Richard Luttrell stood with his back towards the open door of a large wooden shed used as a boat-house, the interior of which looked densely black by contrast with the brilliant sunlight on the green grass and trees outside it. An open box or two, a heap, of fishing tackle, a broken oar, could be seen but dimly from without. It was in one of these boxes that Richard Luttrell had made, early in the day, a startling discovery. He had come across a pocket-book which had been abstracted from his strong-box in a most mysterious way about a week before. On opening it, he found, not only certain bank-notes which he had missed, but some marked coins and a cornelian seal which had disappeared on previous occasions, proving that a system of robbery had been carried on by one and the same person--evidently a member of the Luttrell household. The spoil was concealed with great care in a locked box on a shelf, and but for an accidental stumble by which Luttrell had brought down the whole shelf and broken the box itself, it would probably have remained there undisturbed. No one would ever have dreamt of seeking for Luttrell's pocket-book in a box in the boat-house.
"How did this get here? Who keeps the second key of the boat-house?" demanded Richard in the first moment of his discovery.
And Brian, his younger brother, answered carelessly--
"Hugo has had it for the last week or two."
Then, disturbed by his brother's tone, he came to Richard's side and looked at the fragments of the box by which Richard was still kneeling. With an exclamation of surprise he took up the lid of the box and examined it carefully. The name of its owner had been printed in ink on the smooth, brown surface--Hugo Luttrell. And the stolen property was hidden in that little wooden box.
The exclamations of the two brothers were characteristic. Richard raised himself with the pocket-book in his hand, and said vehemently--
While Brian, looking shocked and grieved, sat down on the stump of a tree and muttered, "Poor lad!" between his teeth, as he contemplated the miserable fragments on the ground.
The sound of a bell came faintly to their ears through the clear morning air. Richard spoke sharply.
"We must leave the matter for the present. Don't say anything about it. Lock up the boat-house, Brian, and keep the key. We'll have Hugo down here after breakfast, and see whether he'll make a clean breast of it."