“All right,” said Charlie. “Look, you fellows: Elgood and I put down this morning the other things he’s bought, and they come to fourteen shillings. I know they’re right, for I didn’t like Elgood to be wrongly suspected, so Walter want with me to the shops; indeed it was chiefly spent at Coles’s”—at which remark they all laughed, for Coles’s was the favourite “tuck shop” of the boys. “Well, now, 1 pound, 8 shillings plus 18 shillings plus 14 shillings makes 3 pounds, the sum which Elgood received from home. Is that plain?”
“As plain as a pike-staff,” said Bliss; “and you’re a little brick, Evson; and it’s a chouse if any one suspects Elgood any more.”
Wilton suggested something about Elgood being Whalley’s fag.
“Shame, Raven,” said Kenrick; “why, what a suspicious fellow you must be; there’s no ground whatever to suspect Elgood now.”
“I only want the fellow found out for the honour of the house,” said Wilton, with a sheepish look at this third rebuff.
“Oh, I forgot about that for the moment,” said Charlie; “Whalley, please, you know the time, don’t you, when the money was taken from your desk?”
“Yes; it must have been between four and six, for I saw it safe at four, and it was gone when I came back after tea.”
“Then all right,” said Charlie joyfully, “for at that very time, all of it, Elgood was in my brother’s study with me, learning some lessons. Now then, is Elgood clear?”
“As clear as noonday,” shouted several of them, patting the poor child on the head.
“And really, Charlie, we’re all very much obliged to you,” said Whalley, “for setting this matter straight. But now, as it isn’t Elgood, who is the thief? We must all set ourselves to discover.”