With at least a hundred suggestions and injunctions from the Squire—who only ceased when his voice disappeared completely—we set off, taking the way of the Ravine. It was a fine spring day: the trees were coming into leaf, the thorns and other bushes were budding: violets and primroses nestled at their feet. I picked some early cowslips for a ball for Lena, and some double white violets for Mrs. Todhetley.
Past Timberdale Court went we; past the church; past Jael Batty’s and the other straggling cottages, and came to the village street. It was paved: and you can’t say that of all villages.
Mr. Rymer was behind his counter: a thin, delicate-faced man, with a rather sad expression and mild brown eyes. In spite of his poor clothes and his white apron and the obscure shop he had served in for twenty years, his face had “gentleman” plainly stamped on it: but he gave you the idea of being too meek-spirited; as if in any struggle with the world he could never take his own part.
The shop was a double shop, resembling Salmon’s at South Crabb in shape and arrangements. The drugs and chemicals were on the left-hand side as you entered; the miscellaneous wares on the other. Horse and cattle medicines were kept with the drugs: and other things too numerous to mention, such as pearl barley, pickles, and fish-sauce. The girl, Margaret Rymer, was serving a woman with a pennyworth of writing-paper when we went in, and a postage-stamp. Tod asked for Mr. Rymer.
He came forward from the little parlour, at one end of which was the desk where he did his postal work.
Upon Tod’s saying that we wished to speak with him privately, he took us into the parlour. As we sat down opposite to him, I could not help thinking what a nice face he had. It was getting very careworn. A stranger would have given him more than his forty-five years: though the bright brown hair was abundant still. Tod told his story. The chemist looked thoroughly surprised, but open and upright as the day. I saw at once that no fault attached to him.
“A bank-note exchanged as it passed through the post!” he exclaimed. “But, Mr. Joseph Todhetley, the thing appears impossible.”
“It appears so,” said Tod. “I was just as unwilling to believe it at first: but facts are facts.”
“I cannot see the motive,” said Rymer. “Why should one bank-note be taken out of a letter, if another were substituted?”
Tod looked at me. Wanting to say that the other was a stolen note, and was no doubt put in to be got rid of. But the Squire had bound us down.
“Had the note been simply abstracted from the letter, we should be at no loss to understand that a thief had helped himself to it; but a thief would not put another note of the same value in its place,” went on Rymer.
“Well, the facts are as I tell you, Mr. Rymer,” returned Tod, impatient at being trammelled and having to tell so lame a tale. “One bank-note was taken out of the letter and another put in its place. We want you to help us unravel the mystery.”
“I will help you to the utmost of my power,” was Rymer’s answer. “But—are you sure you have told me the circumstances correctly?”
“Quite sure,” answered Tod. “The thing was done between Worcester post-office and our house. How it was done, and by whom, is the question.”
“You enclosed the note in the letter yourself at Worcester on Wednesday afternoon, and put it into the post-office: when we delivered the letter at Crabb Cot yesterday morning, you found the note inside had been taken out and another put in? These are the circumstances?”
“Precisely so. Except that it was not I who enclosed the note and took down its number, but Johnny Ludlow. The Worcester office disclaims all knowledge of the matter, and so we are thrown on this side of the journey. Did you go to the station yourself for the letter-bag, Rymer?”
“I did, sir. I brought it home and sorted the letters at that desk, ready for the two men to take out in the morning. I used to sort all the letters in the morning, London and others: but lately I’ve done what we call the local bags—which come in before bed-time—at night. It saves time in the morning.”
“Do you recollect noticing the letter for Crabb Cot?”
“I think I noticed it. Yes, I feel sure I did. You see, there’s often something or other for you, so that it’s not remarkable. But I am sure I did notice the letter.”
“No one could have got to it in the night?”
“What—here?” exclaimed Rymer, opening his eyes in surprise that such a question should be put. “No, certainly not. The letter-bags are locked up in this desk, and I keep the key about me.”
“And you gave them as usual to Lee in the morning?”
Mr. Rymer knitted his patient brow the least in the world, as if he thought that Tod’s pursuing these questions reflected some suspicion on himself. He answered very meekly—going over the whole from the first.
“When I brought the Worcester bag in on Wednesday night, I was at home alone: my wife and daughter happened to be spending the evening with some friends, and the servant had asked leave to go out. I sorted the letters, and locked them up as usual in one of the deep drawers of the desk. I never unlocked it again until the last thing in the morning, when the other letters that had come in were ready to go out, and the two men were waiting for them. The letter would be in Lee’s packet, of course—which I delivered to him. But Lee is to be depended on: he would not tamper with it. That is the whole history so far as I am connected with it, Mr. Joseph Todhetley. I could not tell you more if I talked till mid-day.”
“What’s that, Thomas? Anything amiss with the letters?” called out a voice at this juncture, as the inner door opened, that shut out the kitchen.
I knew it. Knew it for Mrs. Rymer’s. I didn’t like her a bit: and how a refined man like Rymer (and he was so in all respects) could have made her his wife seemed to me to be a seven days’ wonder. She had a nose as long as from Timberdale to Crabb Ravine; and her hair and face were red, and her flounces gaudy. As common a woman as you’d see in a summer’s day, with a broad Brummagem accent. But she was very capable, and not unkindly natured. The worst Timberdale said of her was, that she had done her best to spoil that ugly son of hers.
Putting her head, ornamented with yellow curl-papers, round the door-post, she saw us seated there, and drew it away again. Her sleeves were rolled up, and she had on a coarse apron; altogether was not dressed for company. Letting the door stand ajar, she asked again if anything was amiss, and went on with her work at the same time: which sounded like chopping suet. Mr. Rymer replied in a curt word or two, as if he felt annoyed she should interfere. She would not be put off: strong-minded women never are: and he had to give her the explanation. A five-pound bank-note had been mysteriously lost out of a letter addressed to Mrs. Todhetley. The chopping stopped.
“Stolen out of it?”
“Well—yes; it may be said so.”
“But why do you call it mysterious?”
Mr. Rymer said why. That the bank-note had not, in one sense, been stolen; since another of the same value had been substituted for it.
Chop, chop, chop: Mrs. Rymer had begun again vigorously.
“I’d like to know who’s to make top or tail of such a story as that,” she called out presently. “Has anything been lost, or not?”
“Yes, I tell you, Susannah: a five-pound note.”
Forgetting her curl-papers and the apron, Mrs. Rymer came boldly inside the room, chopping-knife in hand, and requested further enlightenment. We told her between us: she stood with her back against the door-post while she listened.
“When do you say this took place, young gents?”
“On Wednesday night, or Thursday morning. When the letter reached us at breakfast-time, the job was done.”
She