II.

The sun shone brightly on Foregate Street, but did not yet touch the

front-windows on Lawyer Cockermuth's side of it. Miss Betty Cockermuth

sat near one of them in the parlour, spectacles on nose, and hard at

work unpicking the braid off some very old woollen curtains, green once,

but now faded to a sort of dingy brown. It was Wednesday morning, the

day following the wonderful event of finding the box, lost so long, full

of its golden guineas. In truth nobody thought of it as anything less

than marvellous.

The house-cleaning, in preparation for Easter and Easter's visitors, was

in full flow to-day, and would be for more than a week to come; the two

maids were hard at it above. Ward, who did not disdain to labour with

his own hands, was at the house, busy at some mysterious business in the

brewhouse, coat off, shirt-sleeves stripped up to elbow, plunging at

that moment something or other into the boiling water of the furnace.

"How I could have let them remain up so long in this state, I can't

think," said Miss Betty to herself, arresting her employment, scissors

in hand, to regard the dreary curtains. She had drawn the table towards

her from the middle of the room, and the heavy work was upon it. Susan

came in to impart some domestic news.

"Ward says there's a rare talk in the town about the finding of that

box, missis," cried she, when she had concluded it. "My! how bad them

curtains look, now they're down!"

Servants were on more familiar terms with their mistresses in those days

without meaning, or showing, any disrespect; identifying themselves, as

it were, with the family and its interests. Susan, a plump, red-cheeked

young woman turned thirty, had been housemaid in her present place for

seven years. She had promised a baker's head man to marry him, but never

could be got to fix the day. In winter she'd say to him, "Wait till

summer;" and when summer came, she'd say, "Wait till winter." Miss Betty

commended her prudence.

"Yes," said she now, in answer to the girl, "I've been wondering how we

could have kept them up so long; they are not fit for much, I'm afraid,

save the ragbag. Chintz will make the room look much nicer."

As Susan left the parlour, Captain Cockermuth entered it, a farmer with

him who had come in from Hallow to the Wednesday's market. The captain's

delighted excitement at the finding of the box had not at all subsided;

he had dreamt of it, he talked of it, he pinned every acquaintance he

could pick up this morning and brought him in to see the box of gold.

Independently of its being a very great satisfaction to have had the old

mysterious loss cleared up, the sixty guineas would be a huge boon to

the captain's pocket.

"But how was it that none of you ever found it, if it remained all this

while in the pigeon-hole?" cried the wondering farmer, bending over the

little round box of guineas, which the captain placed upon the table

open, the lid by its side.

"Well, we didn't find it, that's all I know; or poor Philip, either,"

said Captain Cockermuth.

The farmer took his departure. As the captain was showing him to the

front-door, another gentleman came hustling in. It was Thomas Chance the

lawyer, father of the young man who had been the previous night with

Samson Dene. He and Lawyer Cockermuth were engaged together just then in

some complicated, private, and very disagreeable business, each acting

for a separate client, who were the defendants against a great wrong--or

what they thought was one.

"Come in, Chance, and take a look at my box of guineas, resuscitated

from the grave," cried the captain, joyously. "You can go into the

office to John afterwards."

"Well, I've hardly time this morning," answered Mr. Chance, turning,

though, into the parlour and shaking hands with Miss Betty. "Austin told

me it was found."

Now it happened that Lawyer Cockermuth came then into the parlour

himself, to get something from his private desk-table which stood there.

When the box had been discussed, Mr. Chance took a letter from his

pocket and placed it in his brother practitioner's hands.

"What do you think of that?" he asked. "I got it by post this morning."

"Think! why, that it is of vital importance," said Mr. Cockermuth when

he had read it.

"Yes; no doubt of that. But what is to be our next move in answer to

it?" asked the other.

Seeing they were plunging into business, the captain strolled away to

the front-door, which stood open all day, for the convenience of those

coming to the office, and remained there whistling, his hands in his

pockets, on the look out for somebody else to bring in. He had put the

lid on the box of guineas, and left the box on the table.

