It was to Clement’s credit that, had his object been to save his
father’s bank, instead of to do that which might deprive it of its last
hope, he could not have struggled onward through the press more stoutly
than he did. But though the offices for which he was bound, situate in
one of the courts north of Cornhill, were no more than a third of a
mile from the point at which he had dismissed his chaise, the city
clocks had long struck twelve before, wresting himself from the human
flood, which panic and greed were driving through the streets, he
turned into this quiet backwater.
He stood for a moment to take breath and adjust his dress, and even in
that brief space he discovered that the calm was but comparative. Many
of the windows which looked on the court were raised, as if the pent-up
emotions of their occupants craved air and an outlet even on that
December day; and from these and from the open doors below issued a
dropping fire of sounds, the din of raised voices, of doors recklessly
slammed, of feet thundering on bare stairs, of harsh orders. Clerks
rushing into the court, hatless and demented, plunged into clerks
rushing out equally demented, yet flew on their course without look or
word, as if unconscious of the impact. From a lighted window—many were
lit up, for the court was small and the day foggy—a hat, even as
Clement paused, flew out and bounded on the pavement. But no one heeded
it or followed it, and it was a passing clerk who came hurrying out a
little less recklessly than his fellows, whom Clement, after a moment’s
hesitation, seized by the arm. “Mr. Bourdillon here?” he asked
imperatively—for he saw that in no other way could he gain attention.
“Mr. Bourdillon!” the man snapped. “Oh, I don’t know! Here, Cocky
Sands! Attend to this gentleman! Le’ me go! Le’ me go. D’ you hear?”
He tore himself free, and was gone while he spoke, leaving Clement to
climb the stairs. On the landing he encountered another clerk, whom he
supposed to be “Cocky Sands,” and he attacked him. “Mr. Bourdillon? Is
he here?” he asked.
But Mr. Sands eluded him, shouted over his shoulder for “Tom!” and
clattered down the stairs. “Can’t wait!” he flung behind him. “Find
some one!”
However, Clement lost nothing by this, for the next moment one of the
partners appeared at a door. Clement knew him, and “Is Mr. Bourdillon
here?” he cried for the third time, and he seized the broker by the
button-hole. He, at any rate, should not escape him.
“Mr. Bourdillon?” The broker stared, unable on the instant to recall
his thoughts, and from the way in which he wiped his bald and steaming
head with a yellow bandanna, it was plain that he had just got
something of moment off his mind. “Pheugh! What times!” he ejaculated,
fanning himself and breathing hard. “What a morning! You’ve heard, I
suppose? Everitt’s are gone. Gone within the hour, d—n them! Oh,
Bourdillon? It was Bourdillon you asked for? To be sure, it’s Mr.
Ovington, isn’t it? I thought so; I never forget a face, but he didn’t
tell me that you were here. By Jove!” He raised his hands—he was a
portly gentleman, wearing a satin under-vest and pins and chains
innumerable, all at this moment a little awry. “By Jove, what a find
you have there! Slap, bang, and tip to the mark, and no mistake! Hard
and sharp as nails! I take off my hat to him! There’s not a firm,”
mopping his heated face anew, “within half a mile of us that wouldn’t
be glad to have him! I’ll take my Davy there are not ten men in country
practice could have pushed the deal through, and squeezed eleven
thousand in cash out of Snell & Higgins on such a day as this! He’s a
marvel, Mr. Ovington! You can tell your father I said so, and I don’t
care who says the contrary.”
“But is he here?” Clement cried, dancing with impatience. “Is he here,
man?”
“Gone to the India House this—” he looked at his watch—“this half-hour,
to complete. He had to drop seven per cent. for cash on the nail—that,
of course! But he got six thousand odd in Bank paper, and five thou. in
gold, and I’m damned if any one else would have got that to-day, though
the stuff he had was as good as the ready in ordinary times. My
partner’s gone with him to Leadenhall Street to complete—glad to oblige
you, for God knows how many clients we shall have left after this—and
they’ve a hackney coach waiting in Bishopsgate and an officer to see
them to it. You may catch him at the India House, or he may be gone.
He’s not one to let the grass grow under his feet. In that case——”
“Send a clerk with me to show me the Office!” Clement cried. “It’s
urgent, man, urgent! And I don’t know my way inside the House. I must
catch him.”
“Well, with so much money—here, Nicky!” The broker stepped aside to
make room for a client who came up the stairs three at a time. “Nicky,
go with this gentleman! Show him the way to the India House. Transfer
Office—Letter G! Sharp’s the word. Don’t lose time.—Coming! Coming!” to
some one in the office. “My compliments to your father. He’s one of the
lucky ones, for I suppose this will see you through. It’s Boulogne or
this—” he made as if he held a pistol to his head—“for more than I care
to think of!”
