"Of course, Captain Bayley, having met your nephew at your house several times, I cannot for a moment believe him guilty of taking the note; still, I must admit that the evidence is strongly circumstantial, and were it a stranger who was accused, I should say at once the thing looked nasty."
"Pooh! nonsense, Griffith," the old officer said angrily; "there's nothing in it, sir--nothing whatever. Somebody found the note kicking about, I dare say, and didn't know who it belonged to; he knew Frank was in a corner, and sent it to him. The thing is perfectly natural."
"Yes," the lawyer assented doubtfully; "but the question is, Who did know it? Was the fact of your nephew requiring the money generally known in the school?"
"No," Captain Bayley admitted. "The doctor examined the four boys before Frank. They all declared that they knew nothing of the note, and that they had not mentioned the circumstance to a soul; but my opinion is that one of them is a liar."
"It is certainly necessary to believe," Mr. Griffith said slowly, "that one of them is either a liar or a thief. Of course there may be some other solution of the matter, but the only one that I can see, just at the present moment, is this: Your nephew is the sort of lad to be extremely popular among his schoolmates; either one of these four boys took the note from the master's table, with the good-natured but most mistaken idea of getting him out of a scrape, or they must have mentioned his need of money to some of their school-fellows, one of whom finding the note, perhaps in the yard, where the head-master may have dropped it, sent it to Frank to relieve him of the difficulty.
"These are possible solutions of the mystery, at any rate. But if you will take my advice, Captain Bayley, you will not, in the present state of affairs, take the steps which you propose to me against Dr. Litter. It will be time enough to do that when your nephew's innocence is finally and incontestably proved. Of course," he said, seeing that his listener was about to break out again, "you and I, knowing him, know that he is innocent; but others who do not know him might entertain some doubt upon the subject, and a jury might consider that the Doctor was justified, with the evidence before him, in acting as he did, in which case an immense deal of damage might be done by making the matter a subject of general talk."