Mr. Hanborough drew off his spectacles, which he wore out of doors as well as in; he was sure to take them off when anything disturbed him.
“But who would do such a thing?” he asked.
Tom laughed a little. “You wouldn’t, old friend, and I wouldn’t; but there may be people in the neighbourhood who would.”
Doubts were presenting themselves to Michael Hanborough’s mind: he did not “see” this, as the saying runs. “Why should anyone single out that one particular letter to take, and leave the rest?” he resumed.
“That point puzzles me,” remarked Tom. “If the letter was singled out, as you put it, from the rest, I should say the thief must have known it contained money: and who could, or did, know that? I wish I had carried the letters in with me when Mr. Paul called to me!”
“If the letters had been left alone for a whole day in our office, I should never have supposed they were not safe,” said the clerk, impulsively. “But, now that my attention has been drawn to this, I must mention something, Mr. Chandler.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“When the master called me in after you, I followed you in through that door,” he began, pointing to the door of communication between the two rooms. “But I left it by the other, the passage door, chancing to be nearest to it at the moment. As I went out, I saw the green baize door swinging, and supposed that someone had come in; MacEveril, perhaps, from his tea. But he had not done so. I found neither him nor anyone else; the room here was vacant as when I left it.”
The green baize door stood in the passage, between the street door, always open in the daytime, and the door that led into the front office.