Johnny Ludlow, Second Series. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ much chance of our going home to-night at this rate. Ring, one of you, for some paper and envelopes.”

      Separating one of the notes from the roll Mr. Isaac had handed to him, he gave it to me to put up. I asked him if I should take down the number.

      “I don’t think it matters, Johnny.”

      But I took it down, perhaps through some unconscious instinct—for I don’t suppose I am more cautious than other people. In my pocket was a letter from Anna Whitney: and I pencilled on it the number of the note.

      “Write inside the envelope ‘Not home till to-morrow,’ ” growled the Squire, forgetting that it could not be there till the morning. But he was in an ill-humour.

      I wrote it at his bidding, enclosed the bank-note, and addressed the letter to Mrs. Todhetley at Crabb Cot. Tod and I went out to post it, and began laying plans as to how we should spend the evening at Worcester.

      The post-office is not far from the Star, as everybody knows: and though we met a fellow who used to go to school with us, a doctor’s son, and stayed talking with him, not ten minutes elapsed before we were back again. And behold in that short time there was a change in the programme. Old Prothero had been in, the bargain about the wheat was concluded, and the Squire intended to start for home as soon as dinner was over. Tod resented the change.

      “Johnny and I were going to that advertised séance—or whatever they call the thing—on electro-biology, sir. It will be first-rate fun, they say.”

      “Very sorry for you and Johnny. You’ll have to go home instead. Prothero has bought the wheat: and that’s all I should have had to stay here for.”

      “At his own price!” cried Tod, rather mockingly.

      “No, Mr. Joe; at mine.”

      “Well, it’s an awful sell for us,” grumbled Tod. “It’s not so often we get a night at Worcester, that we should be done out of this chance.”

      “The fact is, I don’t feel well,” said the Squire, “and should most likely have gone home, whether Prothero had come in or not. I’m afraid I have caught cold, Joe.”

      There was not any more to be said. The Squire’s colds were no joke: once he caught one, he would be downright ill; laid up for days. We went back by rail to Timberdale, and took a fly home.

      The next morning the Squire did not get up. Sure enough he had a cold, and was feverish. At breakfast Mrs. Todhetley said one of us should go over to South Crabb and ask Mr. Cole to call and see him.

      “Why, the pater hates doctors!” exclaimed Tod.

      “I know he does,” she answered. “But I feel sure that if he would only take remedies for his colds in time, they would not be so bad as they usually are, Joseph. Who’s that?” she added—for she was seated where she could not see out, and had heard the gate click.

      It was the postman: so I opened the glass doors.

      “Only one, sir,” said he, handing me the letter we had posted at Worcester the previous afternoon.

      Mrs. Todhetley laughed as she opened it, saying it would have come sooner had we brought it with us. Looking to see that the bank-note was safe, she left it in the envelope on the breakfast-table.

      “You may as well get it changed for me at Salmon’s,” she said, handing it to Tod as we were going out, “and then I need not disturb your father. But you must make haste back, for you know I want the money.”

      She had no money in the house except a few shillings: and this was why the note was to be posted to her if we stayed at Worcester. You are often run short of money in rural country places: it’s quite different from town, where the banks are at hand.

      We went through North Crabb, and met the doctor coming out at his door. Tod told him the Squire wanted some physicking.

      “Caught a cold, has he?” cried Cole. “If he will only be reasonable and keep himself warm in bed, we’ll soon have that out of him.”

      Cole lived close upon South Crabb—I think I’ve said so before. A few yards beyond his house the shops began. Salmon’s was the fifth from the corner: a double shop, grocer’s and draper’s. The savings’ bank was at Salmon’s, and the post-office: he was the busiest tradesman in South Crabb, rather conceited over it, but very intelligent. His brother was in business at Timberdale. This is what occurred.

      “Will you be good enough to change this five-pound note for me, Mr. Salmon?” said Tod, laying the note down on the grocer’s counter, on the left of the door, behind which Salmon stood, his grey hair carefully brushed and a white apron on.

      Salmon took the note up for a moment, and then unlocked the inner drawer of his till, where he kept his gold. He was counting out the five sovereigns when he paused; put them down, and picked up the note again quickly. I had seen his eyes fall on it.

      “Where did you get this note from, sir?” asked he of Tod.

      “From the Old Bank at Worcester.”

      “Well, it’s one of them notes that was lost in the robbery at Tewkesbury, unless I’m much mistaken,” cried Salmon, beginning to turn over the leaves of a small account-book that he fetched from the post-office desk. “Ay, I thought I was right,” he adds, running his finger across some figures on one of the pages. “I had the numbers correct enough in my head.”

      “You must be out of your mind, Salmon,” retorted Tod, in his defiant way. “That note was paid to my father yesterday at Worcester Old Bank.”

      “I don’t think it was, sir.”

      “You don’t think it was! Why, I was present. I saw Mr. Isaac count the notes out himself. Ten; and that was one of them.”

      “Mr. Isaac never counted out this note,” persisted Salmon.

      He smoothed it out on the counter as he spoke. I had not noticed it before: but it struck me now as I looked at it that it was not the note I had put into the envelope at Worcester. That was a new, crisp note; this was not crisp, and it looked a little soiled. Tod turned passionate over it: he was just like the Squire in some things.

      “I don’t understand your behaviour, Salmon. I can swear that this note was one given with the other nine at the bank yesterday, and given by Mr. Isaac.”

      Salmon shook his head. As much as to say he knew to the contrary.

      “You’d better accuse Mr. Isaac of dealing in stolen notes—or me,” cried hot Tod.

      “You’d neither of you be likely to deal in them, Mr. Todhetley. There’s a mistake somewhere. That’s what it is. Mr. Isaac would be too glad to get this note into his possession to pay it away again. No people are more severe against money-robberies than bankers.”

      Salmon talked, and Tod talked; but they could not agree. The apprentice behind the counter on the drapery side listened with admiration, evidently not knowing which side to take. I spoke then, saying that the note did not appear to be the same as the one I had enclosed in the letter; and Tod looked as though he could have knocked me down for saying it. I had СКАЧАТЬ