But Clement had not waited to hear the last words. He was half-way down
the stairs with his hand on the boy’s collar. They plunged into
Cornhill, but the lad, a London-bred urchin, did not condescend to the
street for more than twenty yards or so. Then he dived into a court on
the same side of the way, crossed it, threaded a private passage
through some offices, and came out in Bishopsgate Street. Stemming the
crowd as best they could they crossed this, and by another alley and
more offices the lad convoyed his charge into Leadenhall Street. A last
rush saw them landed, panting and with their coats wellnigh torn from
their backs, on the pavement on the south side of the street, in front
of the pillared entrance, and beneath the colossal Britannia that, far
above their heads and flanked by figures of Europe and Asia, presided
over the fortunes of the greatest trading company that the world has
ever seen. Through the doors of that building—now, alas, no more—had
passed all the creators of an oriental empire, statesmen, soldiers,
merchant princes, Clive, Lawrence, Warren Hastings, Cornwallis. Yet
to-day, the mention of it calls up as often the humble figure of a
black-coated white-cravated clerk with spindle legs and a big head, who
worked within its walls and whom Clement, had he called a few months
earlier, might have met coming from his desk.
Here Clement, had he been without a guide, would have wasted precious
minutes. But the place had no mysteries for the boy, even on this day
of confusion and alarm. Skilled in every twist and turning, he knew no
doubt. “This way,” he snapped, hurrying down a long passage which faced
the entrance, and appeared to penetrate into the bowels of the
building. Then, “No! Not that way, stupid! What are you doing?”
But Clement’s eyes, as he followed, had caught sight of a party of
three, who, issuing from a corridor on the right at a considerable
distance before them, had as quickly disappeared down another corridor
on the left. The light was not good, but Clement had recognized one of
them, and “There he is!” he cried. “He has gone down there! Where does
that lead to?”
“Lime Street entrance!” the lad replied curtly, and galloped after the
party, Clement at his heels. “Hurry!” he threw over his shoulder, “or
they’ll be out, and, by gum, you’ll lose him! Once out and we’re done,
sir!”
They reached the turning the others had taken and ran down it. The
distance was but short, but it was long enough to enable Clement to
collect his wits, and to wonder, while he prepared himself for the
encounter that impended, how Arthur would bear himself at the moment of
discovery. Fortunately, the party pursued had paused for an instant in
the east vestibule before committing themselves to the street, and that
instant was fatal to them. “Bourdillon!” Clement cried, raising his
voice. “Hi! Bourdillon!”
Arthur turned as if he had been struck, saw him and stared, his mouth
agape. “The devil!” he ejaculated.
But to Clement’s surprise his face betrayed neither the guilt nor the
fear which he had expected to see, but only amazement that the other
should be there—and some annoyance. “You?” he said. “What the devil are
you doing here? What joke is this? Did your father think that I could
not be trusted to see things through? Or that you were likely to do
better?”
“I want a word with you,” said Clement. He was in no mood to mince
matters.
“But why are you here?” with rising anger. “Why have you come after me?
What’s up?”
“I’ll tell you, if you’ll step aside.”
“You can tell me on the coach, then, for I have no time to lose now. I
mean to catch the three o’clock coach, and——”
“No!” Clement said firmly. “I must speak to you here.”
But on that the broker interposed, his watch in his hand, “Anyway, I
can stop,” he said. “Who is this gentleman?”
“Mr. Ovington, junior,” Arthur said, with something of a sneer. “I
don’t know what he has come up for, but——”
“But, at any rate, he’ll see you safe to the coach,” the other
rejoined. “And I must be off. I give you joy of it, Mr. Bourdillon.
Fine work! Fine work, by Jove! And I shall tell Mr. Ovington so when I
see him. You’re a marvel! My compliments to your father, young
gentleman,” addressing Clement. “Glad to have met you, but I can’t stay
now. Fifty things to do, and no time to do ’em in. The world’s upside
down to-day. Good morning! Good morning!” With a wave of the hand, his
watch in the other, he turned on his heel and strode back towards the
main entrance.
The two looked at one another and the third, who made up the party, a
burly man in a red waistcoat and a curly-brimmed Regency hat, surveyed
them both. “Well, I’m hanged,” Arthur exclaimed, reverting sourly to
his first surprise. “Is everybody mad? Must you all come to town? I
should have thought that you’d have had enough to do at the bank
without this! But as you must——” then to the officer, who was carrying
a small leather valise, the duplicate of one which Arthur held in his
hand—“wait a minute, will you? And keep an eye on us. We shall not be a
minute. Now,” drawing Clement into a corner of the lodge, five or six
paces away, where, though a stream of people continually brushed by
them, they could talk with some degree of privacy. “What is it, man?
