"Haven't you made up your mind about it?" Percy asked abruptly.
"Well, you see," returned Silk, "we've heard only one side of the story as yet, and you can't always go by first impressions. What's your own opinion, Percy?"
"Seems to me things look rather rocky against Charlie," Percy observed. "The evidence is dead against him, and that yarn of his about saving up on the quiet isn't very convincing—especially when he wants you to believe that the money he'd collected was so exactly the same amount that Sam Crisp had saved. Two hundred pounds; neither more nor less. It's too much of a coincidence, too much like a story made up after the event. Assuming that Sam Crisp didn't rob himself, it's perfectly clear that Charlie took the money, since no one else knew where it was hidden."
"That remains to be seen, however," rejoined Silk. "I happen to have been inside of Crisp's harness-room. I happen to have noticed the hole in the wall that Charlie referred to; and it isn't the first time that it has been used as a hiding-place for articles of value, by others, as well as Sam Crisp himself. It was foolish of him to leave a bag of sovereigns there. He almost deserves to have lost it. He might as well have left it on the front doorstep."
"Then you don't seriously believe that Charlie Fortescue was the thief?" questioned Percy.
Sergeant Silk did not answer, but spurred his horse to a canter, which was continued until they came beyond a bluff of birches and in sight of Crisp's homestead, lying in the midst of its blossoming orchards and far-stretching fields of green wheat.
"That rain last night has done a heap of good to the old man's crops," he remarked as he drew to a halt at the ford before crossing the swollen creek.
He was looking down at the moist ground of the sloping bank, where there were the impressions of a man's boots.
"I suppose you're thinking that Charlie must have got a wetting, wading across here on foot?" said Percy.