It must, at all events, be one or other of the servants; and he felt it to be his duty to investigate the matter thoroughly. He was determined to do this. It was a duty they owed to themselves, and the other servants, and all their friends, and to the world, that this thief should be detected.
Mrs. Green said she could not bring her mind to a prosecution. She said that, at all events, the most she would do was to turn away either of the servants who was discovered. The case was certainly very bad, and the thief deserved all he or she got.
The husband reserved his decision. Perhaps, if the wretch confessed, he might be disposed to listen to her appeal for mercy. If that girl (for he persisted it must be her) dared to belie the evidence which must be got against her, he would have no compunction in hanging her.
With that kind of rashness or folly which men under such circumstances commit, he turned to his wife, and most unreasonably said to her, “Now, Helen, my dear, you must find out the thief for me. I know it must be that girl. Now, find her out.”
Among the little trinkets Mrs. Green possessed were a bracelet and a locket, neither ofwhich had hitherto been missed.
Both of them had been seen by her and her husband within two days before the present conversation. She missed them, as she afterwards explained, the day following this conversation. It was very strange that they should have disappeared just at that time. For her part, she would, if she could, screen the culprit; but her husband’s mandate left her no discretion. She was to find out the thief. What to do she did not know. She thought of searching the girl’s boxes—or of having them searched by a policeman. No, she would not do that. She hoped that her husband would not prosecute. She therefore contented herself by communicating this further loss to Mr. Green, and explaining to him the reasons which had stayed her in the extreme means of discovery.
Mr. Green, on his return home, was uneasy and excited. Something had seemingly crossed him in the City. I believe an advice his house received that morning told the firm of the bankruptcy of a Hamburg correspondent. This fact had soured the merchant’s temper, and inflamed his desire for vengeance.
When his wife communicated her suspicions, he at once insisted upon a search of the girl and of her trunks.
Just at this moment, or before the resolution was carried out, a friend dropped in to see them. He observed a gloom on the countenance of the merchant, and began to rally him. The visitor wanted to know whether the firm of Green and Schnackwether were going to appear in next Tuesday’s Gazette, and what the devil was the matter with him. He did not care to avow his loss in the City, and found an adequate explanation in his losses at home.
This friend suggested that examining the trunks was perhaps not an unwise thing; but he also joined in the wife’s appeal for mercy, said that he thought the better plan would be to send the girl off to her friends, if she had any, and that he would not advise the expense and trouble of a prosecution.