was jealous of Alison, and had a motive for
tryin' to do her a bad turn. She was over head and ears in love with
you, as all the world could see. That, when I saw her first, I will
own, I began to think as she'd be a good mate for myself, and it come
over me that I wouldn't push the inquiry any further. It might be well
to know a secret about your wife, to hold over her in case she proved
troublesome by'm-by. I am not a feller with any high notions, as
perhaps you have guessed--anyhow, I let the thing drop, and I went in
for Louisa for the sake of her money. When she threw me over so sharp,
you may suppose that my feelings underwent a head-to-tail sort of
motion, and I picked up the clew pretty fast again, and worked on it
until I got a good thread in my hand. I needn't go into particulars
here about all I did and all I didn't do, but I managed first of all to
pick up with Shaw, your master. I met him out one evening, and I told
him that I knew you, and that you were in an awful taking because your
gel, Alison Reed, was thought to have stolen a five-pound note. He
talked a bit about the theft, and then I asked him if he had the number
of the note. He clapped his hand on his thigh, and said what a fool he
was, but he had never thought of the number until that moment. He had
looked at it when he put the note in the till as he supposed, and by
good luck he remembered it. He said off to me what he believed it was,
and I entered it in my notebook.

"'I have you now, my fine lady,' I said to myself, and I went off and
did a little bit of visiting in the smartest shops round, and by and by
I heard further tidings of the note. It had been changed, two days
after it had been stolen, by a young woman answering to Louisa Clay in
all particulars. When things had come as far as that, I said to
myself----

"'Ef there is a case for bluff, this is one. I'll just go and wring
the truth from Louisa before she is an hour older.'

"So I went to see her only this morning. I blarneyed her a bit
first--you know my style--and then I twitted her for being false to me,
and then I got up a sort of pretense quarrel, and I worked on her
feelings until she got into a rage, and when she was all hot and
peppery, I faced right round on her, and charged her with the theft.

"'You stole that five-pound note from the till in Shaw's shop,' I said,
'and you let Alison Reed be charged with it. I know you stole it, so
you needn't deny it.