What is it? What has bought you up? And how the deuce have you come to
be here—by this time?”
“I posted.”
“Posted? From Aldersbury? In heaven’s name, why? Why, man?”
Clement pointed to the bag. “To take that over,” he said.
“This? Take this over?” Arthur turned a deep red. “What—what the devil
do you mean, man?”
“You ought to know.”
“I?”
“Yes, you,” Clement retorted, his temper rising. “It’s stolen property,
if you will have it.” And he braced himself for the fray.
“Stolen property?”
“Just that. And my father has commissioned me to take charge of it, and
to restore it to its owner. Now you know.”
For one moment the handsome face, looking into his, lost some of its
color. But the next, Arthur recovered himself, the blood flowed back to
his cheeks, he laughed aloud, laughed in defiance. “Why, you—you fool!”
he replied, in bitter contempt, “I don’t know what you are talking
about. Your father—your father has sent you?”
“It’s no good, Bourdillon,” Clement answered. “It’s all known. I’ve
seen the Squire. He missed the certificates yesterday afternoon—almost
as soon as you were gone. He sent for you, I went over, and he knows
all.”
He thought that that would finish the matter. To his astonishment
Arthur only laughed afresh. “Knows all, does he?” he replied. “Well,
what of it? And he found out through you, did he? Then a pretty fool
you were to put your oar in! To go to him, or see him, or talk to him!
Why, man,” with bravado, though Clement fancied that his eyes wavered
and that the brag began to ring false, “what have I done? Borrowed his
money for a month, that’s all! Taken a loan of it for a month or
two—and for what? Why, to save your father and you and the whole lot of
us. Ay, and half Aldersbury from ruin! I did it and I’d do it again!
And he knows it, does he? Through your d—d interfering folly, who could
not keep your mouth shut, eh! Well, if he does, what then? What can he
do, simpleton?”
“That’s to be seen.”
“Nothing! Nothing, I tell you! He signed the transfer, signed it with
his own hand, and he can’t deny it. The rest is just his word against
mine.”
“No, it’s Miss Griffin’s, too,” Clement said, marvelling at the other’s
attitude and his audacity—if audacity it could be called.
But Arthur, though he had been far from expecting a speedy discovery,
had long ago made up his mind as to the risk he ran. And naturally he
had considered the line he would take in the event of detection. He was
not unprepared, therefore, even for Clement’s rejoinder, and, “Miss
Griffin?” he retorted, contemptuously, “Do you think that she will give
evidence against me? Or he—against a Griffin? Why, you booby, instead
of talking and wasting time here, you ought to be down on your knees
thanking me—you and your father! Thanking me, by heaven, for saving you
and your bank, and taking all the risk myself! It would have been long
before you’d have done it, my lad, I’ll answer for that!”
“I hope so,” Clement replied with biting emphasis. “And you may
understand at once that we don’t like your way, and are not going to be
saved your way. We are not going to have any part or share in robbing
your uncle—see! If we are going to be ruined, we are going to be ruined
with clean hands! No, it’s no good looking at me like that, Bourdillon.
I may be a fool in the bank, and you may call me what names you like.
But I am your match here, and I am going to take possession of that
money.”
“Do you think, then,” furiously, “that I am going to run away with it?”
“I don’t know,” Clement rejoined. “I am not going to give you the
chance. I am going to take it over and return it to the owner; it will
not go near our bank. I have my father’s authority for acting as I am
acting, and I am going to carry out his directions.”
“And he’s going to fail? To rob hundreds instead of borrowing from one
money that you know will be returned—returned with interest in a month?
You fool! You fool!” with savage scorn. “That’s your virtue, is it?
That’s your honesty that you brag so much about? Your clean hands?
You’ll rob Aldersbury right and left, bring half the town to beggary,
strip the widow and the orphan, and put on a smug face! ‘All honest and
above board, my lord!’ when you might save all at no risk by borrowing
this money for a month. Why, you make me sick! Sick!” Arthur repeated,
with an indignation that went far to prove that this really was his
opinion, and that he did honestly see the thing in that light. “But you
are not going to do it. You shall not do it,” he continued, defiantly.
“I’ll see you—somewhere else first! You’ll not touch a penny of this
money until I choose, and that will not be until I have seen your
father. If I can’t persuade you I think I can persuade him!”
