“Just what I expected,” observed the pater. “That woman was a thieving tramp, and she has the earring.”
Saturday passed over, and Sunday came. When the Worcester paper arrived on Saturday morning the advertisement was in it as large as life, and the pater read it out to us. Friday and Saturday had been very dull, with storms of snow; on Sunday the sun shone again, and the air was crisp.
It was about three o’clock, and we were sitting at the dessert-table cracking filberts, for on Sundays we always dined early, after morning service—when Thomas came in and said a stranger had called, and was asking if he could see Mrs. Todhetley. But the mater, putting a shawl over her head and cap, had just stepped over to sit a bit with sick Mrs. Coney.
“Who is it, Thomas?” asked the Squire. “A stranger! Tell him to send his name in.”
“His name’s Eccles, sir,” said Thomas, coming back again. “He comes, he says, from Sergeant Cripp.”
“My goodness!—it must be about the earring,” cried the Squire.
“That it is, sir,” said old Thomas. “The first word he put to me was an inquiry whether you had heard news of it.”
I followed the pater into the study. Tod did not leave his filberts. Standing by the fire was a tall, well-dressed man, with a black moustache and blue silk necktie. I think the Squire was a little taken aback at the fashionable appearance of the visitor. He had expected to see an ordinary policeman.