"I should like to take a copy of this letter," said Mr. Cockermuth to

the other lawyer.

"Well, you can take it," answered Chance. "Mind who does it,

though--Parslet, or somebody else that's confidential. Don't let it go

into the office."

"You are wanted, sir," said Mr. Dene, from the door.

"Who is it?" asked his master.

"Mr. Chamberlain. He says he is in a hurry."

"I'm coming. Here, Dene!" he called out as the latter was turning away:

and young Dene came back again.

"Sit down here, now, and take a copy of this letter," cried the lawyer,

rapidly drawing out and opening the little writing-desk table that stood

against the wall at the back of the room. "Here's pen, ink and paper,

all ready: the letter is confidential, you perceive."

He went out of the room as he spoke, Mr. Chance with him; and Sam Dene

sat down to commence his task, after exchanging a few words with Miss

Betty, with whom he was on good terms.

"Charles makes as much fuss over this little box as if it were filled

with diamonds from Golconda, instead of guineas," remarked she, pointing

with her scissors to the box, which stood near her on the table, to

direct the young man's attention to it. "I don't know how many folks he

has not brought in already to have a look at it."

"Well, it was a capital find, Miss Betty; one to be proud of," answered

Sam, settling to his work.

For some little time nothing was heard but the scratching of Mr. Dene's

pen and the clicking of Miss Betty's scissors. Her task was nearing

completion. A few minutes more, and the last click was given, the

last bit of the braid was off. "And I'm glad of it," cried she aloud,

flinging the end of the curtain on the top of the rest.

"This braid will do again for something or other," considered Miss

Betty, as she began to wind it upon an old book. "It was put on fresh

only three or four years ago. Well brushed, it will look almost like

new."

Again Susan opened the door. "Miss Betty, here's the man come with the

chintz: five or six rolls of it for you to choose from," cried she.

"Shall he come in here?"

Miss Betty was about to say Yes, but stopped and said No, instead. The

commotion of holding up the chintzes to the light, to judge of their

different merits, might disturb Mr. Dene; and she knew better than to

interrupt business.

"Let him take them to the room where they are to hang, Susan; we can

judge best there."

Tossing the braid to Susan, who stood waiting at the door, Miss Betty

hastily took up her curtains, and Susan held the door open for her

mistress to pass through.

Choosing chintz for window-curtains takes some time; as everybody knows

whose fancy is erratic. And how long Miss Betty and Susan and the young

man from the chintz-mart had been doubting and deciding and doubting

again, did not quite appear, when Captain Cockermuth's voice was heard

ascending from below.

"Betty! Are you upstairs, Betty?"

"Yes, I'm here," she called back, crossing to the door to speak. "Do you

want me, Charles?"

"Where have you put the box?"

"What box?"

"The box of guineas."

"It is on the table."

"It is not on the table. I can't see it anywhere."

"It was on the table when I left the parlour. I did not touch it. Ask

Mr. Dene where it is: I left him there."

"Mr. Dene's not here. I wish you'd come down."

"Very well; I'll come in a minute or two," concluded Miss Betty, going

back to the chintzes.

"Why, I saw that box on the table as I shut the door after you had come

out, ma'am," observed Susan, who had listened to the colloquy.

"So did I," said Miss Betty; "it was the very last thing my eyes fell

on. If young Mr. Dene finished what he was about and left the parlour,

I dare say he put the box up somewhere for safety. I think, Susan, we

must fix upon this light pea-green with the rosebuds running up it. It

matches the paper: and the light coming through it takes quite a nice

shade."

A little more indecision yet; and yet a little more, as to whether

the curtains should be lined, or not, and then Miss Cockermuth went

downstairs. The captain was pacing the passage to and fro impatiently.

"Now then, Betty, where's my box?"

"But how am I to know where the box is, Charles, if it's not on the

table?" she remonstrated, turning into the parlour, where two friends

of the captain's waited to be regaled with the sight of the recovered

treasure. "I had to go upstairs with the young man who brought the

chintzes; and I left the box here"--indicating the exact spot on the

table. "It was where you left it yourself. I did not touch it at all."

