Tod flung out of the shop in a passion: to him it seemed impossible that anything could be wrong with a note had direct from the bank. As to its not being the same note, he scouted it utterly. Had it dropped through the envelope and changed itself en route from Worcester? he sarcastically demanded—coming in again to ask it.
Salmon was quietly going over the circumstances of the Tewkesbury robbery to me. About three weeks before, a butcher’s shop was robbed in Tewkesbury—the till carried off in open day. It had gold and silver in it and two five-pound notes. The numbers of the notes happened to be known, and notice of them was circulated, to put people on their guard against taking them.
“Look here, Mr. Ludlow,” said Salmon, showing me the numbers of the stolen notes written down in his book, and comparing the one with the bank-note we had taken to him. “It’s the same, you see. Reason’s reason, sir.”
“But I don’t see how it’s practicable,” cried Tod, coming round the least bit in the world, as he condescended to look himself at the numbers.
“Well, sir, neither do I—the facts being as you state them,” acknowledged Salmon. “But here’s the proof to stagger us, you observe. It’s in black and white.”
“There must be two notes with the same numbers,” said Tod.
Salmon smiled: great in his assumption of superior knowledge.
“There never was yet, Mr. Todhetley.”
“Who numbers the notes, I wonder? I suppose mistakes are not impossible to those who do it, any more than to other people.”
“No fear of that, sir, with their system. The note has been changed in the post.”