The Ivory Gate, a new edition Part 54

'Oh! who was that? Are we arriving at something?'

'I hadn't told you that. The person who was sitting at the open window with him, who came down-stairs with him, and walked out of the Square with him, was no other than your own ward, Miss Elsie Arundel herself!'

'Oh! why not?' asked Mr. Dering carelessly. 'She told me yesterday, was it? that she knows him.'

'If it had been anyone else she was with,' he replied, mixing up his grammar--'if it had been anyone else who was with her--I wouldn't have been surprised! But to see the two together. That gave me a turn that I can't get over.'

'Still--why not? Miss Elsie Arundel has already told me that she is acquainted with Mr. Edmund Gray.'

'What? She has told you--she has actually told you? Oh! what has she told you? Oh! Lord! Lord! What is a man to say or to do? She told you--what is best to do?' He wrung his hands in his distress and his perplexity.

'I cannot understand, Checkley,' said Mr. Dering with emphasis, 'the reason for this display of excitement. Why should she not tell me or anybody else? Do you suppose that my ward is doing anything clandestine?

She has told me that she is acquainted with this man. She a.s.serts further--that we have made a great mistake about him. What she means, I cannot understand. She says, in fact, that this gentleman is a perfectly honourable person. It is possible that he has deceived her. It is also possible that the name of Edmund Gray has been wrongfully used in the papers which belong to the case. Certainly it was an Edmund Gray who endorsed the first cheque; and an Edmund Gray having an address at 22 South Square whose name is connected with the later business. Well, we shall see presently.--When do you take out the warrant for the arrest of this man? By the way, Elsie Arundel implores me not to allow that step. When are you going to do it?'

'This morning, I was going to do it. Everything is ready--but----'

'But what?'

'I can't do it now.'

'The man is clean gone off his head.'

'Leave it till to-morrow--only to-morrow, or Monday. Before then, something is certain to turn up. Oh! certain sure it is. Something must turn up.'

'There is certainly something that you are keeping behind, Checkley.

Well--wait till Monday. To-day is Sat.u.r.day. He can't do very much mischief between this and Monday.--That's enough about Edmund Gray. Now, here is another point, to which I want a direct answer from you. My brother a.s.serts, I believe on your authority, that Athelstan Arundel has been living in a low and profligate manner in some London suburb, and that he was in rags and poverty early this year. What is your authority for this?'

'Why, I heard him confess--or not deny--that he'd been living in Camberwell in bad company. It was at the _Salutation_ I heard it. He didn't see me. I'd got my head behind a paper. He never denied it.'

'Humph!--And about the rags?'

'I don't know anything about the rags.'

'Very likely there is as much foundation for the one charge as for the other. Three or four years ago, he was in America, to my knowledge. He wrote to me from America. I now learn, on the authority of his sister, that he only came back a month ago, and that he has been and is still in the service of an American paper. What have you got to say to that?'

'Nothing. I don't feel as if I could say anything. It's all turned upsy down. That won't do, I suppose, no more than the rest.'

'But, my friend, if that is true, your theory of conspiracy and confederacy, which you took so much pains to build up, falls to the ground as far as Athelstan is concerned.'

'Yes.-- Oh! I haven't nothing to say.' It was a mark of the trouble which possessed him that his language reverted to that of his young days, before he had learned the art of correct speech from the copying of legal doc.u.ments. He preserved the same att.i.tude with bent head and hanging hands, a sad and pitiful object.

'Since Athelstan was not in London during the months of March and April, he could have had no hand in the later forgeries. And it is acknowledged that the same hand was concerned both in the earlier and the later business.'

'Yes--yes--the same hand. Oh! yes--the same hand,' he repeated with pathos unintelligible to his master. 'The same hand--the same hand; yes--yes--the same hand--that's the devil of it--same hand done it all.'

'Then what becomes of your charge against my young Partner? You were extremely fierce about it. So was my brother. You had no proofs--nor had he. If the same hand was in both forgeries, it could not have been the hand of George Austin. What do you say to that?'