She shook hands with the visitors. Captain Cockermuth looked gloomy--as

if he were at sea and had lost his reckoning.

"If you had to leave the room, why didn't you put the box up?" asked he.

"A boxful of guineas shouldn't be left alone in an empty room."

"But Mr. Dene was in the room; he sat at the desk there, copying a

letter for John. As to why didn't I put the box up, it was not my place

to do so that I know of. You were about yourself, Charles--only at the

front-door, I suppose."

Captain Cockermuth was aware that he had not been entirely at the

front-door. Two or three times he had crossed over to hold a chat with

acquaintances on the other side the way; had strolled with one of

them nearly up to Salt Lane and back. Upon catching hold of these two

gentlemen, now brought in, he had found the parlour empty of occupants

and the box not to be seen.

"Well, this is a nice thing--that a man can't put his hand upon his own

property when he wants to, or hear where it is!" grumbled he. "And what

business on earth had Dene to meddle with the box?"

"To put it in safety--if he did meddle with it, and a sensible thing to

do," retorted Miss Betty, who did not like to be scolded unjustly. "Just

like you, Charles, making a fuss over nothing! Why don't you go and ask

young Dene where it is?"

"Young Dene is not in. And John's not in. Nobody is in but Parslet; and

he does not know anything about it. I must say, Betty, you manage the

house nicely!" concluded the captain ironically, giving way to his

temper.

This was, perhaps the reader may think, commotion enough "over nothing,"

as Miss Betty put it. But it was not much as compared with the commotion

which set in later. When Mr. Cockermuth came in, he denied all knowledge

of it, and Sam Dene was impatiently waited for.

It was past two o'clock when he returned, for he had been home to

dinner. The good-looking young fellow turned in at the front-door with a

fleet step, and encountered Captain Cockermuth, who attacked him hotly,

demanding what he had done with the box.

"Ah," said Sam, lightly and coolly, "Parslet said you were looking for

it." Mr. Parslet had in fact mentioned it at home over his dinner.

"Well, where is it?" said the captain. "Where did you put it?"

"I?" cried young Dene. "Not anywhere. Should I be likely to touch the

box, sir? I saw the box on that table while I was copying a letter for

Mr. Cockermuth; that's all I know of it."

The captain turned red, and pale, and red again. "Do you mean to tell me

to my face, Mr. Dene, that the box is _gone_?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Sam in the easiest of all easy tones. "It

seems to be gone."

The box was gone. Gone once more with all its golden guineas. It could

not be found anywhere; in the house or out of the house, upstairs or

down. The captain searched frantically, the others helped him, but no

trace of it could be found.

At first it was impossible to believe it. That this self-same box should

mysteriously have vanished a second time, seemed to be too marvellous

for fact. But it was true.

Nobody would admit a share in the responsibility. The captain left

the box safe amidst (as he put it) a roomful of people: Miss Betty

considered that she left it equally safe, with Mr. Dene seated at the

writing-table, and the captain dodging (as _she_ put it) in and out. Mr.

Cockermuth had not entered the parlour since he left it, when called to

Mr. Chamberlain, with whom he had gone out. Sam Dene reiterated that he

had not meddled with the box; no, nor thought about it.

Sam's account, briefly given, was this. After finishing copying the

letter, he closed the little table-desk and pushed it back to its place

against the wall, and had carried the letter and the copy into the

office. Finding Mr. Cockermuth was not there, he locked them up in his

own desk, having to go to the Guildhall upon some business. The business

there took up some time, in fact until past one o'clock, and he then

went home to dinner.

"And did you consider it right, Sam Dene, to leave a valuable box like

that on the table, unguarded?" demanded Captain Cockermuth, as they all

stood together in the parlour, after questioning Sam; and the captain

had been looking so fierce and speaking so sharply that it might be

thought he was taking Sam for the thief, off-hand.

"To tell the truth, captain, I never thought of the box," answered Sam.

