We had been home about a week when the first thing was missed. At one side of the house, in a sort of nook, was a square room, its glass-doors opening on the gravel-path that skirted the hedge of the vegetable garden. Squire Todhetley kept his farming accounts there and wrote his letters. A barometer and two county maps, Worcestershire and Warwickshire, on its walls, a square of matting on its floor, an upright bureau, a table, some chairs; and there you have the picture of the room. One afternoon--mind! we did not know this for a week after, but it is as well to tell of it as it occurred--he was sitting at the table in this room, his account-books, kept in the bureau, open before him; his inkstand and cash-box at hand. Lying near the cash-box was a five-pound note, open; the Squire had put it out for Dwarf Giles to get changed at Alcester. He was writing an order for some things that Giles would have to bring back, when Rimmell, who acted as working bailiff on the estate, came to the glass-doors, open to the warm June air, saying he had received an offer for the wheat that had spurted. The Squire stepped outside on the gravel-path while he talked with Rimmell, and then strolled round with him to the fold-yard. He was away--that is, out of sight of the room--about three minutes, and when he got back the note was gone. He could not believe his own eyes. It was a calm day; no wind stirring. He lifted the things on the table; he lifted the matting on the floor; he shook his loose coat; all in vain. Standing at the door, he shouted aloud; he walked along the path to the front of the house, and shouted there; but was not answered. So far as could be seen, no person whatever was about who could have come round to the room during his short absence. Striding back to the room, he went through it, and up the passage to the hall, his boots creaking. Molly was in the kitchen, singing over her work; Phoebe and Hannah were heard talking upstairs; and Mrs. Todhetley stood in the store-room, doing something to the last year's pots of jam. She said, on being questioned, that no one had passed to the passage leading to the Squire's room. It happened at that moment, that I, coming home from the Dyke, ran into the hall, full butt against the Squire. "Johnny," said he, "where are you all? What are you up to?" I had been at the Dyke all the afternoon with Tod and Hugh; they were there still. Not Sanker: he was outside, on the lawn, reading. This I told the pater, and he said no more. Later, when we came to know what had happened, he mentioned to us that, at this time, no idea of robbery had entered his head; he thought one of us might have hidden the money in sport.