When money is lost out of an office, suspicion very frequently falls upon one or more of that office’s employés. Mr. Galloway’s doubts, however, had not yet extended to those employed in his. The letter containing the bank-note had been despatched to Mr. Robert Galloway, at Ventnor, on the Friday. On the Sunday morning, while Mr. Galloway was at breakfast, a short answer was delivered to him from his cousin:—“Your letter has reached me, but not the note; you must have omitted to enclose it,” was the news it contained relative to that particular point. Mr. Galloway knew that he had enclosed the note; there was little doubt that both his clerks could testify that he had done so, for it was done in their presence. How could it have been taken out again? Had it been abstracted while the letter was still in his office?—or on its way to the post?—or in its transmission to Ventnor? “If in the office,” argued Mr. Galloway, “it must have been done before I sealed it; if afterwards, that seal must have been tampered with, probably broken. I’ll drop a note to Robert, and ask the question.” He rose from his breakfast and penned a line to Southampton, where, as he had reason to believe, Mr. Robert Galloway would be on the Monday. It was not Mr. Galloway’s habit to write letters on a Sunday, but he considered that the present occasion justified the act. “I certainly enclosed the note in my letter,” he wrote. “Send me word instantly whether the seal had been tampered with. I stamped it with my private seal.” Mr. Robert Galloway received this on the Monday morning. He did not wait for the post, but forwarded the reply by telegraph—“The seal had not been broken. Will send you back the envelope by first post.” This was the despatch which you saw Mr. Galloway receive in his office.

He went back into his private room, carrying the despatch with him, and there he sat down to think. From the very first, he had not believed the fraud to lie with the post-office—for this reason: had the note been taken out by one of its servants, the letter would almost certainly not have reached its destination; it would have disappeared with the note. He had cast a doubt upon whether Arthur Channing had posted the letters himself. Arthur assured him that he had done so, and Mr. Galloway believed him; the information that the seal of the letter was unbroken was now a further confirmation, had he needed it. At least, it confirmed that the letter had not been opened after it left the office. Mr. Galloway perfectly remembered fastening down the letter. He probably would have sealed it then, but for the commotion that arose at the same moment in the street caused by Mad Nance. There could be no shadow of doubt, so far as Mr. Galloway could see, and so far as he believed, that the abstraction had taken place between the time of his fastening down the envelope and of his sealing it. Who had done it?

“I’ll lay a guinea I know how it happened!” he exclaimed to himself. “Channing was at college—I must have given him permission in a soft moment to take that organ, or I should never have done it, quitting the office daily!—and, Yorke, in his indolent carelessness, must have got gossiping outside, leaving, it is hard to say who, in the office! This comes of poor Jenkins’s fall!”

Mr. Galloway rang his bell. It was answered by Jenkins. “Send Mr. Arthur Channing in,” said Mr. Galloway.

Arthur entered, in obedience. Mr. Galloway signed to him to close the door, and then spoke.

“This is an awkward business, Channing.”

“Very awkward, indeed, sir,” replied Arthur, at no loss to understand what Mr. Galloway alluded to. “I do not see that it was possible for the note to have been taken from the letter, except in its transmission through the post.”

“I tell you it was taken from it before it left this office,” tartly returned Mr. Galloway. “I have my reasons for the assertion. Did you see me put the bank-note into the letter?”

“Of course I did, sir. I was standing by when you did it: I remained by you after bringing you the note from this room.”

“I enclosed the note, and fastened down the envelope,” said Mr. Galloway, pointing the feather of his quill pen at each proposition. “I did not seal it then, because looking at Mad Nance hindered me, and I went out, leaving the letter on Jenkins’s desk, in your charge and Yorke’s.”

“Yes, sir. I placed the letter in the rack in your room, immediately afterwards.”

“And, pray, what loose acquaintances did you and Yorke receive here that afternoon?”

“Not any,” replied Arthur. “I do not know when the office has been so free from callers. No person whatever entered it, except my brother Hamish.”

“That’s all nonsense,” said Mr. Galloway. “You are getting to speak as incautiously as Yorke. How can you tell who came here when you were at college? Yorke would be alone, then.”

“No, Yorke was not,” Arthur was beginning. But he stopped suddenly and hesitated. He did not care to tell Mr. Galloway that Yorke had played truant all that afternoon. Mr. Galloway saw his hesitation, and did not like it.

“Come, what have you to conceal? You and Yorke held a levee here, I suppose? That’s the fact. You had so many fellows in here, gossiping, that you don’t know who may have meddled with the letter; and when you were off to college, they stayed on with Yorke.”

“No, sir. For one thing, I did not take the organ that afternoon. I went, as usual, but Mr. Williams was there himself, so I came back at once. I was only away about ten minutes.”

“And how many did you find with Yorke?”

“Yorke stepped out to speak to some one just before I went to college,” replied Arthur, obliged to allude to it, but determined to say as little as possible. “Hamish was here, sir; you met him coming in as you were going out, and I got him to stay in the office till I returned.”

“Pretty doings!” retorted Mr. Galloway. “Hindering the time of Mr. Hamish Channing, that you and Yorke may kick up your heels elsewhere! Nice trustworthy clerks, both of you!”

“I was obliged to go to college, sir,” said Arthur, in a tone of deprecation.

“Was Yorke obliged to go out?”

“I was back again very shortly, I assure you, sir,” said Arthur, passing over the remark. “And I did not leave the office again until you sent me to the post.”

“Stop!” said Mr. Galloway; “let me clearly understand. As I went out, Hamish came in. Then, you say, Yorke went out; and you, to get to college, left Hamish keeping office! Did any one else come in besides Hamish?”

“Not any one. When I returned from college I inquired of Hamish who had called, and he said no one had called. Then Lady Augusta Yorke drove up, and Hamish went away with her. She was going to the missionary meeting.”

“And you persist in saying that no one came in, after that?”

“No one did come in, sir.”

“Very well. Send Yorke to me.”

Roland made his appearance, a pen behind his ear, and a ruler in his hand.

“More show than work!” sarcastically exclaimed Mr. Galloway. “Now, sir, I have been questioning Mr. Arthur Channing about this unpleasant business, for I am determined to come to the bottom of it. I can get nothing satisfactory from him; so I must try what I can do with you. Have the goodness to tell me how you spent your time on Friday afternoon.”

“On Friday?—let’s see,” began Roland, out of his wits with perplexity as to how he should conceal his afternoon’s absence from Mr. Galloway. “It’s difficult to recollect what one does on one particular day more than another, sir.”

“Oh, indeed! Perhaps, to begin with, you can remember the circumstances of my enclosing the bank-note in the letter, I went into the other room to consult a ‘Bradshaw’—”

“I remember that quite well, sir,” interrupted Roland. “Channing fetched the bank-note from this room, and you put it into the envelope. It was just before we were all called to the window by Mad Nance.”

“After that?” pursued Mr. Galloway.

“After that? I think, sir, you went out after that, and Hamish Channing came in.”

“Who else came in?”

“I don’t remember any one else,” answered Roland, wishing some one would come in then, and stop the questioning. No such luck, however.

“How many people called in, while Channing was at college, and you were keeping office?” demanded Mr. Galloway.

Roland fidgeted, first on one leg, then on the other. He felt that it must all come out. “What a passion he’ll go into with me!” thought Roland. &ldquo............