my soul!" said Louis slowly, with marked constraint. "I really
forget whether I looked at that door before I went to bed. I know I
looked at all the others."

"I'd looked at it, anyway," said Rachel defiantly, gazing at the
table.

"And when you found it open, miss," pursued Thomas Batchgrew, "what
did ye do?"

"I shut it and locked it."

"Where was the key?"

"In the door."

"Lock in order?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, how could it have been opened from the outside? There
isn't a mark on the door, outside _or_ in."

"As far as that goes, Mr. Batchgrew," said Rachel, "only last week the
key fell out of the lock on the inside and slid down the brick floor
to the outside--you know there's a slope. And I had to go out of the
house by the front and the lamplighter climbed over the back gate for
me and let me into the yard so that I could get the key again. That
might have happened last night. Some one might have shaken the key
out, and pulled it under the door with a bit of wire or something."

"That won't do," Thomas Batchgrew stopped her. "You said the key was
in the door on the inside."

"Well, when they'd once opened the door from the outside, couldn't
they have put the key on the inside again?"

"They? Who?"

"Burglars."

Thomas Batchgrew repeated sarcastically--

"Burglars! Burglars!" and snorted.

"Well, Mr. Batchgrew, either burglars must have been at work," said
Louis, who was fascinated by Rachel's surprising news and equally
surprising theory--"either burglars must have been at work," he
repeated impressively, "_or_--the money is still in the house.
That's evident."

"Is it?" snarled Batchgrew. "Look here, miss, and you, young Fores, I
didn't make much o' this this morning, because I thought th' money 'ud
happen be found. But seeing as it isn't, and _as_ we're talking
about it, what time was the rumpus last night?"

"What time?" Rachel muttered. "What time was it, Mr. Fores?"

"I dun'no'," said Louis. "Perhaps the doctor would know."

"Oh!" said Rachel, "Mrs. Tams said the hall clock had stopped; that
must have been when Mrs. Maldon knocked up against it."

She went to the parlour door and opened it, displaying the hall clock,
which showed twenty-five minutes past twelve. Louis had crept up
behind Mr. Batchgrew, who in his inapposite white waistcoat stood
between the two lovers, stertorous with vague anathema.

"So that was the time," said he. "And th' burglars must ha' been and
gone afo