“Well, what happened then?”
“He locked the till all in a hurry, put the key in his waistcoat pocket; let me see, it wor in his left-hand pocket—no, wot am I a-sayin’?—it wor in his right-hand pocket—I want to be particklar, Mr. Furze—and then he run out of the shop. Joe, he took up his receipt, and he says, says he, ‘He might a given me the odd penny,’ and says I, ‘He ain’t Mr. Furze, he can’t give away none of the guvnor’s money. If it wor the guvnor himself he’d a done it,’ and with that we went out of the shop together.”
“That will do, Jim; you can go.”
“Mr. Catchpole, this assumes a very—I may say—painful aspect.”
“I can only repeat, sir, that I have not had the money. It is inexplicable. I may have been robbed.”
“But there is no entry in the day-book.”
It did not occur to Tom at the moment to plead that if he was dishonest he would have contrived not to be so in such a singularly silly fashion: that he might have taken cash paid for goods bought, and that the possibility of discovery would have been much smaller. He was stunned.
“It is so painful,” continued Mr. Furze, “that I must have time to reflect. I will talk to you again about it to-morrow.”
The truth was that Mr. Furze wished to consult his wife. When he went home his first news was what had happened, but he forgot to mention the corroboration by Jim.
“But,” said Mrs. Furze, “Joe may have been mistaken; perhaps, after all, he did not pay the money.”