"I might not have noticed that the box was in the room at all but for

Miss Betty's drawing my attention to it. After that, I grew so much

interested in the letter I was copying (for I know all about the cause,

as Mr. Cockermuth is aware, and it was curious news) that I forgot

everything else."

Lawyer Cockermuth nodded to confirm this. The captain went on.

"Betty drew your attention to it, did she? Why did she draw it? In what

way?"

"Well, she remarked that you made as much fuss over that box as if it

were filled with diamonds," replied the young man, glad to pay out the

captain for his angry and dictatorial tone. But the captain was in truth

beginning to entertain a very ominous suspicion.

"Do you wish to deny, Samson Dene, that my sister Betty left that box on

the table when she quitted the room?"

"Why, who does?" cried Sam. "When Miss Betty says she left the box on

the table, of course she did leave it. She must know. Susan, it seems,

also saw that it was left there."

"And you could see that box of guineas standing stark staring on the

table, and come out of the room and leave it to its fate!" foamed the

captain. "Instead of giving me a call to say nobody was on guard here!"

"I didn't see it," returned Sam. "There's no doubt it was there, but I

did not see it. I never looked towards the table as I came out, that I

know of. The table, as I dare say you remember, was not in its usual

place; it was up there by the window. The box had gone clean out of my

thoughts."

"Well, Mr. Dene, my impression is that _you have got the box_," cried

the angry captain.

"Oh, is it!" returned Sam, with supreme good humour, and just the least

suspicion of a laugh. "A box like that would be uncommonly useful to

me."

"I expect, young man, the guineas would!"

"Right you are, captain."

But Captain Cockermuth regarded this mocking pleasantry as particularly

ill-timed. _He believed the young man was putting it on to divert

suspicion from himself._

"Who did take the box?" questioned he. "Tell me that."

"I wish I could, sir."

"How could the box vanish off the table unless it was taken, I ask you?"

"That's a puzzling question," coolly rejoined Sam. "It was too heavy for

the rats, I expect."

"Oh dear, but we have no rats in the house," cried Miss Betty. "I wish

we had, I'm sure--and could find the box in their holes." She was

feeling tolerably uncomfortable. Placid and easy in a general way,

serious worry always upset her considerably.

Captain Cockermuth's suspicions were becoming certainties. The previous

night, when his brother had been telling him various items of news of

the old town, as they sat confidentially over the fire after Miss Betty

had gone up to bed, Mr. Cockermuth chanced to mention the fact that

young Dene had been making a few debts. Not speaking in any ill-natured

spirit, quite the contrary, for he liked the young man amazingly. Only

a few, he continued; thoughtless young men would do so; and he had given

him a lecture. And then he laughingly added the information that Mr.

Jacobson had imparted to him twelve months ago, in their mutual

friendship--of the debts Sam had made in London.

No sensible person can be surprised that Charles Cockermuth recalled

this now. It rankled in his mind. Had Sam Dene taken the box of guineas

to satisfy these debts contracted during the past year at Worcester? It

looked like it. And the longer the captain dwelt on it, the more and

more likely it grew to look.

All the afternoon the search was kept up by the captain. Not an

individual article in the parlour but was turned inside out; he wanted

to have the carpet up. His brother and Sam Dene had returned to their

work in the office as usual. The captain was getting to feel like a

raging bear; three times Miss Betty had to stop him in a dreadful fit of

swearing; and when dinner-time came he could not eat. It was a beautiful

slice of Severn salmon, which had its price, I can tell you, in

Worcester then, and minced veal, and a jam tart, all of which dishes

Charles Cockermuth especially favoured. But the loss of the sixty

guineas did away with his appetite. Mr. Cockermuth, who took the loss

very coolly, laughed at him.

The laughing did not mend the captain's temper: neither did the hearing

that Sam Dene had departed for home as usual at five o'clock. Had Sam

been innocent, he would at least have come to the parlour and inquired

whether the box was found, instead of sneaking off home to tea.

