"I don't mean that, Cripp. _You_ know. The gentleman you suspected of having bought the earring." Cripp stared. "I have not suspected any one." "Goodness me! you need not be so cautious, Cripp," returned the Squire, somewhat nettled. "Eccles made a confidant of me. He told me all about it--except the name." "What Eccles?" asked Cripp. "I really do not know what you are talking of, sir." "What Eccles--why, your Eccles. Him you sent over to me on Sunday afternoon: a well-dressed, gentlemanly man, with a black moustache. Detective Eccles." "I do not know any Detective Eccles." "Dear me, my good man, you must be losing your memory!" retorted the Squire, in wrath. "He came straight to me from you on Sunday; you sent him off in haste without his dinner." "Quite a mistake, sir," said the sergeant. "It was not I who sent him." "Why, bless my heart and mind, Cripp, you'll be for telling me next the sun never shone! Where's your recollection gone to?" "I hope my recollection is where it always has been, Squire. We must be at cross-purposes. I do not know any one of the name of Eccles, and I have not sent any one to you. As a proof that I could not have done it, I may tell you, sir, that I was summoned to Gloucester on business last Friday directly after I saw you, and did not get back here until this morning." The Squire rubbed his face, whilst he revolved probabilities, and thought Cripp must be dreaming. "He came direct from you--from yourself, Cripp; and he disclosed to me your reasons for hoping you had found the earring, and your doubts of the honesty of the man who had bought it--the lawyer, you remember. And he brought back the other earring to you that you might compare them." "Eh--what?" cried Cripp, briskly. "Brought away the other earring, do you say, sir?" "To be sure he did. What else did you send him for?" "And he has not returned it to you?" "Returned it! of course not. You hold it, don't you?" "Then, Squire Todhetley, you have been cleverly robbed of this second earring," cried Cripp, quietly. "_Dodged_ out of it, sir. The man who went over to you must have been a member of the swell-mob. Well-dressed, and a black moustache!" "He was a college man, had been at Oxford," debated the unfortunate pater, sitting on a chair in awful doubt. "He told me so." "You did not see him there, sir," said the sergeant, with a suppressed laugh. "I might tell you I had a duke for a grandmother; but it would be none nearer the fact." "Mercy upon us all!" groaned the Squire. "What a mortification it will be if that other earring's gone! Don't you think some one in your station here may have sent him, if you were out yourself?" "I will inquire, for your satisfaction, Squire Todhetley," said the sergeant, opening the door; "but I can answer for it beforehand that it will be useless." It was as Cripp thought. Eccles was not known at the station, and no one had been sent to us.