Rachel and Louis followed him obediently. In the back room it was he who struck a match and lighted the gas. "You've shifted the picture!" he cried, as soon as the room was illuminated. "Yes, we have," Louis admitted. "But there's where it was!" Julian almost shouted, pointing. "You can't deny it! There's the marks. Are they as high as the top of the cupboard, or aren't they?" Then he dragged along a chair to the cupboard and stood on it, puffing at his pipe. "Can I see on to the top of the cupboard or can't I?" he demanded. Obviously he could see on to the top of the cupboard. "I didn't think the top was so low," said Louis. "Well, you shouldn't contradict," Julian chastised him. "It's just as your great-aunt said," put in Rachel, in a meditative tone. "I remember she told us she pushed a chair forward with her knee. I dare say in getting on to the chair she knocked her elbow or something against the picture, and no doubt she left the chair more or less where she'd pushed it. That would be it." "Did she say that to you?" Louis questioned Rachel. "It doesn't matter much what she said," Julian growled. "That's how it _was_, anyway. I'm telling you. I'm not here to listen to theories." "Well," said Louis amiably, "you put the notes into your pocket. What then?" Julian removed his pipe from his mouth. "What then? I walked off with 'em." "But you don't mean to tell us you meant--to appropriate them, Julian? You don't mean that!" Louis spoke reassuringly, good-naturedly, and with a slight superiority. "No, I don't. I don't mean I appropriated 'em." Julian's voice rose defiantly. "I mean I stole them.... I stole them, and what's more, I meant to steal them. And so there ye are! But come back to the parlour. I must finish my reading." He strode away into the parlour, and the other two had no alternative but to follow him. They followed him like guilty things; for the manner of his confession was such as apparently to put his hearers, more than himself, in the wrong. He confessed as one who accuses. "Sit down," said he, in the parlour. "But surely," Louis protested, "if you're serious--" "If I'm serious, man! Do you take me for a bally mountebank? Do you suppose I'm doing this for fun?" "Well," said Louis, "if you _are_ serious, you needn't tell us any more. We know, and that's enough, isn't it?" Julian replied curtly, "You've got to hear me out." And picking up his document from the floor, he resumed the perusal. "'Also, if the gas hadn't been where it is, I should not have noticed anything on the top of the cupboard. I took the notes because I was badly in need of money, and also because I was angry at money being left like that on the tops of cupboards. I had no idea Aunt Maldon was such a foolish woman.'" Louis interjected soothingly: "But you only meant to teach the old lady a lesson and give the notes back."