"I can't stay listening to all this rigmarole! I tell you the letter has been lost here. My son says he put it into the letter-box, for I asked him, and I have been there—to the post office, I mean—and they say the letter must have been brought here, and here it must be found!"
The lady had broken in impatiently upon Mr. Brading's speech, and now moved restlessly from one foot to the other as she demanded: "Who receives the letters here for you? Whoever it is, he must be the thief."
"Your nephew, Mr. Arthur Murray, receives and distributes all the morning letters," answered the gentleman calmly.
"Who? What?" almost screamed the lady. "I have no nephew nearer than Lismore Castle, in Ireland. What impostor has dared to come to you in my name?"
She was fairly dancing now, what Arthur would have called an "Irish jig."
Mr. Brading could scarcely preserve his gravity as he said:
"There has been no imposture, my lady. Mr. Arthur Murray is a friend of my son's, and a short time ago, he entered my employment as an assistant to my accountant, and it is part—"
"Arthur Murray in your employment! No wonder I have lost my letter, especially as it happens to have money in it! Send for the police at once, and I will give him in charge for stealing my cheque!"
"Indeed, my lady, I cannot do that on the evidence I have at present," said Mr. Brading, after a pause.
He was overwhelmed with astonishment that she should make such a charge against one of her own family. He had mentioned Arthur's name in connection with the affair because he thought it would convince her that the missing letter had not reached him, and that it must have been lost or mislaid through some other individual. But to hear her urge that the police should be called in to arrest Arthur was a shock to him, and after a pause, he wondered whether he had done wisely in placing Arthur in such a responsible position.