"Well, I must have picked up the serviette and ring with the bank-notes, you see. I fear I'm absent-minded like that sometimes. I know I went out of the sitting-room with both hands full. I know both hands were occupied, because I remember when I went into the back room I didn't turn the gas up, and I pushed a chair up to the cupboard with my knee, for me to stand on. I'm certain I put some of the notes on the top of the cupboard. Then I came upstairs. The window on the landing was rattling, and I put the other part of the money on the chair while I tried to fasten the window. However, I couldn't fasten it. So I left it. And then I thought I picked up the money again off the chair and came in here and hid it at the bottom of the drawer and locked the wardrobe."
"You thought!" said Thomas Batchgrew, gazing at the aged weakling as at an insane criminal. "Was this just after I left?"
Mrs. Maldon nodded apologetically.
"When I woke up the first time in the night, it struck me like a flash: Had I taken the serviette and ring up with the notes? I am liable to do that sort of thing. I'm an old woman—it's no use denying it." She looked plaintively at Rachel, and her voice trembled. "I got up. I was bound to get up, and I turned the gas on, and there the serviette and ring were at the bottom of the drawer, but no money! I took everything out of the drawer, piece by piece, and put it back again. I simply cannot tell you how I felt! I went out to the landing with a match. There was no money there. And then I went downstairs in the dark. I never knew it to be so dark, in spite of the street-lamp. I knocked against the clock. I nearly knocked it over. I managed to light the gas in the back room. I made sure that I must have left all the notes on the top of the cupboard instead of only part of them. But there was nothing there at all. Nothing! Then I looked all over the sitting-room floor with a candle. When I got upstairs again I didn't know what I was doing. I knew I was going to be ill, and I just managed to ring the bell for dear Rachel, and the next thing I remember was I was in bed here, and Rachel putting something hot to my feet—the dear child!"
Her eyes glistened with tears. And Rachel too, as she pictured the enfeebled and despairing incarnation of dignity colliding with grandfather's clocks in the night and climbing on chairs and groping over carpets, had difficulty not to cry, and a lump rose in her throat. She was so moved by compassion that she did not at first feel the full shock of the awful disappearance of the money.
Mr. Batchgrew, for the second time that morning unequal to a situation, turned foolishly to the wardrobe, clearing his throat and snorting.
"It's on one of the sliding trays," said Mrs. Maldon.
"What's on one of the sliding trays?"
"The serviette."
Rachel, who was nearest, opened the wardrobe and immediately discovered the missing serviette and ring, which had the appearance of a direct dramatic proof of Mrs. Maldon's story.