his turn, replied with equal readiness that it had been given him in payment of a purchase by young Mr. Todhetley.

Preen, hardly believing his eyes, went off with all speed to Islip, and laid the letter before Lawyer Paul.

“What does it all mean?” he asked. “How can young Todhetley have had the note in his possession? I am going on to Crabb Cot to show the Squire the letter.”

“Stop, stop,” said the far-seeing lawyer, “it won’t do to take this letter to Todhetley. Let us consider, first of all, how we stand. There must be some mistake. The bank and the silversmith have muddled matters between them; they may have put young Todhetley’s name into it through seeing his father’s on the bank-note. I will write at once to Worcester and get it privately inquired into. You had better leave it altogether in my hands, Preen, for the present.” A proposal Preen was glad to agree to.

Lawyer Paul wrote to another lawyer in Worcester with whom he was on friendly terms, Mr. Corles; stating the particulars of the case. That gentleman lost no time in the matter; he made the inquiries himself, and speedily wrote back to Islip.

There had been no mistake, as Mr. Paul had surmised. The linen-drapers, a long-established and respectable firm, as Paul knew, had paid the note into the Old Bank, with other monies, in the ordinary course of business; and the firm repeated to Mr. Corles that they had received it from their neighbour, the silversmith.

The silversmith himself was from home at this time; he was staying at Malvern for his health, going to Worcester on the market days only, Saturdays and Wednesdays, when the shop expected to be busy. He had one shopman only, a Mr. Stephenson, who took charge in his master’s absence. Stephenson assured Mr. Corles that he had most positively taken the note from Squire Todhetley’s son. Young Mr. Todhetley had gone into the shop, purchased some trifling article, giving the note in payment, and received the change in gold. Upon referring to his day-book, Stephenson found that the purchase was made and the note paid to him during the morning of Thursday, the seventeenth of June.

When this communication from Mr. Corles reached Islip, it very much astonished old Paul. “Absurd!” he exclaimed, flinging it upon his table when he had read it; then he took it up and read it again.

“Here, Chandler,” said he, calling his new partner to him, “what do you make of this?”

Tom Chandler read it twice over in his turn. “If Joseph Todhetley did change the note,” he observed, “he must have done it as a practical joke, and be keeping up the joke.”

“It is hardly likely,” returned Mr. Paul. “If he has, he will have a bad quarter of an hour when the Squire hears of it.”

On this same morning, Thursday, we were preparing for Worcester; the Squire was going to drive us in—that is, myself and Tod. The phaeton was actually being brought round to the gate and we were getting our hats, when Tom Chandler walked in, saying he had come upon a little matter of business.

“No time to attend to it now, Tom,” said the Squire, all in a bustle; “just starting for Worcester. You look hot.”

“I am hot, for I came along at a trotting pace,” said Tom; “the matter I have come upon makes me hot also. Mr. Todhetley, I must explain it, short as your time may be; it is very important, and—and peculiar. Mr. Paul charged me to say that he would have come himself, but he is obliged to stay at home to keep an appointment.”

“Sit down, then,” said the Squire, “and make it as brief as you can. Johnny, lad, tell Giles to drive the horses slowly about.”

When I got back, after telling Giles, Tom Chandler had two letters in his hand; and was apologising to the Squire and to Tod for what he was obliged to enter upon. Then he added, in a few words, that the lost bank-note had come to light; it had been changed at Worcester, at the silversmith’s in High Street, by, it was asserted, young Mr. Todhetley.

“Why, what d’ye mean?” cried the Squire sharply.

To explain what he meant, Tom Chandler read aloud the two letters he held; the short one, which had been first addressed to Mr. Preen by the Old Bank, and then the longer one written by Mr. Corles.

“Edward Corles must be a fool to write that!” exclaimed the Squire in his hot fashion.

“Well, he is not that, you know,” said Tom Chandler. “The question is, Squire, what the grounds can be upon which they so positively state it. According to their assertion, young Mr. Todhetley changed the note at the silversmith’s on the morning of Thursday, the seventeenth of June.”

“Young Mr. Todhetley” in a general way was just as hot as his father, apt to fly out for nothing. I expected to see him do so now. Instead of which, he had a broad smile on his face, evidently regarding the accusation as a jest. He had perched himself on the arm of the sofa, and sat there grinning.

This struck Tom Chandler. “Did you do it for a joke?” he asked promptly.

