seventeen pounds to Grobury the baker.' It was that seventeen pounds to
Grobury, the baker, for flour, which made the butcher fixedly determined
to smite the poor clergyman hip and thigh. 'And he paid money to Hall
and to Mrs Holt, and to a deal more; but he never came near my shop. If
he had even shown himself, I would not have so much about it.' And then
a day before the day named, Mrs Crawley had come into Silverbridge, and
had paid the butcher twenty pounds in four five-pound notes. So far
Fletcher the butcher had been successful.

Some six weeks after this, inquiry began to be made as to a certain
cheque for twenty pounds drawn by Lord Lufton on his bankers in London,
which cheque had been lost in the early spring by Mr Soames, Lord
Lufton's man of business in Barsetshire, together with a pocket-book in
which it had been folded. This pocket-book Soames had believed himself
to have left it at Mr Crawley's house, and had gone so far, even at the
time of the loss, as to express his absolute conviction that he had so
left it. He was in the habit of paying a rentcharge to Mr Crawley on
behalf of Lord Lufton, amounting to twenty pounds four shillings, every
half-year. Lord Lufton held the large tithes of Hogglestock, and paid
annually a sum of forty pounds eight shillings to the incumbent. This
amount was, as a rule, remitted punctually by Mr Soames through the
post. On the occasion now spoken of, he had had some reason to visit
Hogglestock, and had paid the money personally to Mr Crawley. Of so much
there is no doubt. But he had paid it by a cheque drawn by himself on
his own bankers at Barchester, and that cheque had been cashed in the
ordinary way on the next morning. On returning to his own house in
Barchester he had missed his pocket-book, and had written to Mr Crawley
to make inquiry. There had been no money in it, beyond the cheque drawn
by Lord Lufton for twenty pounds. Mr Crawley had answered this letter by
another, saying that no pocket-book had been found in his house. All