“Nothing can be better than that, I’m sure; don’t you think so, Ernest?” said Miss Maltby.
“Yes,” replied her brother; “it is a privilege to be thus invited to ‘rejoice with them that do rejoice,’ as we have wept with you when you wept. So you shall tell us your story, Thomas, at your own time, for that will be the best.—And now let me know how you found Dr Prosser and his wife, and if all was right about poor Lydia Philips.”
Having replied to this question, and given due attention to the entertainment of his guests, Thomas Bradly, when tea was finished, helped his wife to remove the large table to one side, and then, having drawn forward a smaller one into the midst of the assembled company, placed on the very centre of it a bag, which he fetched out of his surgery. Certainly the article itself was not one much calculated to draw attention or excite curiosity; indeed, there was something almost burlesque in its extreme shabbiness, as it stood there the centre of attraction, or at any rate observation, to so many eyes.
“Shall we have your story now, Thomas?” said the vicar, when all were duly seated.
“You shall, sir; and you must bear with me if I try your patience by my way of telling it.
“We’d a very pleasant journey to London, and then took a cab to Dr Prosser’s. The door were opened by a boy in green, with buttons all over him; he looked summat like a young volunteer, and summat like a great big doll. I’d seen the like of him in the windows of two or three of the big clothing shops as we drove along. I couldn’t help thinking what a convenience them buttons must be; for if he didn’t mind you, you could lay hold on him by one of ’em, and if that’d come off there’d be lots more to take to. ‘Young man,’ says I, ‘is your master at home?’ He’d got his chin rather high in the air, and didn’t seem best pleased with the way in which I spoke to him. ‘Who do you mean by my master?’ says he. ‘Dr Prosser,’ says I; ‘I hope he’s your master, for certainly you don’t seem fit to be your own.’ He stares very hard at me, and then he says, ‘All right.’ So I gets out, and sees to Miss Philips and her boxes; and the doctor were very kind, and talked to me about Crossbourne, and so did the missus. She seemed quite a changed woman, so homely-like, and they both looked very happy, and were as kind as could be to poor Lydia, so she took heart at once.
“When I were ready to go, I says to Dr Prosser, ‘Doctor, may I have a word or two with your green boy?’ ‘My what?’ says the doctor, laughing. ‘Your green boy,’ says I; ‘him with the buttons.’ ‘Oh, by all means,’ he says; ‘I hope there’s nothing wrong?’ ‘Nothing at all, sir, thank you,’ I says.—‘Here, William,’ says he, ‘step into the dining-room with this gentleman; he wants to speak to you.’
“‘You don’t know who I am,’ I said to the boy when we was by ourselves. ‘No, nor don’t want to,’ says he.—‘Do you know what this is?’ I asked, holding up half-a-crown. ‘Yes, I know what that is well enough.’—‘Well, you’ve no need to be afraid of me; I’m not a policeman in plain clothes,’ says I. ‘Aren’t you?’ said he; ‘I thought you was.’—‘There, put that half-crown in your pocket,’ I said, ‘and answer me one or two civil questions.’ ‘With all the pleasure in the world,’ says he, as brisk as could be.—Then I asked him if he remembered the doctor’s coming home on Christmas-eve last year. ‘Yes, he remembered that very well.’—‘Did he bring anything with him besides his own luggage?’ He looked rather hard at me.—‘Nobody’s going to get you into trouble,’ says I, rather sharp. ‘Have you lost anything?’ he asks again very cautiously.—I told him ‘yes, I had.’ He wanted to know what it were like, but that wouldn’t do for me. So I asked my other question over again. ‘Yes, the doctor brought a bag with him as didn’t seem to belong to him; at least he hadn’t it with him when he left home.’—‘What sort of a bag?’ says I. ‘It was a small bag, and a very shabby one too.’—‘And what did you do with it?’ ‘I put it in the doctor’s study.’—‘And is it there now?’ ‘I suppose so; nobody never meddles with any of the doctor’s things.’—‘And you haven’t seen it, nor heard anything about it since?’ ‘No, I haven’t.’—‘Thank you, my boy; that’s all I want to know from you.’
“Then I asks the doctor to let me have five minutes alone with him, which he granted me most cheerfully; and I just tells him as much as were necessary to let him know what I wanted, and why I wanted it.—‘A bag,’ he said; ‘ah, I do remember something about it now; but, if I don’t mistake, there was nothing but paper in it. However, it’s pretty sure to be in my closet, and if so it will be just as I put it there, for no one goes to that closet but myself.’ So he unlocks the closet door, and comes back in a minute with a bag in his hand. ‘Is this it?’ he asks.—‘I suppose it is,’ says I, ‘for I never saw it; but we shall soon find out.’ The doctor had a key on his bunch which soon opened the padlock, and then we turned out what was inside. Paper, nothing but paper at first. I were getting in a bit of a fright; but after a bit we comes to summat hard wrapped up; and there, when we unfolded the paper, was the missing bracelet! And then we searched to the bottom, and found an envelope sealed up and directed, ‘Miss Jane Bradly;’ but what’s inside I don’t know, for of course I didn’t open it.
“We was both very glad, at least I was, you may be sure; and the doctor were very kind about it, and shook hands with me, and said he was sorry as we’d been kept out of the things so long: but I told him it were no fault of his, and it were all right, for the Lord’s hand were plainly in it; for if it had gone elsewhere we might never have seen it again. So I carried off the bag as carefully as if it had been made of solid gold, and it hasn’t been out of my sight a moment till I got it safe home.