"Dringworth Brothers,America Square,London City."The other started again,nodded,and said,"That was the house.""Now,"pursued the captain,"between those two men cast away there arose a mystery concerning the round sum of five hundred pound."Again Tregarthen started,changing colour.Again the captain said,"What's the matter?"As Tregarthen only answered,"Please to go on,"the captain recounted,very tersely and plainly,the nature of Clissold's wanderings on the barren island,as he had condensed them in his mind from the seafaring man.Tregarthen became greatly agitated during this recital,and at length exclaimed,-"Clissold was the man who ruined me!I have suspected it for many a long year,and now I know it.""And how,"said the captain,drawing his chair still closer to Tregarthen,and clapping his hand upon his shoulder,--"how may you know it?""When we were fellow-clerks,"replied Tregarthen,"in that London house,it was one of my duties to enter daily in a certain book an account of the sums received that day by the firm,and afterward paid into the bankers'.One memorable day,--a Wednesday,the black day of my life,--among the sums I so entered was one of five hundred pounds.""I begin to make it out,"said the captain."Yes?""It was one of Clissold's duties to copy from this entry a memorandum of the sums which the clerk employed to go to the bankers'paid in there.It was my duty to hand the money to Clissold;it was Clissold's to hand it to the clerk,with that memorandum of his writing.On that Wednesday I entered a sum of five hundred pounds received.I handed that sum,as I handed the other sums in the day's entry,to Clissold.I was absolutely certain of it at the time;I have been absolutely certain of it ever since.A sum of five hundred pounds was afterward found by the house to have been that day wanting from the bag,from Clissold's memorandum,and from the entries in my book.Clissold,being questioned,stood upon his perfect clearness in the matter,and emphatically declared that he asked no better than to be tested by 'Tregarthen's book.'My book was examined,and the entry of five hundred pounds was not there.""How not there,"said the captain,"when you made it yourself?"Tregarthen continued:-
"I was then questioned.Had I made the entry?Certainly I had.
The house produced my book,and it was not there.I could not deny my book;I could not deny my writing.I knew there must be forgery by some one;but the writing was wonderfully like mine,and I could impeach no one if the house could not.I was required to pay the money back.I did so;and I left the house,almost broken-hearted,rather than remain there,--even if I could have done so,--with a dark shadow of suspicion always on me.I returned to my native place,Lanrean,and remained there,clerk to a mine,until I was appointed to my little post here.""I well remember,"said the captain,"that I told you that if you had no experience of ill judgments on deceiving appearances,you were a lucky man.You went hurt at that,and I see why.I'm sorry.""Thus it is,"said Tregarthen."Of my own innocence I have of course been sure;it has been at once my comfort and my trial.Of Clissold I have always had suspicions almost amounting to certainty;but they have never been confirmed until now.For my daughter's sake and for my own I have carried this subject in my own heart,as the only secret of my life,and have long believed that it would die with me.""Wa'al,my good sir,"said the captain cordially,"the present question is,and will be long,I hope,concerning living,and not dying.Now,here are our two honest friends,the loving Raybrock and the slow.Here they stand,agreed on one point,on which I'd back 'em round the world,and right across it from north to south,and then again from east to west,and through it,from your deepest Cornish mine to China.It is,that they will never use this same so-often-mentioned sum of money,and that restitution of it must be made to you.These two,the loving member and the slow,for the sake of the right and of their father's memory,will have it ready for you to-morrow.Take it,and ease their minds and mine,and end a most unfortunate transaction."Tregarthen took the captain by the hand,and gave his hand to each of the young men,but positively and finally answered No.He said,they trusted to his word,and he was glad of it,and at rest in his mind;but there was no proof,and the money must remain as it was.
All were very earnest over this;and earnestness in men,when they are right and true,is so impressive,that Mr.Pettifer deserted his cookery and looked on quite moved.
"And so,"said the captain,"so we come--as that lawyer-crittur over yonder where we were this morning might--to mere proof;do we?We must have it;must we?How?From this Clissold's wanderings,and from what you say,it ain't hard to make out that there was a neat forgery of your writing committed by the too smart rowdy that was grease and ashes when I made his acquaintance,and a substitution of a forged leaf in your book for a real and torn leaf torn out.Now was that real and true leaf then and there destroyed?No,--for says he,in his drunken way,he slipped it into a crack in his own desk,because you came into the office before there was time to burn it,and could never get back to it arterwards.Wait a bit.Where is that desk now?Do you consider it likely to be in America Square,London City?"Tregarthen shook his head.
"The house has not,for years,transacted business in that place.Ihave heard of it,and read of it,as removed,enlarged,every way altered.Things alter so fast in these times.""You think so,"returned the captain,with compassion;"but you should come over and see me afore you talk about that.Wa'al,now.
This desk,this paper,--this paper,this desk,"said the captain,ruminating and walking about,and looking,in his uneasy abstraction,into Mr.Pettifer's hat on a table,among other things.