“Do what?” rejoined Tod.

“Change the note.”

“Not I.”

“The only conclusion Mr. Paul and I could come to was, that—if you had done it—you did it to play a practical joke upon Preen, and were keeping it up still.”

The Squire struck his hand in anger upon the table by which he sat.

“What is the meaning of this, Joe? A practical joke? Did you do the thing, or didn’t you? Speak out seriously. Don’t sit there, grinning like a Chinese image.”

“Why of course I did not do it, father. How should Preen’s bank-note get into my hands? Perhaps Johnny there got it and did it. He is sometimes honoured by being put down as your son, you know.”

He was jesting still. The Squire was not in a mood for jesting; Tom Chandler either. A thought struck me.

“Did you say the note was changed on Thursday, the seventeenth of June?” I asked him.

“They say so,” answered Tom Chandler.

“Then that was the day of the picnic at Mrs. Cramp’s. Neither I nor Tod left the house at all until we went there.”

“Why bless me, so it was! the seventeenth,” cried the Squire. “I can prove that they were at home till four o’clock: the Beeles were spending the day here from Pigeon Green. Now, Chandler, how has this false report arisen?”

“I am as much at sea as you can be, sir,” said Tom Chandler. “Neither I nor Paul can, or do, believe it—or understand why the other people stick to it so positively. You are going into Worcester, Squire; make your own inquiries.”

“That I will,” said the Squire. “You had better drive in with us, Chandler, if you can. Giles can stay at home.”

It was thus decided, and we started for Worcester, Chandler sitting beside the Squire. And the way the Squire touched up Bob and Blister, and the pace we flew along at, was a sight for the road to see.

III

Thursday morning, the seventeenth of June—for we have to go back to that day. High Street was basking in the rays of the hot sun; foot passengers, meeting each other on the scorching pavement, lifted their hats for a moment’s air, and said what a day it was going to be. The clean, bright shops faced each other from opposite sides. None of their wares looked more attractive than those displayed in the two windows of the silversmith.

Mr. Stephenson—a trustworthy, civil little man of thirty, with a plain face and sandy hair that stood upright on his head—was keeping guard over his master’s goods, some of them being very valuable. The shop was a long one and he was far down in it, behind the left-hand counter. Before him lay a tray of small articles of jewellery, some of which he was touching up with a piece of wash-leather. He did not expect to be busy that day; the previous day, Wednesday, had been a busy one, so many country people came into town for the market.

While thus engaged a gentleman, young, good looking, and well dressed, entered the shop. Mr. Stephenson went forward.

“I have called for Mrs. Todhetley’s brooch,” said the stranger. “Is it ready?”

“What brooch, sir?” returned Stephenson.

“The one she left with you to be mended.”

The shopman felt a little puzzled. He said he did not remember that any brooch had been left by that lady to be mended.

“Mrs. Todhetley of Crabb Cot,” explained the applicant, perhaps thinking the man was at fault that way.

“Oh, yes, sir, I know who you mean; I know Mrs. Todhetley. But she has not left any brooch here.”

“Yes, she has; she left it to be mended. I was to call to-day and ask for it.”

Stephenson turned to reach the book in which articles left to be mended were entered, with their owners’ names. Perhaps his master might have taken in the brooch and omitted to tell him. But no such entry was recorded in it.

“I am afraid it is a mistake, sir,” he said. “Had Mrs. Todhetley left a brooch, or anything else, for repair, it would be entered here. She may have taken it to some other shop.”

“No, no; it is yours I was to call at. She bought it here a few months ago,” added the young man. “She came in to ask you about the polishing-up of an old silver cake-basket, and you showed her the brooches, some you had just had down from London, and she bought one of them and gave four guineas for it.”

Stephenson remembered the transaction perfectly. He had stood by while his principal showed and sold the brooch to Mrs. Todhetley. Four only of these brooches had been sent to them on approval by their London agent, they were something quite new. Mrs. Todhetley admired them greatly; said she wanted to make a wedding present to a young lady about to be married, but had not meant to give as much as four guineas. However, the beauty of the brooch tempted her; she bought it, and took it home.

Stephenson’s silence, while he was recalling this to his memory, caused the gentleman to think his word was doubted, and he entered into further particulars.

“It was last March, I think,” he said. “The brooch is a rather large one; a white cornelian stone, or something of that sort, with a raised spray of flowers upon it, pink and gold; the whole surrounded by a border of gold filagree work. I never saw a nicer brooch.”

