Chapter 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.