‘I’d swear to my half-crown anywhere,’ said one victim. ‘It had a twist at the edges and a scar on the Queen’s nose.’
‘Let’s all agree to be searched--our kits, and packs, and all.’
‘Yes, yes,’ everybody cried. ‘We’ll call the colour-sergeant, and do it all regular and proper, so we will.’
There was a general stampede out of the room. Jubbock only was left in it, and Hanlon, who had been shaving behind the door, and was not visible.
The men came trooping back, headed by the colour-sergeant--a stout, consequential little man, who felt that his position was only second in dignity to that of the commander-in-chief.
‘No man must leave the room. You, Corporal Closky, see to that. Now, Sergeant Limpetter, we’ll take the beds with their kits as they come.’
The search was regularly and carefully conducted amid a decorous silence.
All at once there was a loud shout. The money had been discovered in one of the packs.
‘Larkins,’ cried the colour-sergeant, ‘I’d never have believed it.’
There was a hubbub of voices, the prominent expressions being, ‘I told you so,’ or ‘What did I say?’ followed by a hoarse shout for vengeance, for condign punishment of the despicable thief.
‘A court-martial! a barrack-room court-martial,’ cried several men in a breath, and the cry was taken up by the room.
‘Stop! Give the lad fair play,’ said a new voice, and Joe Hanlon stepped from behind the door.
‘Why, what do you know about it?’ the colour-sergeant asked. ‘Isn’t the evidence as straight as it can be? He was all but taken in the act. The money, which is sworn to, is found in his pack.’
‘Himself, of course. Who else?’ It was Jubbock who spoke.
‘It’s a lie. I’ll swear I never touched the pack; I’m ready to take my dying oath--’
‘I saw you, man; I was there, behind the door, shaving, and you thought you was all alone’st in the room. I saw you go to Larkins’ bed, take the money out of your pocket, wrap it in a rag, and put it in Larkins’ pack.’
‘After all, it’s only one man’s word against another’s,’ said the colour-sergeant, magisterially.
‘How else could it have got there? Don’t you know,’ Hanlon asked of Jubbock, ‘don’t you know that Larkins is in hospital, and been there these three days past? How could he have touched the pack? He’s not been in the room for three days or more.’