“You’ll not have the chance!” Clement retorted. He was very angry by
now, for some of the shafts which the other had loosed had found their
mark. “You’ll hand it over to me, and now!”
“Not a penny!”
“Then you’ll take the consequences,” was Clement’s reply. “For as
heaven sees me, I shall give you in charge, and you will go to Bow
Street. The officer is here. I shall tell him the facts, and you know
best what the result will be. You can choose, Bourdillon, but that is
my last word.”
Arthur stared. “You are mad!” he cried. “Mad!” But he was taken aback
at last. His voice shook, and the color had left his cheeks.
“No, I am not mad. But we will not be your accomplices. That is all.
That is the bed-rock of it,” Clement continued. “I give you two minutes
to make up your mind.” He took out his watch.
Rage and alarm do not better a man’s looks, and Arthur’s handsome face
was ugly enough now, had Clement looked at it. Two passions contended
in him: rage at the thought that one whom he had often out-manœuvred
and always despised should dare to threaten and thwart him; and
fear—fear of the gulf that he saw gaping suddenly at his feet. For he
could not close his eyes, bold and self-confident as he was, to the
danger. He saw that if Clement said the word and made the thing public,
his position would be perilous; and if his uncle proved obdurate, it
might be desperate. His lips framed words of defiance, and he longed to
utter them; but he did not utter them. Had they been alone, it had been
another matter! But they were not alone; the Bow Street man, idly
inquisitive, was watching him, and a stream of people, immersed each in
his own perplexities, and unconscious of the tragedy at his elbow, was
continually brushing by them.
To do him justice, Arthur had hitherto seen the thing only by his own
lights. He had looked on it as a case of all for fortune and the rest
well lost, and he had even pictured himself in the guise of a hero, who
took the risks and shared the benefits. If the act were ill, at least,
he considered, he did it in a good cause; and where, after all, was the
harm in assuming a loan of something which would never be missed, which
would be certainly repaid, and which, in his hands, would save a
hundred homes from ruin? The argument had sounded convincing at the
time.
Then, for the risk, what was it, when examined? It was most unlikely
that the Squire would discover the trick, and if he did he could not,
hard and austere as he was, prosecute his own flesh and blood. Nay,
Arthur doubted if he could prosecute, since he had signed the transfer
with his own hand—it was no forgery. At the worst, then and if
discovery came, it would mean the loss of the Squire’s favor and
banishment from the house. Both of these things he had experienced
before, and in his blindness he did not despair of reinstating himself
a second time. He had a way with him, he had come to think that few
could resist him. He was far, very far, from understanding how the
Squire would view the act.
But now the mists of self-deception were for the moment blown aside,
and he saw the gulf on the edge of which he stood, and into which a
word might precipitate him. If the pig-headed fool before him did what
he said he would, and preferred a charge, the India House might take it
up; and, pitiless where its interests were in question, it might prove
as inexorable as the Bank had proved in the case of Fauntleroy only the
year before. In that event, what might not be the end? His uncle had
signed the transfer, and at the time that had seemed enough; it had
seemed to secure him from the worst. But now—now when so much hung upon
it, he doubted. He had not inquired, he had not dared to inquire how
the law stood, but he knew that the law’s uncertainties were proverbial
and its ambages beyond telling.
And the India House, like the Bank of England, was a terrible foe. Once
launched on the slope, let the cell door once close on him, he might
slip with fatal ease from stage to stage, until the noose hung dark and
fearful before him, and all the influence, all the help he could
command, might then prove powerless to save him! It was a terrible
machine—the law! The cell, the court, the gallows, with what swiftness,
what inevitableness, what certainty, did they not succeed one
another—dark, dismal stages on the downward progress! How swiftly, how
smoothly, how helplessly had that other banker traversed them! How
irresistibly had they borne him to his doom!
He shuddered. The officer of the law, who a few minutes before had been
his servant, fee-bound, obsequious, took on another shape. He grew
stern and menacing, and was even now, it might be, observing him, and
conceiving suspicion of him. Arthur’s color ebbed at the thought and
his face betrayed him. The peril might be real or unreal—it might be
only his imagination that he had to fight. But he could not face it. He
moistened his dry lips, he forced himself to speak. He
surrendered—sullenly, with averted eyes.
“Have it your own way,” he said. “Take it.” And with a last attempt at
bravado, “I shall appeal to your father!”
“That is as you will,” Clement said. He was not comfortable, and
sensible of the other’s humiliation, his only wish was to bring the
scene to an end as quickly as possible. He took up the bag and signed
to the officer that they were ready.
“It’s some hundreds short. You know that?” Arthur muttered.