'Nothing. I'm never going'--still standing hands hanging--'to say anything again as long as I live.'

'But you were very fierce about it, Checkley. You must either find more proofs or withdraw your accusation.'

'Oh! if that's all, I withdraw-- I withdraw everything.'

'Why did you bring that charge then, Checkley? You've been making yourself very busy over the character of my Partner. You have permitted yourself to say things in the office before the clerks about him. If it turns out that he has had nothing to do with the business, you will be in a very serious position.'

'I withdraw-- I withdraw everything,' the old clerk replied, but not meekly. He was prepared to withdraw, but only because he was forced.

'Remember, too, that it was you who brought the charge against young Arundel.'

'I withdraw-- I withdraw everything.'

'You went so far as to remember--the other day--having seen him replace the notes in the safe. What do you say to that?'

'I withdraw.'

'But it was a direct statement--the testimony of an eyewitness. Was it true or not?--I don't know you this morning, Checkley. First, you appear shaking and trembling: then you tell me things which seem in no way to warrant so much agitation. Next, you withdraw an accusation which ought never to have been made except with the strongest proof. And now you wish to withdraw an alleged fact.'

Checkley shook his head helplessly.

'I acknowledge that the business remains as mysterious as before.

Nothing has been found out. But there remains an evident and savage animosity on your part towards two young gentlemen in succession. Why?

What have they done to you?'

Checkley made reply in bold words, but still standing with hanging hands: 'I withdraw the animosity. I withdraw everything. As for young Arundel, he was a supercilious beast. We were dirt beneath his feet. The whole earth belonged to him. He used to imitate my ways of speaking, and he used to make the clerks laugh at me. I hated him then. I hate him still. It was fun to him that an old man, nigh seventy, with no education, shouldn't speak like a young gentleman of Oxford and Cambridge College. He used to stick his hat on the back of his head as if it was a crown, and he'd slam the door after him as if he was a Partner. I hated him. I was never so glad as when he ran away in a rage.

He was coming between you and me, too.--Oh! I saw it. Cunning he was.

Laying his lines for to come between you and me.'

'Why--you were jealous, Checkley.'

'I was glad when he ran away. And I always thought he'd done it, too. As for seeing him put the cheque back in the safe, I perceive now that I never did see him do it. Yet I seemed to think at the time that I'd remembered seeing him do a kind of a sort of a something like it. I now perceive that I was wrong. He never done it. He hadn't the wits to contrive it. That sort is never half sharp. Too fine gentleman for such a trick.--Oh! I know what you are going to say next. How about the second young fellow? I hate him too. I hate him because he's the same supercilious beast as the other, and because he's been able to get round you. He's carneyed you--no fool like an old fool--and flattered you--till you've made him a Partner. I've worked for you heart and soul for sixty years and more, and this boy comes in and cuts me out in a twelvemonth.'

'Well! but Checkley--hang it!--I couldn't make you a Partner.'

'You didn't want no Partners. You could do your work, and I could do mine and yours too, even if you did want to go asleep of an afternoon.'

'This is grave, however. You hated Mr. Austin, and therefore you bring against him this foul charge. This is very grave, Checkley.'

'No-- I thought he was guilty. I did, indeed. Everything pointed that way. And I don't understand about young Arundel, because he came into the _Salutation_ with the Cambridge gentleman who gets drunk there every night, and he said that he lived at Camberwell for eight years with bad company as I wouldn't name to you, sir. I thought he was guilty. I did, indeed.'

'And now?'

'Oh! now it is all over. Everything's upsy down. n.o.body's guilty. I know now that he hasn't had anything to do with it. He's a young man of very slow intelligence and inferior parts. He couldn't have had anything to do with it. We ought to have known that.'

'Well--but who has done it, after all?'

'That's it.' Checkley was so troubled that he dropped into a chair in the presence of his master. 'That's it. Who's done it? Don't you know who done it? No-- I see you don't so much as suspect. No more don't I.

Else--what to do--what to say--Lord only knows!' He turned and ran--he scuttled out of the room, banging the door behind him.