Fretting and fuming, raging and stamping, disturbing the parlour's peace

and his own, strode Charles Cockermuth. His good-humoured brother John

bore it for an hour or two, and then told him he might as well go

outside and stamp on the pavement for a bit.

"I will," said Charles. Catching up his hat, saying nothing to anybody,

he strode off to see the sergeant of police--Dutton--and laid the case

concisely before him: The box of guineas was on the table where his

sister sat at work; her work being at one end, the box at the other. Sam

Dene was also in the room, copying a letter at the writing-table. Miss

Betty was called upstairs; she went, leaving the box on the table. It

was the last thing she saw as she left the room; the servant, who had

come to call her, also saw it standing there. Presently young Dene also

left the room and the house; and from that moment the box was never

seen.

"What do you make of that, Mr. Dutton?" summed up Captain Cockermuth.

"Am I to understand that no other person entered the room after Mr. Dene

quitted it?" inquired the sergeant.

"Not a soul. I can testify to that myself."

"Then it looks as though Mr. Dene must have taken the box."

"Just so," assented the complainant, triumphantly. "And I shall give him

into custody for stealing it."

Mr. Dutton considered. His judgment was cool; the captain's hot. He

thought there might be ins and outs in this affair that had not yet

come to the surface. Besides that, he knew young Dene, and did not much

fancy him the sort of individual likely to do a thing of this kind.

"Captain Cockermuth," said he, "I think it might be best for me to

come up to the house and see a bit into the matter personally, before

proceeding to extreme measures. We experienced officers have a way of

turning up scraps of evidence that other people would never look at.

Perhaps, after all, the box is only mislaid."

"But I tell you it's _lost_," said the captain. "Clean gone. Can't be

found high or low."

"Well, if that same black box is lost again, I can only say it is the

oddest case I ever heard of. One would think the box had a demon inside

it."

"No, sergeant, you are wrong there. The demon's inside him that took it.

Listen while I whisper something in your ear--that young Dene is over

head and ears in debt: he has debts here, debts there, debts everywhere.

For some little time now, as I chance to know, he has been at his very

wits' end to think where or how he could pick up some money to satisfy

the most pressing; fit to die of fear, lest they should travel to the

knowledge of his uncle at Elm Farm."

"_Is_ it so?" exclaimed Mr. Dutton, severely. And his face changed, and

his opinion also. "Are you sure of this, sir?"

"Well, my informant was my brother; so you may judge whether it is

likely to be correct or not," said the captain. "But, if you think it

best to make some inquiries at the house, come with me now and do so."

They walked to Foregate together. The sergeant looked a little at the

features of the parlour, where the loss had taken place, and heard what

Miss Betty had to say, and questioned Susan. This did not help the

suspicion thrown on Sam Dene, saving in one point--their joint testimony

that he and the box were left alone in the room together.

Mr. Cockermuth had gone out, so the sergeant did not see him: but, as he

was not within doors when the loss occurred, he could not have aided the

investigation in any way.

"Well, Dutton, what do you think now?" asked Captain Cockermuth,

strolling down the street with the sergeant when he departed.

"I confess my visit has not helped me much," said Dutton, a

slow-speaking man, given to be cautious. "If nobody entered the room

between the time when Miss Cockermuth left it and you entered it, why

then, sir, there's only young Dene to fall back upon."

"I tell you nobody did enter it," cried the choleric captain; "or

_could_, without my seeing them. I stood at the front-door. Ward was

busy at the house that morning, dodging perpetually across the top of

the passage, between the kitchen and brewhouse: he, too, is sure no

stranger could have come in without being seen by him."

"Did you see young Dene leave the room, sir?"

"I did. Hearing somebody come out of the parlour, I looked round and saw

it was young Dene with some papers in his hand. He went into the office

for a minute or two, and then passed me, remarking, with all the

impudence in life, that he was going to the town hall. He must have had

my box in his pocket then."

"A pity but you had gone into the parlour at once, captain," remarked

the sergeant. "If only to put the box in safety--provided it was there."

"But I thought it was safe. I thought my sister was there. I did go in

almost directly."

"And you never stirred from the door--from first to last?"

