“What do you make of that, Mr. Dutton?” summed up Captain Cockermuth.
“Am I to understand that no other person entered the room after Mr. Dene quitted it?” inquired the sergeant.
“Not a soul. I can testify to that myself.”
“Then it looks as though Mr. Dene must have taken the box.”
“Just so,” assented the complainant, triumphantly. “And I shall give him into custody for stealing it.”
Mr. Dutton considered. His judgment was cool; the captain’s hot. He thought there might be ins and outs in this affair that had not yet come to the surface. Besides that, he knew young Dene, and did not much fancy him the sort of individual likely to do a thing of this kind.
“Captain Cockermuth,” said he, “I think it might be best for me to come up to the house and see a bit into the matter personally, before proceeding to extreme measures. We experienced officers have a way of turning up scraps of evidence that other people would never look at. Perhaps, after all, the box is only mislaid.”
“But I tell you it’s lost,” said the captain. “Clean gone. Can’t be found high or low.”
“Well, if that same black box is lost again, I can only say it is the oddest case I ever heard of. One would think the box had a demon inside it.”
“No, sergeant, you are wrong there. The demon’s inside him that took it. Listen while I whisper something in your ear—that young Dene is over head and ears in debt: he has debts here, debts there, debts everywhere. For some little time now, as I chance to know, he has been at his very wits’ end to think where or how he could pick up some money to satisfy the most pressing; fit to die of fear, lest they should travel to the knowledge of his uncle at Elm Farm.”