This was a facer, and it made Cai blink. "We haven't discussed these things much—not of late," he answered lamely.
"I reckoned not. He don't keep 'em in his strong-box?"
"He hasn't one."
"In his chest?"
"Maybe."
"But he don't. He's left 'em with Mr Rogers from the first, or I'm mistaken. I used to see the two bundles, his and yours, lyin' side by side on the upper shelf o' the safe when the old man sent me to unlock it an' fetch something he wanted—which wasn't often. Then, about six months back, I noticed as one was gone. I mentioned it to him, and he said as 'twas all his scrip—that was his word—made up in a parcel an' docketed by you, and that some time afterwards you'd taken it away."
"Quite correct, missy. And t'other one is 'Bias's, as I know. I had 'em in my hands together when I opened the safe as Mr Rogers told me to do, givin' me the key. I took out the two, not knowing t'other from which, made sure, docketed mine careful—to take away—and put 'Bias's back in the safe afore lockin' it. That would be back sometime in October last."
Fancy nodded. "That's what he told me: and up to this mornin' I reckoned Cap'n Hunken's bonds was still there, though it must be a month since I opened the safe. This mornin' I had a talk with Dad—he doesn't know the half about the master's affairs, nor how they've been these two years, and I didn' let on: but I allowed as we ought to look into things and call in Peter Benny—knowin' that Peter Benny was made execlator, if anything happened. So we agreed, and called him in: and I told Peter Benny enough to let him see that things were serious. In the end I fetched the keys, and he unlocked the safe. There was a good few papers in it, which he overhauled. But there wasn' no parcel 'pon the top shelf where I'd seen it last."
"Then you may depend he'd given it to 'Bias unbeknown to you, same as he handed mine over to me. Wasn' that Benny's opinion?"
"Oh, you make me tired!" exclaimed the wise child frankly. "As if I'd no more sense than to go there an' then an' frighten him—an' him with all those papers to look over!"