od people indeed;--for that sort of business I
mean, Mr. Robarts. I don't suppose they have much county property in
their hands."

Mr. Robarts knew that Mr. Winthrop was a fool, and that he could get no
useful advice from him. So he suggested that he would take his gig
down to the inn, and call back again before long. "You'll find that
Walker knows no more than I do about it," said Mr. Winthrop, "but of
course he'll be glad to see you if he happens to come in." So Mr
Robarts went to the inn, put up his horse, and then, as he sauntered
back up the street, met Mr. Walker coming out of the private door of
his house.

"I've been at home all the morning," he said; "but I've had a stiff
job of work on hand, and told them to say in the office that I was
not in. Seen Winthrop, have you? I don't suppose he did know that
I was here. The clerks often know more than the partners. About Mr
Crawley, is it? Come into my dining-room, Mr. Robarts, where we shall
be alone. Yes;--it is a bad case; a very bad case. The pity is that
anybody should ever have said anything about it. Lord bless me, if
I'd been Soames I'd have let him have the twenty pounds. Lord Lufton
would never have allowed Soames to lose it."

"But Soames wanted to find out the truth."

"Yes;--that was just it. Soames couldn't bear to think that he should
be left in the dark, and then, when the poor man said that Soames had
paid the cheque to him in the way of business,--it was not odd that
Soames's back should have been up, was it? But, Mr. Robarts, I should
have thought a deal about it before I should have brought such a man
as Mr. Crawley before a bench of magistrates on that charge."

"But between me and you, Mr. Walker, did he steal the money?"

"Well, Mr. Robarts, you know how I'm placed."

"Mr. Crawley is my friend, and of course I want to assist him. I was
under a great obligation to Mr. Crawley once, and I wish to befriend
him, whether he took the money or not. But I could act so much better
if I felt sure one way or the other."

"If you ask me, I think he did take it."

"What!--stole it?"

"I think he knew it was not his own when he took it. You see I don't
think he meant to use it when he took it. He perhaps had some queer
idea that Soames had been hard on him, or his lordship, and that the
money was fairly his due. Then he kept the cheque by him till he was
absolutely badgered out of his life by the butcher up the street
there. That was about the l