“Then allow me to go over them aloud,” returned the detective; “and, if I make any mistake or omission, have the goodness to correct me:--On Friday last, you took a twenty-pound note out of your cash drawer, not taking or knowing its number. This note you put within the folds of a letter, and placed both in an envelope, and fastened the envelope down, your two clerks, Channing and Yorke, being present. You then went out, leaving the letter upon one of the desks. As you left, Hamish Channing came in. Immediately following upon that, Yorke went out, leaving the brothers alone. Arthur departed to attend college, Hamish remaining in the office. Arthur Channing soon returned, finding there was no necessity for him to stay in the cathedral; upon which Hamish left. Arthur Channing remained alone for more than an hour, no one calling or entering the office during that period. You then returned yourself; found the letter in the same state, apparently, in which you had left it, and you sealed it, and sent Arthur Channing with it to the post-office. These are the brief facts, so far as you are cognizant of them, and as they have been related to you?” “They are,” replied Mr. Galloway. “I should have mentioned that Arthur Channing carried the letter into my private room before he left the office for college.” “Locking the door?” “Oh dear, no! Closing the door, no doubt, but not locking it. It would have been unusual to do so.” “Jenkins was away,” observed the detective in a tone of abstraction, which told he was soliloquizing, rather than addressing his companion. Mr. Galloway rather fired up at the remark, taking it in a different light from that in which it was spoken. “Jenkins was at home at the time, confined to his bed; and, had he not been, I would answer for Jenkins’s honesty as I would for my own. Can you see any possible solution to the mystery?” “A very possible one,” was the dry answer. “There is no doubt whatever upon my mind, that the theft was committed by Arthur Channing.” Mr. Galloway started up with an exclamation of surprise, mingled with anger. Standing within the room was his nephew Mark. The time had gone on to nine, the hour of release from school; and, on running past Mr. Galloway’s with the rest of the boys, Mark had dutifully called in. Mark and his brothers were particularly fond of calling in, for their uncle was not stingy with his sixpences, and they were always on the look-out. Mr. Mark did not get a sixpence this time. “How dare you intrude upon me in this sly way, sir? Don’t you see I am engaged? I will have you knock at my room door before you enter. Take yourself off again, if you please!” Mark, with a word of deprecation, went off, his ears pricking with the sentence he had heard from the detective--Arthur Channing the thief!