'What's the matter, Jessie?'
'There's something inside. It's stuffed full of paper. What if it should be your grandmother's money?'
The amazing suggestion almost took away my breath.
'It's just the kind of place,' continued Jessie, panting, 'she would have hidden it in. She kept it all in large bank-notes, and stuffed them in here, where nobody could possibly suspect they were, and where she could have them under her eye all the day. O Chris! feel how my heart beats!'
My excitement was now as great as her own.
'Quick, Jessie! Let us look!'
'No,' she cried, covering the figure with both hands, 'let us wait a bit. This is the best part of things: knowing that something wonderful is coming, and waiting a little before it comes. How much is it? A hundred pounds! Five hundred pounds! It can't be less, for you say she always wore silk dresses. What will you do with it? We'll all have new clothes. I know where there's such a lovely blue barege, and I saw a hat in a window yesterday, trimmed with blue ribbon, and with lilies and forget-me-nots in it, that I'd give my life for. O Chris! I can see myself in them already.'
So she went on for full five minutes, building her castles; then with a long-drawn breath she said,
'Now, Chris!'
The inside of the figure was certainly full of paper, which I fished out very easily with one of Jessie's hairpins, and amid a little cloud of dust--emblematical of Jessie's castles, for the paper was utterly valueless. She refused to believe at first, and when she was convinced, her disappointment took the form of anger against my grandmother; she declared that the old lady had done it on purpose, and that she was a spiteful, wicked, deceitful old creature. I was quite as disappointed as Jessie was, more for her sake than my own, and I tried to talk her into a better mood. Thinking there might be writing on some of the paper, I smoothed it out, piece by piece; but there was nothing written or printed on any of it with the exception of one long slip, which was evidently a cutting from a newspaper. It was headed, 'Remarkable Discovery of a Forger by the Celebrated Detective, Mr. Vinnicombe.' And glancing down the column, the name of Anthony Bullpit attracted my attention. I became interested immediately.