"Aye! Ye both know what's happened to them notes, and ye've made it up between ye to say nowt!"
Mrs. Maldon answered gravely—
"You are quite mistaken. I know nothing, and I'm sure Rachel doesn't. And we have made nothing up between us. How can you imagine such things?"
"Why don't ye have the police told?"
"I cannot do with the police in my house."
Mr. Batchgrew approached the bed almost threateningly.
"I'll tell you why ye won't have the police told. Because ye know Louis Fores has taken your money. It's as plain as a pikestaff. Ye put it on the chair on the landing here, and ye left it there, and he came along and pocketed it." Mrs. Maldon essayed to protest, but he cut her short. "Did he or did he not come upstairs after ye'd been upstairs yourself?"
As Mrs. Maldon hesitated, Thomas Batchgrew began to feel younger and more impressive.
"Yes, he did," said Mrs. Maldon at length. "But only because I asked him to come up—to fasten the window."
"What window?"