‘He was leaving his rooms that night, sir,’ said Hornett, ‘as sly as a cat. I was just on the ground-floor of Number One as he was locking the door behind him. Locking it, don’t you see, sir,’ said Hornett, beginning to be fired by his imagination, and speaking eagerly, ‘so as not to make a noise in pulling it to behind him. I suppose I made some sort of a noise in going behind him, but any way, he looked up at me--I can see him now!’ he cried, with a swift conviction, ‘as if he was here at this very minute, white and cowardly. That’s what he was, sir. White and cowardly, I can see him now.’ Bommaney grasped him by the wrist. ‘Do you remember the time?’ he asked, passing one hand confusedly through the tumbled and disgraceful old locks of his hair. ‘Do you remember when I left the office? Do you remember when you left it?’ ‘Almost directly, sir, after you. But you drove, sir, and I walked. I stopped, and had a little conversation with a friend, and just a social glass that might have kept me back five minutes, sir. I was going to dine with Mr. Marshall (White and Fielding’s Mr. Marshall, sir) before the theatre.’ Bommaney released his wrist, and dropping on his knees before the fire again, warmed his hands absently and stared into the blaze. ‘The notes were all hundreds, James,’ he said, after a pause. ‘They were stopped at the Bank, I know, because I saw the advertisement. It wouldn’t be easy to get rid of them.’ ‘There are ways and means, sir,’ said Hornett. ‘They’d have to be disposed of at a loss, of course--a heavy loss--and kept quiet for a considerable time.’ ‘Have you heard of any of them coming into circulation?’ asked Bommaney. ‘I haven’t been in the way to hear of anything, sir,’ the clerk answered mournfully, ‘but,’ with a sidelong look at his old employer, ‘if I could only get to look a bit respectable, I could make inquiries in an hour. I have no doubt I could find out, sir.’ ‘My boy believes I’m guilty, like the rest,’ said the old man, moaning and shivering and coughing again. The passion of his protest and the warmth of heart which Hornett’s returning confidence had taught him had all died away, and he was his bankrupt, disgraced, and broken self again, old and maudlin, and strickenly conscious of his miseries. ‘Phil might help me,’ he said shakily. ‘He ‘could, but he won’t. He’s got plenty of money. If I’d been a rogue, James Hornett,’ and there he flashed up again, ever so little, ‘I could have robbed my own flesh and blood with safety. A rogue would have done it. I was his sole trustee, and I could have had nine thousand by a stroke of the pen at any minute.’ ‘Mr. Phil, sir,’ said Hornett ‘Mr. Phil hasn’t got much money left’ ‘Why not?’ the old man asked, staring round at him with his watery eyes. ‘He paid Mr. Brown the eight thousand in full, sir, and divided the rest, as far as it would go, amongst the poorest of the creditors.’