“I can’t help it.”
“He’ll be the loser.”
“Well—it must be so.” Yet Clement hesitated, a little taken aback. He
did not like the thought, and he paused to consider whether it might
not be his duty to return to the brokers’ and undo the bargain. But it
would be necessary to repeat all the formalities at a cost of time that
he could not measure, and it was improbable that he would be able to
recoup the whole of the loss. Rightly or wrongly, he decided to go on,
and he turned to the officer. “I take on the business now,” he said,
sharply. “Where is the hackney-coach? In Bishopsgate? Then lead the
way, will you?” And, the bag in his hand, he moved towards the crowded
street.
But with his foot on the threshold, something spoke in him, and he
looked back. Arthur was standing where he had left him, gloom in his
face; and Clement melted. He could not leave him, he could not bear to
leave him thus. What might he not do, what might he not have it in his
mind to do? Pity awoke in him, he put himself in the other’s place, and
though there was nothing less to his taste at that moment than a
companionship equally painful and embarrassing, he went back to him.
“Look here,” he said, “come with me. Come down with me and face it out,
man, and get it over. It’s the only thing to do, and every hour you
remain away will tell against you. As it is, what is broken can be
mended—if you’re there.”
Arthur did not thank him. Instead, “What?” he cried. “Come? Come with
you? And be dragged at your chariot wheels, you oaf! Never!”
“Don’t be a fool,” Clement remonstrated, pity moving him more strongly
now that he had once acted on it. He laid his hand on the other’s arm.
“We’ll work together and make the best of it. I will, I swear,
Bourdillon, and I’ll answer for my father. But if I leave you here and
go home, things will be said and there’ll be trouble.”
“Trouble the devil!” Arthur retorted, and shook off his hand. “You have
ruined the bank,” he continued, bitterly, but with less violence, “and
ruined your father and ruined me. I hope you are content. You have been
thorough, if it’s any satisfaction to you. And some day I shall know
why you’ve done it. For your honesty and your clean hands, they don’t
weigh a curse with me. You’re playing your own game, and if I come to
know what it is, I’ll spoil it yet, d—n you!”
“I don’t mind how much you curse me, if you will come,” Clement
answered, patiently. “It’s the only thing to be done, and when you
think it over in cold blood, you’ll see that. Come, man, and put a bold
face on it. It is the brave game and the only game. Face it out now.”
Arthur looked away, his handsome face sullen. He was striving with his
passions, battling with the maddening sense of defeat. He saw, as
plainly as Clement, that the latter’s advice was good, but to take it
and to go with him, to bear for many hours the sense of his presence
and the consciousness of his scorn, his gorge rose at the thought. Yet,
what other course was open to him? What was he going to do? He had
little money with him, and he saw but two alternatives: to blow out his
brains, or to go, hat in hand, and seek employment at the brokers’
where he was known. He had no real thought of the former
alternative—life ran strong in him and he was sanguine; and the latter
meant the overthrow of all his plans, and a severance, final and
complete, from Ovington’s. His lot thenceforth would, he suspected, be
that of a man who had “crossed the fight,” done something dubious, put
himself outside the pale.
Whereas if he went with Clement now, humiliation would indeed be his.
But he would still be himself, and with his qualities he might live it
down, and in the end lose nothing.
So at last, “Go on,” he said, sulkily. “Have it your own way. At any
rate, I may spoil your game!” He shut his eyes to Clement’s generosity.
If he gave a thought to it at all, he fancied that he had some purpose
to serve, some axe of his own to grind.
They went out into the babel of the street, and, deafened by the cries
of the hawkers, elbowed by panic-stricken men who fancied that if they
were somewhere else they might save their hoards, shouldered by stout
countrymen, adrift in the confusion like hulks in a strange sea, they
made their way into Bishopsgate Street. Here they found the
hackney-coach awaiting them, and drove by London Wall to the Bull and
Mouth. A Birmingham coach was due to start at three, and after a gloomy
wrangle they booked places by it, and, while the officer guarded the
money, they sat down in the Coffee Room to a rare sirloin and a foaming
tankard. They ate and drank in unfriendly silence, two empty chairs
intervening; and more than once Arthur repented of his decision. But
already the force of circumstances was driving them together, for the
thoughts of each had travelled forward to Aldersbury—and to Ovington’s.
What was happening there? What might not already have happened there?
Hurried feet ran by on the pavement. Ominous words blew in at the
windows. Scared men rushed in with pallid, sweating faces, ate standing
and went out again. Other men sat listless, staring at the table before
them, eating nothing, or here and there, apart in corners whispered
curses over their meat.