“Yes, yes, sir, it was just as you say; I recollect it all quite well. Mrs. Todhetley bought it to give away as a wedding present.”

“And the wedding never came off,” said the young man, with ease. “Before she had time to despatch the brooch, news came to her of the rupture.—So she had to keep it herself: and the best thing too, the Squire said. Well, it is that brooch I have come for.”

“But I assure you it has not been left with us, Mr. Todhetley,” said Stephenson, presuming he was speaking to the Squire’s son.

“The little pink flower got broken off last week as Mrs. Todhetley was undoing her shawl; she brought it in at once to be mended,” persisted the young man.

“But not here indeed, sir,” reiterated Stephenson. “I’m sorry to hear it is broken.”

“She wouldn’t take it anywhere but to the place it was bought at, would she? I’m sure it was here I had to come for it.”

Stephenson felt all abroad. He did not think it likely the brooch would be taken elsewhere, and began to wonder whether his master had taken it in, and forgotten all about it. Opening a shallow drawer or two in the counter, in one of which articles for repair were put, in the other the repaired articles when finished, he searched both, but could not see the brooch. This took him some little time, as most of the things were in paper and he had to undo it.

Meanwhile the applicant amused himself by looking at the articles displayed under the glass frame on the counter. He seemed to be rather struck with some very pretty pencils.

“Are those pencils gold?” he inquired of Stephenson, when the latter came forward with the news that the brooch was certainly not in the shop.

“No, sir; they are silver gilt.”

Lifting the glass lid, Stephenson took out the tray on which the pencils and other things lay, and put it right under the young man’s nose, in the persuasive manner peculiar to shopmen. The pencils were chased richly enough for gold, and had each a handsome stone at the end, which might or might not be real.

“What is the price?”

“Twelve shillings each, sir. We bought them a bargain; from a bankrupt’s stock in fact; and can afford to sell them as such.”

“I should like to take this one, I think,” said the young man, choosing out one with a pink topaz. “Wait a bit, though: I must see if I’ve enough change to pay for it.”

“Oh, sir, don’t trouble about that; we will put it down to you.”

“No, no, that won’t do. One, two, four, six. Six shillings; all I have in the world,” he added laughing, as he counted the coin in his porte-monnaie, “and that I want. You can change me a ten-pound note, perhaps?”

“Yes, sir, if you wish it.”

The purchaser extracted the note from a secret pocket of his porte-monnaie, and handed it to the shopman.

“The Squire’s name is on it,” he remarked.

Which caused Stephenson to look at the back. Sure enough, there it was—“J. Todhetley,” in the Squire’s own handwriting.

“Give me gold, if you can.”

Stephenson handed over nine pounds in gold and eight shillings in silver. He then wrapped the pencil in soft white paper, and handed over that.

Wishing the civil shopman good morning, the young man left. He stood outside the door for a minute, looking about him, and then walked briskly up the street. While Stephenson locked up the ten-pound note in the cash-box.

There it lay, snug and safe, for two or three weeks. One day Stephenson, finding he had not enough change for a customer who came in to pay a bill, ran over to the draper’s opposite and got change for it there. These were the particulars which Stephenson had furnished, and furnished readily, upon inquiries being made of him.

Squire Todhetley drove like the wind, and we soon reached Worcester, alighting as usual at the Star-and-Garter. The Squire’s commotion had been growing all the way; that goes without telling. He wanted to take the bank first; Tom Chandler recommended that it should be the silversmith’s.

“The bank comes first in the way,” snapped the Squire.

“I know that, sir; but we can soon come back to it when we have heard what the others say.”

Yet I think he would have gone into the bank head-foremost, as we passed it, but chance had it that we met Corles, the lawyer, at the top of Broad Street. Turning quickly into High Street, on his way from his office, he came right upon us. The Squire pinned him by the button-hole.

“The very man I wanted to see,” cried he. “And now you’ll be good enough to tell me, Edward Corles, what you meant by that rigmarole you wrote to Paul yesterday about my son.”

“I cannot tell what was meant, Squire, any more than you can; I only wrote in accordance with my information,” said Mr. Corles, shaking hands with the rest of us. “You have done well to come over; and I will accompany you now, if you like, to see Stephenson.”

