MR. CARR AT WORK.
Thomas Carr was threading his way through the mazy precincts of Gray's
Inn, with that quick step and absorbed manner known only, I think, to the
busy man of our busy metropolis. He was on his way to make some inquiries
of a firm of solicitors, Messrs. Kedge and Reck, strangers to him in all
but name.
Up some dark and dingy stairs, he knocked at a dark and dingy door:
which, after a minute, opened of itself by some ingenious contrivance,
and let him into a passage, whence he turned into a room, where two
clerks were writing at a desk.
"Can I see Mr. Kedge?"
"Not in," said one of the clerks, without looking up.
"Mr. Reck, then?"
"Not in."
"When will either of them be in?" continued the barrister; thinking that
if he were Messrs. Kedge and Reck the clerk would get his discharge for
incivility.
"Can't say. What's your business?"
"My business is with them: not with you."
"You can see the managing clerk."
"I wish to see one of the partners."
"Could you give your name?" continued the gentleman, equably.
Mr. Carr handed in his card. The clerk glanced at it, and surreptitiously
showed it to his companion; and both of them looked up at him. Mr. Carr
of the Temple was known by reputation, and they condescended to become
civil.
"Take a seat for a moment, sir," said the one. "I'll inquire how long Mr.
Kedge will be; but Mr. Reek's not in town to-day."
A few minutes, and Thomas Carr found himself in a small square room with
the head of the firm, a youngish man and somewhat of a dandy, especially
genial in manner, as though in contrast to his clerk. He welcomed the
rising barrister.
"There's as much difficulty in getting to see you as if you were Pope of
Rome," cried Mr. Carr, good humouredly.
The lawyer laughed. "Hopkins did not know you: and strangers are
generally introduced to Mr. Reck, or to our managing clerk. What can
I do for you, Mr. Carr?"
"I don't know that you can do anything for me," said Mr. Carr, seating
himself; "but I hope you can. At the present moment I am engaged in
sifting a piece of complicated business for a friend; a private matter
entirely, which it is necessary to keep private. I am greatly interested
in it myself, as you may readily believe, when it is keeping me from
circuit. Indeed it may almost be called my own affair," he added,
observing the eyes of the lawyer fixed upon him, and not caring they
should see into his business too clearly. "I fancy you have a clerk, or
had a clerk, who is cognizant of one or two points in regard to it: can
you put me in the way of finding out where he is? His name is Gordon."
"Gordon! We have no clerk of that name. Never had one, that I remember.
How came you to fancy it?"
"I heard it from my own clerk, Taylor. One day last week I happened to
say before him that I'd give a five-pound note out of my pocket to get
at the present whereabouts of this man Gordon. Taylor is a shrewd
fellow; full of useful bits of information, and knows, I really believe,
three-fourths of London by name. He immediately said a young man of that
name was with Messrs. Kedge and Reck, of Gray's Inn, either as clerk, or
in some other capacity; and when he described this clerk of yours, I felt
nearly sure that it was the man I am looking for. I got Taylor to make
inquiries, and he did, I believe, of one of your clerks; but he could
learn nothing, except that no one of that name was connected with you
now. Taylor persists that he is or was connected with you; and so
I thought the shortest plan to settle the matter was to ask yourselves."
"We have no clerk of that name," repeated Mr. Kedge, pushing back some
papers on the table. "Never had one."
"Understand," said Mr. Carr, thinking it just possible the lawyer might
be mistaking his motives, "I have nothing to allege against the man, and
do not seek to injure him. The real fact is, that I do not want to see
him or to be brought into personal contact with him; I only want to know
whether he is in London, and, if so, where?"
"I assure you he is not connected with us," repeated Mr. Kedge. "I would
tell you so in a moment if he were."
"Then I can only apologise for having troubled you," said the barrister,
rising. "Taylor must have been mistaken. And yet I would have backed his
word, when he positively asserts a thing, against the world. I hardly
ever knew him wrong."
Mr. Kedge was playing with the locket on his watch-chain, his head bent
in thought.
"Wait a moment, Mr. Carr. I remember now that we took a clerk temporarily
into the office in the latter part of last year. His writing did not
suit, and we kept him only a week or two. I don't know what his name was,
but it might have been Gordon."
"Do you remember what sort of a man he was?" asked Mr. Carr, somewhat
eagerly.
"I really do not. You see, I don't come much into contact with our
clerks. Reck does; but he's not here to-day. I fancy he had red hair."
"Gordon had reddish hair."
"You had better see Kimberly," said the solicitor, ringing a bell. "He is
our managing clerk, and knows everything."
A grey-haired, silent-looking man came in with stooping shoulders. Mr.
Kedge, without any circumlocution, asked whether he remembered any clerk
of the name of Gordon having been in the house. Mr. Kimberly responded by
saying that they never had one in the house of the name.