"I don't say that. When I first stood there I strolled about a little,

talking with one person and another. _But I did not stir from the door

after I saw Sam Dene leave the parlour._ And I do not think five minutes

elapsed before I went in. Not more than five, I am quite certain. What

are you thinking about, Dutton?--you don't seem to take me."

"I take you well enough, sir, and all you say. But what is puzzling me

in the matter is this; strikes me as strange, in fact: that Mr. Dene

should do the thing (allowing that he has done it) in so open and

barefaced a manner, laying himself open to immediate suspicion. Left

alone in the room with the box by Miss Betty, he must know that if,

when he left it, the box vanished with him, only one inference would be

drawn. Most thieves exercise some caution."

"Not when they are as hard up as Dene is. Impudence with them is the

order of the day, and often carries luck with it. Nothing risk, nothing

win, they cry, and they _do_ risk--and win. Dene has got my box,

sergeant."

"Well, sir, it looks dark against him; almost _too_ dark; and if you

decide to give him into custody, of course we have only to----

Good-evening, Badger!"

They had strolled as far as the Cross, and were standing on the wide

pavement in front of St. Nicholas' Church, about to part, when that

respectable gentleman, Jonas Badger, passed by. A thought struck the

captain. He knew the man was a money-lender in a private way.

"Here, Badger, stop a minute," he hastily cried. "I want to ask you a

question about young Dene--my brother's clerk, you know. Does he owe you

money?--Much?"

Mr. Badger, wary by nature and by habit, glanced first at the questioner

and then at the police-sergeant, and did not answer. Whereupon Captain

Cockermuth, as an excuse for his curiosity, plunged into the history of

what had occurred: the finding of the box of guineas yesterday and the

losing it again to-day, and the doubt of Sam.

Mr. Badger listened with interest; for the news of that marvellous find

had not yet reached his ears. He had been shut up in his office all the

morning, very busy over his account-books; and in the afternoon had

walked over to Kempsey, where he had a client or two, getting back only

in time for tea.

"That long-lost box of guineas come to light at last!" he exclaimed.

"What an extraordinary thing! And Mr. Dene is suspected of---- Why, good

gracious!" he broke off in fresh astonishment, "I have just seen him

with a guinea in his pocket!"

"Seen a guinea in Sam Dene's pocket!" cried Captain Cockermuth, turning

yellow as the gas-flame under which they were standing.

"Why yes, I have. It was----"

But there Mr. Badger came to a full stop. It had suddenly struck him

that he might be doing harm to Sam Dene; and the rule of his life was

not to harm any one, or to make an enemy, if his own interest allowed

him to avoid it.

"I won't say any more, Captain Cockermuth. It is no business of mine."

But here Mr. Sergeant Dutton came to the fore. "You must, Badger. You

must say all you know that bears upon the affair; the law demands it of

you. What about the guinea?"

"Well, if you force me to do so--putting it in that way," returned the

man, driven into a corner.

Mr. Badger had just been down to Edgar Street to pay another visit to

Sam. Not to torment him; he did not do that more than he could help; but

simply to say he would accept smaller instalments for the liquidation of

his debt--which of course meant giving to Sam a longer time to pay the

whole in. This evening he was admitted to Sam's sitting-room. During

their short conversation, Sam, searching impatiently for a pencil in his

waistcoat-pocket, drew out with it a few coins in silver money, and one

coin in gold. Mr. Badger's hungry eyes saw that it was an old guinea.

These particulars he now imparted.

"What did he _say_ about the guinea?" cried Captain Cockermuth, his own

eyes glaring.

"Not a word," said Badger; "neither did I. He slipped it back into his

pocket."

"I hope you think there's some proof to go upon _now_," were Charles

Cockermuth's last words to the police-officer as he wished him

good-night.

On the following morning, Sam Dene was apprehended, and taken before the

magistrates. Beyond being formally charged, very little was done; Miss

Betty was in bed with a sick headache, brought on by the worry, and

could not appear to give evidence; so he was remanded on bail until

Saturday.