The Squire put his arm within the younger man’s, and marched on down High Street to the silversmith’s, never so much as looking at the bank door. Stephenson was in the shop alone: such a lot of us, it seemed, turning in!

The Squire, hot and impulsive, attacked him as he had attacked Edward Corles. What did Stephenson mean by making that infamous accusation about his son?

It took Stephenson aback, as might be seen; his eyes opened and his hair stood on end straighter than ever. Looking from one to the other of us, he last looked at Mr. Corles, as if seeking an explanation.

“The best thing you can do, to begin with, Stephenson, is to relate to Squire Todhetley and these gentlemen the particulars you gave me yesterday morning,” said Mr. Corles. “I mean when you took the bank-note, a month ago.”

Without more ado, Stephenson quietly followed the advice; he seemed of as calm a temperament as the Squire was the contrary, and recited the particulars just given. The Squire’s will was good to interrupt at every second word, but Mr. Corles begged him to listen to the end.

“Oh, that’s all very well,” cried he at last, “all true, I dare say; what I want to know is, how you came to pitch upon that customer as being my son.”

“But he was your son, sir. He was young Mr. Todhetley.”

“Nonsense!” retorted the Squire. “Was this he?” drawing Tod forward.

“No, sir; certainly not.”

“Well, this is my only son; except a little who is not yet much more than out of his petticoats. Come! what do you say now?”

Stephenson looked again at one and the other of us. His pale face took a sort of thoughtful haze as if he had passed into a fog.

“It must have been young Mr. Todhetley,” spoke he; “everything seemed to uphold the fact.”

“Now don’t you turn obstinate and uphold what is not the fact,” reproved the Squire. “When I tell you this is my only son, except the child, how dare you dispute my word?”

It should be stated that Stephenson had been with the silversmith since the beginning of the year only, and had come from Birmingham. He knew Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley by sight, from their coming sometimes to the shop, but he had never yet seen Tod or me.

“I don’t suppose you want Squire Todhetley’s word confirmed, Stephenson, but I can do so if necessary,” said Mr. Corles. “This is his only grown-up son.”

“No, no, sir, of course I don’t,” said Stephenson. “This gentleman,” looking at Tod, “does not bear any resemblance to the one who changed the note.”

“What was he like?” said Tom Chandler, speaking for the first time; and he asked it because his thoughts were full.

“He was fair, sir,” replied Stephenson.

“What height?”

“About middle height. A young, slender man.”

“Well dressed? Spoke like a gentleman?”

“Oh, quite like a gentleman, and very well dressed indeed.”

“Just as MacEveril was that morning, on the strength of getting to the picnic,” ran through Tom Chandler’s thoughts. “Did he come off here first, I wonder?”

“He seemed to know all about you, sir, just as though he lived at your house,” said Stephenson to the Squire; “and Mrs. Todhetley sent him for her brooch that day. Perhaps you may know, sir, who it was she sent?”

“Sent! why, nobody,” spluttered the Squire. “It must have been a planned thing. The brooch is not broken.”

“He said the little pink flower had got broken off, and that Mrs. Todhetley did it with her shawl,” persisted Stephenson, unable to stare away his perplexity. And I think we were all feeling perplexed too.

“He knew what the brooch cost, and that it was bought for a wedding present, and that Mrs. Todhetley kept the brooch for herself because the wedding did not come off,” went on Stephenson. “How could I suppose, sir, it was anybody but your own son? Why once I called him ‘Mr. Todhetley;’ I remember it quite well; and he did not tell me I was mistaken. Rely upon it, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, Squire Todhetley, that it is some young gentleman who is intimate at your house and familiar with all its ways.”

“Hang him for a young rogue!” retorted the Squire.

“And your own name was on the note, sir, which he bade me notice, and all! And—and I don’t see how it was possible to help falling into the mistake that he came from you,” concluded Stephenson, with a slightly injured accent.

Upon which the Squire, having had time to take in the bearings of the matter, veered round altogether to the same opinion, and said so, and shook hands with Stephenson when we departed.

Tom Chandler let us go on, remaining behind for a minute or two. He wanted to put quietly a few questions about the appearance of the young man who had changed the note. He also examined the silver-gilt pencils, finally buying one which was precisely similar, stone and all, to the one which had been sold that other morning.

Stephenson answered the questions to the best of his ability and recollection. And Tom Chandler found that while on some points the description would have served very well for that of Richard MacEveril, on other points it did not seem to fit in with it at all.