"Well, I thought not," observed the principal. "There was one had in for
a short time, you know, while Hopkins was ill. I forget his name."
"His name was Druitt, sir. We employed a man of the name of Gorton to do
some outdoor business for us at times," continued the managing clerk,
turning his eyes on the barrister; "but not lately."
"What sort of business?"
"Serving writs."
"Gorton is not Gordon," remarked Mr. Kedge, with legal acumen. "By the
way, Kimberly, I have heard nothing of Gorton lately. What has become of
him?"
"I have not the least idea, sir. We parted in a huff, so he wouldn't
perhaps be likely to come in my way again. Some business that he
mismanaged, if you remember, sir, down at Calne."
"When he arrested one man for another," laughed the lawyer, "and got
entangled in a coroner's inquest, and I don't know what all."
Mr. Carr had pricked up his ears, scarcely daring to breathe. But his
manner was careless to a degree.
"The man he arrested being Lord Hartledon; the man he ought to have
arrested being the Honourable Percival Elster," he interposed, laughing.
"What! do you know about it?" cried the lawyer.
"I remember hearing of it; I was intimate with Mr. Elster at the time."
"He has since become Lord Hartledon."
"Yes. But about this Gorton! I should not be in the least surprised if he
is the man I am inquiring for. Can you describe him to me, Mr. Kimberly?"
"He is a short, slight man, under thirty, with red hair and whiskers."
Mr. Carr nodded.
"Light hair with a reddish tinge it has been described to me. Do you
happen to be at all acquainted with his antecedents?"
"Not I; I know nothing about, the man," said Mr. Kedge. "Kimberly does,
perhaps."
"No, sir," dissented Kimberly. "He had been to Australia, I believe; and
that's all I know about him."
"It is the same man," said Mr. Carr, quietly. "And if you can tell me
anything about him," he continued, turning to the older man, "I shall be
exceedingly obliged to you. To begin with--when did you first know him?"
But at this juncture an interruption occurred. Hopkins the discourteous
came in with a card, which he presented to his principal. The gentleman
was waiting to see Mr. Kedge. Two more clients were also waiting, he
added, Thomas Carr rose, and the end of it was that he went with Mr.
Kimberly to his own room.
"It's Carr of the Inner Temple," whispered Mr. Kedge in his clerk's ear.
"Oh, I know him, sir."
"All right. If you can help him, do so."
"I first knew Gorton about fifteen months ago," observed the clerk, when
they were shut in together. "A friend of mine, now dead, spoke of him to
me as a respectable young fellow who had fallen in the world, and asked
if I could help him to some employment. I think he told me somewhat of
his history; but I quite forget it. I know he was very low down then,
with scarcely bread to eat."
"Did this friend of yours call him Gorton or Gordon?" interrupted Mr.
Carr.
"Gorton. I never heard him called Gordon at all. I remember seeing a
book of his that he seemed to set some store by. It was printed in old
English, and had his name on the title-page: 'George Gorton. From his
affectionate father, W. Gorton.' I employed him in some outdoor work.
He knew London perfectly well, and seemed to know people too."
"And he had been to Australia?"
"He had been to Australia, I feel sure. One day he accidentally let slip
some words about Melbourne, which he could not well have done unless he
had seen the place. I taxed him with it, and he shuffled out of it with
some excuse; but in such a manner as to convince me he had been there."
"And now, Mr. Kimberly, I am going to ask you another question. You spoke
of his having been at Calne; I infer that you sent him to the place on
the errand to Mr. Elster. Try to recollect whether his going there was
your own spontaneous act, or whether he was the original mover in the
journey?"
The grey-haired clerk looked up as though not understanding.
"You don't quite take me, I see."
"Yes I do, sir; but I was thinking. So far as I can recollect, it was our
own spontaneous act. I am sure I had no reason to think otherwise at the
time. We had had a deal of trouble with the Honourable Mr. Elster; and
when it was found that he had left town for the family seat, we came to
the resolution to arrest him."
Thomas Carr paused. "Do you know anything of Gordon's--or Gorton's doings
in Calne? Did you ever hear him speak of them afterwards?"
"I don't know that I did particularly. The excuse he made to us for
arresting Lord Hartledon was, that the brothers were so much alike he
mistook the one for the other."
"Which would infer that he knew Mr. Elster by sight."
"It might; yes. It was not for the mistake that we discharged him;
indeed, not for anything at all connected with Calne. He did seem to have
gone about his business there in a very loose way, and to have paid less
attention to our interests than to the gossip of the place; of which
there was a tolerable amount just then, on account of Lord Hartledon's
unfortunate death. Gorton was set upon another job or two when he
returned; and one of those he contrived to mismanage so woefully, that
I would give him no more to do. It struck me that he must drink, or else
was accessible to a bribe."
