"And could _you_ see on to the top of the cupboard from a chair?"
Louis, with a peculiar gaze, was apparently estimating Julian's total
height from the ground when raised on a chair.

Julian dashed down the papers.

"Here! Come and look for yourself!" he exclaimed with furious
pugnacity. "Come and look." He jumped up and moved towards the door.

Rachel and Louis followed him obediently. In the back room it was he
who struck a match and lighted the gas.

"You've shifted the picture!" he cried, as soon as the room was
illuminated.

"Yes, we have," Louis admitted.

"But there's where it was!" Julian almost shouted, pointing. "You
can't deny it! There's the marks. Are they as high as the top of
the cupboard, or aren't they?" Then he dragged along a chair to the
cupboard and stood on it, puffing at his pipe. "Can I see on to the
top of the cupboard or can't I?" he demanded. Obviously he could see
on to the top of the cupboard.

"I didn't think the top was so low," said Louis.

"Well, you shouldn't contradict," Julian chastised him.

"It's just as your great-aunt said," put in Rachel, in a meditative
tone. "I remember she told us she pushed a chair forward with her
knee. I dare say in getting on to the chair she knocked her elbow or
something against the picture, and no doubt she left the chair more or
less where she'd pushed it. That would be it."

"Did she say that to you?" Louis questioned Rachel.

"It doesn't matter much what she said," Julian growled. "That's how
it _was_, anyway. I'm telling you. I'm not here to listen to
theories."

"Well," said Louis amiably, "you put the notes into your pocket. What
then?"

Julian removed his pipe from his mouth.

"What then? I walked off with 'em."

"But you don't mean to tell us you meant--to appropriate them, Julian?
You don't mean that!" Louis spoke reassuringly, good-naturedly, and
with a slight superiority.

"No, I don't. I don't mean I appropriated 'em." Julian's voice rose
defiantly. "I mean I stole them.... I stole them, and what's more,
I meant to steal them. And so there ye are! But come back to the
parlour. I must finish my reading."

He strode away into the parlour, and the other two had no alternative
but to follow him. They followed him like guilty things; for the
manner of his confession was such as apparently to put his hearers,
more than himself, in the wrong. He confessed as one who accuses.

"Sit down," said he, in the parlour.

"But sur