He received the deposit in bank-notes of the following amounts:—­one fifty-pound note, three twenty-pound notes, six ten-pound notes, and six five-pound notes.  His object in drawing the money in this form was to have it ready to lay out immediately in trifling loans, on good security, among the small tradespeople of his district,—­some of whom are sorely pressed for the very means of existence at the present time.  Investments of this kind seemed to Mr. Yatman to be the most safe and the most profitable on which he could now venture.

He brought the money back in an envelope placed in his breast pocket; and asked his shopman, on getting home, to look for a small flat tin cash-box, which had not been used for years, and which, as Mr. Yatman remembered it, was exactly of the right size to hold the bank-notes.  For some time the cash-box was searched for in vain.  Mr. Yatman called to his wife to know if she had any idea where it was.  The question was overheard by the servant-of-all-work, who was taking up the tea-tray at the time, and by Mr. Jay, who was coming down stairs on his way out to the theatre.  Ultimately the cash-box was found by the shopman.  Mr. Yatman placed the bank-notes in it, secured them by a padlock, and put the box in his coat pocket.  It stuck out of the coat pocket a very little, but enough to be seen.  Mr. Yatman remained at home, up stairs, all that evening.  No visitors called.  At eleven o’clock he went to bed, and put the cash-box under his pillow.

When he and his wife woke the next morning, the box was gone.  Payment of the notes was immediately stopped at the Bank of England; but no news of the money has been heard of since that time.

So far, the circumstances of the case are perfectly clear.  They point unmistakably to the conclusion that the robbery must have been committed by some person living in the house.  Suspicion falls, therefore, upon the servant-of-all-work, upon the shopman, and upon Mr. Jay.  The two first knew that the cash-box was being inquired for by their master, but did not know what it was he wanted to put into it.  They would assume, of course, that it was money.  They both had opportunities (the servant, when she took away the tea,—­and the shopman, when he came, after shutting up, to give the keys of the till to his master) of seeing the cash-box in Mr. Yatman’s pocket, and of inferring naturally, from its position there, that he intended to take it into his bedroom with him at night.

Mr. Jay, on the other hand, had been told, during the afternoon’s conversation on the subject of joint-stock banks, that his landlord had a deposit of two hundred pounds in one of them.  He also knew that Mr. Yatman left him with the intention of drawing that money out; and he heard the inquiry for the cash-box, afterwards, when he was coming down stairs.  He must, therefore, have inferred that the money was in the house, and that the cash-box was the receptacle intended to contain it.  That he could have had any idea, however, of the place in which Mr. Yatman intended to keep it for the night is impossible, seeing that he went out before the box was found, and did not return till his landlord was in bed.  Consequently, if he committed the robbery, he must have gone into the bedroom purely on speculation.