Mr. Carr nodded his head, thinking the latter more than probable. His
fingers were playing with a newspaper which happened to lie on the
clerk's desk; and he put the next question with a very well-assumed air
of carelessness, as if it were but the passing thought of the moment.
"Did he ever talk about Mr. Elster?"
"Never but once. He came to my house one evening to tell me he had
discovered the hiding-place of a gentleman we were looking for. I was
taking my solitary glass of gin and water after supper, the only
stimulant I ever touch--and that by the doctor's orders--and I could not
do less than ask him to help himself. You see, sir, we did not look upon
him as a common sheriff's man: and he helped himself pretty freely. That
made him talkative. I fancy his head cannot stand much; and he began
rambling upon recent affairs at Calne; he had not been back above a week
then--"
"And he spoke of Mr. Elster?"
"He spoke a good deal of him as the new Lord Hartledon, all in a rambling
sort of way. He hinted that it might be in his power to bring home to him
some great crime."
"The man must have been drunk indeed!" remarked Mr. Carr, with the most
perfect assumption of indifference; a very contrast to the fear that shot
through his heart. "What crime, pray? I hope he particularized it."
"What he seemed to hint at was some unfair play in connection with his
brother's death," said the old clerk, lowering his voice. "'A man at his
wits' end for money would do many queer things,' he remarked."
Mr. Carr's eyes flashed. "What a dangerous fool he must be! You surely
did not listen to him!"
"I, sir! I stopped him pretty quickly, and bade him sew up his mouth
until he came to his sober senses again. Oh, they make great simpletons
of themselves, some of these young fellows, when they get a little drink
into them."
"They do," said the barrister. "Did he ever allude to the matter again?"
"Never; and when I saw him the next day, he seemed ashamed of himself,
and asked if he had not been talking a lot of nonsense. About a fortnight
after that we parted, and I have never seen him since."
"And you really do not know what has become of him?"
"Not at all. I should think he has left London."
"Why?"
"Because had he remained in it he'd be sure to have come bothering me to
employ him again; unless, indeed, he has found some one else to do it."
"Well," said Mr. Carr, rising, "will you do me this favour? If you come
across the man again, or learn tidings of him in any way, let me know it
at once. I do not want him to hear of me, or that I have made inquiries
about him. I only wish to ascertain _where_ he is, if that be possible.
Any one bringing me this information privately will find it well worth
his while."
He went forth into the busy streets again, sick at heart; and upon
reaching his chambers wrote a note for a detective officer, and put some
business into his hands.
Meanwhile Lord Hartledon remained in London. When the term for which
they had engaged the furnished house was expired he took lodgings in
Grafton Street; and there he stayed, his frame of mind restless and
unsatisfactory. Lady Hartledon wrote to him sometimes, and he answered
her. She said not a word about the discovery she had made in regard to
the alleged action-at-law; but she never failed in every letter to ask
what he was doing, and when he was coming home--meaning to Hartledon.
He put her off in the best way he could: he and Carr were very busy
together, he said: as to home, he could not mention any particular time.
And Lady Hartledon bottled up her curiosity and her wrath, and waited
with what patience she possessed.
The truth was--and, perhaps, the reader may have divined it--that graver
motives than the sensitive feeling of not liking to face the Ashtons were
keeping Lord Hartledon from his wife and home. He had once, in his
bachelor days, wished himself a savage in some remote desert, where his
civilized acquaintance could not come near him; he had a thousand times
more reason to wish himself one now.
One dusty day, when the excessive heat of summer was on the wane, he went
down to Mr. Carr's chambers, and found that gentleman out. Not out for
long, the clerk thought; and sat down and waited. The room he was in
looked out on the cool garden, the quiet river; in the one there was not
a soul except Mr. Broom himself, who had gone in to watch the progress
of his chrysanthemums, and was stooping lovingly over the beds; on the
other a steamer, freighted with a straggling few, was paddling up the
river against the tide, and a barge with its brown sail was coming down
in all its picturesque charm. The contrast between this quiet scene and
the bustling, dusty, jostling world he had come in from, was grateful
even to his disturbed heart; and he felt half inclined to go round to
the garden and fling himself on the lawn as a man might do who was free
from care.
Mr. Carr indulged in the costly luxury of three rooms in the Temple; his
sitting-room, which was his work-room, a bedroom, and a little outer
room, the sanctum of his clerk. Lord Hartledon was in the sitting-room,
but he could hear the clerk moving about in the ante-room, as if he had
no writing on hand that morning. When tired of waiting, he called him in.
"Mr. Taylor, how long do you think he will be? I've been dozing, I
think."
