Elsie, who had been waiting for him to speak, almost jumped at the simple inquiry. Then she went into the next room and returned with the bull-headed utensil.
“Here it is,” she said, in a voice that would have amused her at any other time.
“Mr Bellmark will perhaps disclose our find.”
Bellmark put the soily tin down on Elsie’s best table-cover without eliciting a word of reproach, grasped it firmly with his left hand, and worked the opener round the top.
“Only paper!” he exclaimed, and without touching the contents he passed the tin into Carrados’s hands.
The blind man dexterously twirled out a little roll that crinkled pleasantly to the ear, and began counting the leaves with a steady finger.
“They’re bank-notes!” whispered Elsie in an awestruck voice. She caught sight of a further detail. “Bank-notes for a hundred pounds each. And there are dozens of them!”
“Fifty, there should be,” dropped Carrados between his figures. “Twenty-five, twenty-six——”
“Good God,” murmured Bellmark; “that’s five thousand pounds!”
“Fifty,” concluded Carrados, straightening the edges of the sheaf. “It is always satisfactory to find that one’s calculations are exact.” He detached the upper ten notes and held them out. “Mrs Bellmark, will you accept one thousand pounds as a full legal discharge of any claim that you may have on this property?”