It was therefore without the slightest suspicion of its having been tampered with, that, an hour or two after the conversation just narrated, Trevethick repaired to his strong-box, with the intention of taking from it the sum of money required by Solomon. The padlock was like a little clock, except that it had the letters of the alphabet round its face instead of figures, and three hands instead of two; this latter circumstance insured, by its complication, the safety of the treasure, but at the same time rendered it useless--unless he broke the box open--to the possessor himself if by any accident he should forget the letter time at which he had set it; and accordingly Trevethick was accustomed to carry a memorandum of this about with him; even if he lost it, it would be no great matter, for what meaning would it convey to any human being to find a bit of paper with the letters B, N, Z upon it? Harry, as we have said, was out of the house, so his daughter's room was untenanted. He went to a cupboard, and took down the box from its usual shelf, with the same feeling of satisfaction that an old poet recurs to his first volume of verse; he may have written better things, and things that have brought him more money, but those spring leaves are dearest to him of all. So it was with Trevethick's spring lock. He adjusted the hands, and the padlock sprang open; he lifted the lid, and the box was empty; the two thousand pounds in Bank of England notes were gone. He was a big bull-necked man, of what is called (in the reports of inquests) "a full habit of body," and the discovery was almost fatal to him. His face grew purple, the veins in his forehead stood out, and his well-seasoned head, which liquor could so little affect, went round and round with him, and sang like a humming-top. He was on the very brink of a fit, which might have "annihilated space and time" (as far as he was concerned), "and made two lovers happy." But the star of Richard Yorke was not in the ascendant. The old man held on by the shelf of the cupboard, and gradually came to himself. He did not even then comprehend the whole gravity of the position; the sense of his great loss--not only of so much wealth, but of that which he had secured with such toil, and laid by unproductively so long for the accomplishment of his darling purpose--monopolized his mind. Who _could_ have been the thief? was the one question with which he concerned himself, and the answer was not long delayed. It was the coincidence of amount in the sum stolen with that which Richard had gone to Plymouth to realize, that turned his suspicions upon the young artist. Why, the scoundrel had fixed upon that very sum as the test of his possessing an independence for a reason that was now clear enough: it was the exact limit of what he knew he could lay his hand upon. But how _did_ he know?--or, rather (for the old man's thoughts were still fixed upon the mechanical mystery of his loss), how