As to the ` how , ' they do n't know , and as to the ` where ' -- well , if they knew that , there might be some hope of finding it . The girls are in a bad way . The money was to get them their longed-for piano , it seems , and now it 's gone . '' `` But how did it happen , Cecil ? '' `` Well , Mr. Carroll says that Mrs. Carroll handed the pocketbook back to him at the gate yesterday , and he dropped it in the inside pocket of his over-coat -- '' `` I saw him do it , '' I cried . `` Yes , and then , before he went to be photographed , he hung his coat up in the hall . It hung there until the evening , and nobody seems to have thought about the money , each supposing that someone else had put it carefully away . After tea Mr. Carroll put on the coat and went to see somebody over at Netherby . He says the thought of the pocketbook never crossed his mind ; he had forgotten all about putting it in that coat pocket . He came home across the fields about eleven o'clock and found that the cows had broken into the clover hay , and he had a great chase before he got them out . When he went in , just as he entered the door , the remembrance of the money flashed over him . He felt in his pocket , but there was no pocketbook there ; he asked his wife if she had taken it out . She had not , and nobody else had . There was a hole in the pocket , but Mr. Carroll says it was too small for the pocketbook to have worked through . However , it must have done so -- unless someone took it out of his pocket at Netherby , and that is not possible , because he never had his coat off , and it was in an inside pocket . It 's not likely that they will ever see it again . Someone may pick it up , of course , but the chances are slim . Mr. Carroll does n't know his exact path across the fields , and if he lost it while he was after the cows , it 's a bluer show still . They 've been searching all day , of course . The girls are awfully disappointed . ''
A sudden recollection came to me of Ned Brooke 's face as I had seen it the day before at the gate , coupled with the remembrance of seeing him walking down the lane XXXXX a quick pace , so unlike his usual shambling gait , while I ran through the lawn .
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