“And so I’m going to do it for you,” she said. “My being a girl is no handicap at all, Toby. What we all want is the truth, and if I can discover that, you will be saved. Now, then, who knew about the box?”
“Mr. Spaythe,” said the boy.
“Why should he know?”
“He was the closest friend Judge Ferguson had. They were together a good deal and the judge used to tell all his affairs to his friend. I once heard him say, jokingly, that he was a rival banker, for Mrs. Ritchie deposited all her money with him. Mr. Spaythe asked where he kept it, and when the judge told him he said it was foolish to trust to oak doors and a tin box when the bank vault was fire and burglar proof.”
“Very well; who else knew?” asked Phoebe.
“Will Chandler, and Griggs the carpenter.”
“Oh!” cried Phoebe, scenting a clew at last. “Griggs knew, did he? Tell me how that happened.”
“The cupboard doors stuck, a few months ago, and wouldn’t shut properly. So the judge called up Will Chandler, who was his landlord, and asked him to fix the doors. Will looked at them and said the building must have settled a little, to make the doors bind that way, and the best plan would be to plane off the tops of them. So he got Griggs the carpenter and they took the doors off the hinges and planed them. While Griggs was working and Chandler helping him, in came Mrs. Ritchie and wanted fifty dollars. The judge took down her box and put it on the table and took out the money. I noticed both the men were surprised to see the box half full of bank bills and gold, for they couldn’t help seeing it; but they said nothing and when I mentioned it to the judge, afterward, he said they were both honest as the day is long, and he could trust them.”
“Do you think they are honest, Toby—both of ’em?”
“Yes.”