"So do I, so we must both be correct," returned Miss Roscoe. "Now the checks that Moira Thompson received at the second gate register thirteen pounds seventeen shillings. How is it you are nine and sixpence short?"
"Am I that much short?" cried Gwen. "It can't possibly be!"
"Look for yourself," said Miss Roscoe. "The checks are all numbered. There are two hundred and fifty-one shilling admissions and fifty-two sixpenny ones. Examine the numbers on the rolls of checks left in your satchel; you will see they begin at Nos. 252 and 53. That means that you certainly issued 251 checks at a shilling and 52 at sixpence. The right amount ought to have been in your bag."
"Is there nothing left stuck in the corners?" asked Gwen, utterly dumbfounded at the defalcation.
"Nothing whatever. Look and satisfy yourself."
Gwen seized the satchel, and almost turned it inside out in her eagerness, but there was no remaining coin to be found.
"Did you give any people checks without receiving the money in return?" enquired Miss Roscoe.
"No, certainly not. I was most particular. I didn't let anybody in without paying. If they had no tickets I sold them checks. I don't see how I can be all that amount wrong."
"Unfortunately both our reckonings show the same deficit. What I want to know, Gwen, is what has become of this missing nine and sixpence?"
"I can't imagine."