n
it back to your own room."

"Well?" I asked. "And what happened then?"

"Have you no suspicion yourself of what happened, sir?"

"None whatever."

"Has Mr. Bruff no suspicion?"

"No more than I have."

Sergeant Cuff rose, and went to my writing-table. He came back with a
sealed envelope. It was marked "Private;" it was addressed to me; and it
had the Sergeant's signature in the corner.

"I suspected the wrong person, last year," he said: "and I may be
suspecting the wrong person now. Wait to open the envelope, Mr. Blake,
till you have got at the truth. And then compare the name of the guilty
person, with the name that I have written in that sealed letter."

I put the letter into my pocket--and then asked for the Sergeant's
opinion of the measures which we had taken at the bank.

"Very well intended, sir," he answered, "and quite the right thing to
do. But there was another person who ought to have been looked after
besides Mr. Luker."

"The person named in the letter you have just given to me?"

"Yes, Mr. Blake, the person named in the letter. It can't be helped now.
I shall have something to propose to you and Mr. Bruff, sir, when the
time comes. Let's wait, first, and see if the boy has anything to tell
us that is worth hearing."

It was close on ten o'clock, and the boy had not made his appearance.
Sergeant Cuff talked of other matters. He asked after his old friend
Betteredge, and his old enemy the gardener. In a minute more, he would
no doubt have got from this, to the subject of his favourite roses, if
my servant had not interrupted us by announcing that the boy was below.

On being brought into the room, Gooseberry stopped at the threshold
of the door, and looked distrustfully at the stranger who was in my
company. I told the boy to come to me.

"You may speak before this gentleman," I said. "He is here to assist me;
and he knows all that has happened. Sergeant Cuff," I added, "this is
the boy from Mr. Bruff's office."

In our modern system of civilisation, celebrity (no matter of what kind)
is the lever that will move anything. The fame of the great Cuff had
even reached the ears of the small Gooseberry. The boy's ill-fixed
eyes rolled, when I mentioned the illustrious name, till I thought they
really must have dropped on the carpet.

"Come here, my lad," said the Sergeant, "and let's hear what you have got
to tell us."

The notice of the great man--the hero of many a famous story in ever