“Now if I go and tell him what I think, he’ll call me a nervous old fool, and abuse me for frightening his wife.”
He hesitated, and instead of going to the front door, feeling that perhaps, after all, he had taken an exaggerated view of things, he went on to the corner of the house and lane, with the intention of having a look round and then going on home.
He had just gone about half way, when there was a loud rap given by the gate leading down into Van Heldre’s yard. Some one had thrown it violently back against the wooden step, and that somebody had sprung out and run down the lane in the opposite direction to that by which the old clerk had come.
“Hah!” he ejaculated, and hurrying on he hastily descended the steps, entered the passage, and trembling now in every limb, made his way into the office, where, with all the regular method of the man of business, he quickly took a box of matches from the chimney-piece, and turned on and lit one of the gas burners.
The soft light from the ground-glass globe showed nothing wrong as he glanced round.
Yes; something was missing—the heavy ebony ruler which always reposed on the two brass hooks like a weapon of war at the end of his desk. That was gone.
Crampton’s brow knitted, and his hands shook so that he could hardly strike a second match, as he pushed open the door and entered the inner office where, forcing himself not to look round, he lit another gas jet before taking in the scene at a glance.
There lay Van Heldre, bleeding profusely from a terrible cut on the forehead, the safe was open, and in a very few minutes the old clerk knew that the packet of bank-notes was gone.
“But I’ve got all their numbers entered,” he said to himself, as he went down on his knee by his master’s side, and now, knowing the worst, growing moment by moment more calm and self-contained.
His first act was to take his voluminous white cravat from his neck, and bind it tightly round Van Heldre’s temples to staunch the bleeding.