If Mr.
D------'s pockets were emptied, then, of course, it would be
necessary to transfer the searching process to Mr. D------'s
room. Under any circumstances, I was certain of the head
chambermaid; and under any circumstances, also, the head
chambermaid was certain of Boots.
I waited till Tom came home, looking very puffy and bilious about
the face; but as to his intellects, if anything, rather sharper
than ever. His report was uncommonly short and pleasant. The inn
was shutting up; Mr. Davager was going to bed in rather a drunken
condition; Mr. Davager's friend had never appeared. I sent Tom
(properly instructed about keeping our man in view all the next
morning) to his shake-down behind the office-desk, where I heard
him hiccoughing half the night, as even the best boys will, when
over-excited and too full of tarts.
At half-past seven next morning, I slipped quietly into Boots's
pantry.
Down came the clothes. No pockets in trousers. Waistcoat-pockets
empty. Coat-pockets with something in them. First, handkerchief;
secondly, bunch of keys; thirdly, cigar-case; fourthly,
pocketbook. Of course I wasn't such a fool as to expect to find
the letter there, but I opened the pocketbook with a certain
curiosity, notwithstanding.
Nothing in the two pockets of the book but some old
advertisements cut out of newspapers, a lock of hair tied round
with a dirty bit of ribbon, a circular letter about a loan
society, and some copies of verses not likely to suit any company
that was not of an extremely free-and-easy description.
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