“Very well; I’ll come in a minute or two,” concluded Miss Betty, going back to the chintzes.
“Why, I saw that box on the table as I shut the door after you had come out, ma’am,” observed Susan, who had listened to the colloquy.
“So did I,” said Miss Betty; “it was the very last thing my eyes fell on. If young Mr. Dene finished what he was about and left the parlour, I dare say he put the box up somewhere for safety. I think, Susan, we must fix upon this light pea-green with the rosebuds running up it. It matches the paper: and the light coming through it takes quite a nice shade.”
A little more indecision yet; and yet a little more, as to whether the curtains should be lined, or not, and then Miss Cockermuth went downstairs. The captain was pacing the passage to and fro impatiently.
“Now then, Betty, where’s my box?”
“But how am I to know where the box is, Charles, if it’s not on the table?” she remonstrated, turning into the parlour, where two friends of the captain’s waited to be regaled with the sight of the recovered treasure. “I had to go upstairs with the young man who brought the chintzes; and I left the box here”—indicating the exact spot on the table. “It was where you left it yourself. I did not touch it at all.”
She shook hands with the visitors. Captain Cockermuth looked gloomy—as if he were at sea and had lost his reckoning.
“If you had to leave the room, why didn’t you put the box up?” asked he. “A boxful of guineas shouldn’t be left alone in an empty room.”
“But Mr. Dene was in the room; he sat at the desk there, copying a letter for John. As to why didn’t I put the box up, it was not my place to do so that I know of. You were about yourself, Charles—only at the front-door, I suppose.”
Captain Cockermuth was aware that he had not been entirely at the front-door. Two or three times he had crossed over to hold a chat with acquaintances on the other side the way; had strolled with one of them nearly up to Salt Lane and back. Upon catching hold of these two gentlemen, now brought in, he had found the parlour empty of occupants and the box not to be seen.