As I said those last words, the poor man seemed to find his powers of speech again.  He cut me short directly, as haughtily as if he had been a duke instead of a stationer.  “Try some other means of justifying your vile calumny against my wife,” says he.  “Her milliner’s bill, for the past year, is on my file of receipted accounts, at this moment.”

“Excuse me, Sir,” says I, “but that proves nothing.  Milliners, I must tell you, have a certain rascally custom which comes within the daily experience of our office.  A married lady who wishes it can keep two accounts at her dress-maker’s:—­one is the account which her husband sees and pays; the other is the private account, which contains all the extravagant items, and which the wife pays secretly, by instalments, whenever she can.  According to our usual experience, these instalments are mostly squeezed out of the housekeeping money.  In your case, I suspect no instalments have been paid; proceedings have been threatened; Mrs. Yatman, knowing your altered circumstances, has felt herself driven into a corner; and she has paid her private account out of your cashbox.”

“I won’t believe it!” says he.  “Every word you speak is an abominable insult to me and to my wife.”

“Are you man enough, Sir,” says I, taking him up short, in order to save time and words, “to get that receipted bill you spoke of just now, off the file, and to come with me at once to the milliner’s shop where Mrs. Yatman deals?”

He turned red in the face at that, got the bill directly, and put on his hat.  I took out of my pocket-book the list containing the numbers of the lost notes, and we left the house together immediately.

Arrived at the milliner’s, (one of the expensive West-End houses, as I expected,) I asked for a private interview, on important business, with the mistress of the concern.  It was not the first time that she and I had met over the same delicate investigation.  The moment she set eyes on me, she sent for her husband.  I mentioned who Mr. Yatman was, and what we wanted.

“This is strictly private?” says the husband.  I nodded my head.

“And confidential?” says the wife.  I nodded again.

“Do you see any objection, dear, to obliging the Sergeant with a sight of the books?” says the husband.

“None in the world, love, if you approve of it,” says the wife.

All this while poor Mr. Yatman sat looking the picture of astonishment and distress, quite out of place at our polite conference.  The books were brought,—­and one minute’s look at the pages in which Mrs. Yatman’s name figured was enough, and more than enough, to prove the truth of every word that I had spoken.