Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/98

 calm my nerves—for I was nervous, foolish as it sounds. One cannot sit night after night in a damp, dark kitchen, without getting nervous! By degrees the day broke fully, and I went up-stairs to do the house work before my brother got up. For I was the only servant we had; we could not afford even a share in the drudge kept for the house. When I went up-stairs I found the door of our sitting-room open—just ajar—as if it had been pulled to and not shut. I went in. James was still asleep behind the screen. I could hear his breathing, poor fellow!—such a fast and heavy sleeper as he was! I looked round the room with a kind of dread, as if I expected to see something terrible; on the table, where the hanaper had stood last night, lay the velvet-lined oaken case—open and empty. The precious deposit which the rich City merchant had left, not without some half-insulting words of caution, and which he was coming to reclaim to-day, was gone.

I called my brother hurriedly, and he woke up.

"James!" I said, "what has become of the hanaper?"

"The hanaper? what? what do you mean?" he answered.

"It is not here, James; it has been taken out of the case—it has gone."

"Gone! nonsense!" he said. "Why, who could have taken it, Rose?"

I did not speak—I could not. It was so clear, and yet so dreadful.

"Call Ashley," said James, his thoughts turning instinctively to the man he loved and trusted most.

All this time James had been dressing hastily behind the screen, and now he came out into the room. Just as he did so, the street-door opened by a latch-key, and Ashley came up the stairs and straight into our sitting-room. His coat was wet—it was raining heavily—and he carried the latch-key in his hand.

"Here, old fellow," he said to James, quietly; "here is your latch-key. I took it with me, as I went out so early."

"Ashley!" said James, in his scared way.

"Hey! what's the matter?" cried the other.

"The hanaper!" was all my brother could say.

"What about it, man?"

"It is gone!"

"By Jupiter! you don't say so," said Ashley, turning pale.

"I can swear it was here last night," said Jamie, excitedly, "Rose herself put it away in the case."

"Yes, I saw it," answered Ashley, gloomily.

Then he turned suddenly to me, and looked at me as I thought suspiciously. I reddened under his eyes, and he saw me flush. It seemed to me as if he could read my thoughts—as if he knew what I knew. And how could he? Young people always imagine that they are seen through, and I thought I was seen through now.

Jamie saw nothing—suspected nothing. He was sitting with his head resting on his hands, and his elbows on his knees, feeling as a man does when he is suddenly plunged into destruction—when his name is tainted and his career closed. As for me, the whole world seemed to have crashed into ruin at my feet; but the one I could not understand was Ashley. If I might have died before this moment! I could not believe him guilty, and yet I could not doubt the evidence of my senses. He had been out in the early morning—so far indeed he confessed honestly enough; no one else had been out—that I could swear to; and certainly no burglary had been committed. And it was not to be supposed that we harboured thieves in the house.

At that moment Mr. Thomson came down-stairs, whistling as he passed our door. He looked in and nodded, and his great black eyes roved all about the place and seemed to take in every inch and scrap there was to be seen.

"A wet morning," he said, in his thick oily voice, shaking his large loose cloak about him as he gave a kind of growling shiver. Then he strode down the stairs, flung open the street-door, and slammed it against him noisily: and so went on his way, whistling. How I wished that we all had as light a heart as this unpleasant bagman! and that one among us had so clear a conscience!

I was so sorry for poor James! He seemed quite paralysed, and though Ashley proposed sending for the police, and putting the whole place under a kind of arrest—and I wondered at his audacity—yet my brother refused to adopt this or any other suggestion, but sat, as I tell you, with his head on his hands and his elbows resting on his knees, more like a creature crazed with dread than anything else. Meanwhile time was drawing on, and it drew close to the hour when Mr. Hawes had appointed to come for his treasure.

"James," I said, "dear Jamie! you must