"Well, I thought he'd have been here before now, my lord. He generally
tells me if he is going out for any length of time; but he said nothing
to-day."
"A newspaper would be something to while away one's time, or a book,"
grumbled Hartledon. "Not those," glancing at a book-case full of
ponderous law-volumes.
"Your lordship has taken the cream out of them already," remarked the
clerk, with a laugh; and Hartledon's brow knitted at the words. He had
"taken the cream" out of those old law-books, if studying them could do
it, for he had been at them pretty often of late.
But Mr. Taylor's remarks had no ulterior meaning. Being a shrewd man, he
could not fail to suspect that Lord Hartledon was in a scrape of some
sort; but from a word dropped by his master he supposed it to involve
nothing more than a question of debt; and he never suspected that the
word had been dropped purposely. "Scamps would claim money twice over
when they could," said Mr. Carr; and Elster was a careless man, always
losing his receipts. He was a short, slight man, this clerk--in build
something like his master--with an intelligent, silent face, a small,
sharp nose, and fair hair. He had been born a gentleman, he was wont to
say; and indeed he looked one; but he had not received an education
commensurate with that fact, and had to make his own way in the world.
He might do it yet, perhaps, he remarked one day to Lord Hartledon; and
certainly, if steady perseverance could effect it, he would: all his
spare time was spent in study.
"He has not gone to one of those blessed consultations in somebody's
chambers, has he?" cried Val. "I have known them last three hours."
"I have known them last longer than that," said the clerk equably. "But
there are none on just now."
"I can't think what has become of him. He made an appointment with me for
this morning. And where's his _Times_?"
Mr. Taylor could not tell where; he had been looking for the newspaper on
his own account. It was not to be found; and they could only come to the
conclusion that the barrister had taken it out with him.
"I wish you'd go out and buy me one," said Val.
"I'll go with pleasure, my lord. But suppose any one comes to the door?"
"Oh, I'll answer it. They'll think Carr has taken on a new clerk."
Mr. Taylor laughed, and went out. Hartledon, tired of sitting, began
to pace the room and the ante-room. Most men would have taken their
departure; but he had nothing to do; he had latterly shunned that portion
of the world called society; and was as well in Mr. Carr's chambers as
in his own lodgings, or in strolling about with his troubled heart.
While thus occupied, there came a soft tap to the outer door--as was
sure to be the case, the clerk being absent--and Val opened it. A
middle-aged, quiet-looking man stood there, who had nothing specially
noticeable in his appearance, except a pair of deep-set dark eyes, under
bushy eyebrows that were turning grey.
"Mr. Carr within?"
"Mr. Carr's not in," replied the temporary clerk. "I dare say you can
wait."
"Likely to be long?"
"I should think not. I have been waiting for him these two hours."
The applicant entered, and sat down in the clerk's room. Lord Hartledon
went into the other, and stood drumming on the window-pane, as he gazed
out upon the Temple garden.
"I'd go, but for that note of Carr's," he said to himself. "If--Halloa!
that's his voice at last."
Mr. Carr and his clerk had returned together. The former, after a few
moments, came in to Lord Hartledon.
"A nice fellow you are, Carr! Sending me word to be here at eleven
o'clock, and then walking off for two mortal hours!"
"I sent you word to wait for me at your own home!"
"Well, that's good!" returned Val. "It said, 'Be here at eleven,' as
plainly as writing could say it."
"And there was a postscript over the leaf telling you, on second thought,
_not_ to be here, but to wait at home for me," said Mr. Carr. "I
remembered a matter of business that would take me up your way this
morning, and thought I'd go on to you. It's just your careless fashion,
Hartledon, reading only half your letters! You should have turned it
over."
"Who was to think there was anything on the other side? Folk don't turn
their letters over from curiosity when they are concluded on the first
page."
"I never had a letter in my life but I turned it over to make sure,"
observed the more careful barrister. "I have had my walk for nothing."
"And I have been cooling my heels here! And you took the newspaper with
you!"
"No, I did not. Churton sent in from his rooms to borrow it."
"Well, let the misunderstanding go, and forgive me for being cross. Do
you know, Carr, I think I am growing ill-tempered from trouble. What
news have you for me?"
"I'll tell you by-and-by. Do you know who that is in the other room?"
"Not I. He seemed to stare me inside-out in a quiet way as I let him in."
"Ay. It's Green, the detective. At times a question occurs to me whether
that's his real name, or one assumed in his profession. He has come to
report at last. Had you better remain?"
"Why not?"
Mr. Carr looked dubious.
"You can make some excuse for my presence."
"It's not that. I'm thinking if you let slip a word--"
"Is it likely?"
"Inadvertently, I mean."
"There's no fear. You have not mentioned my name to him?"
"I retort in your own words--Is it likely? He does not know why he is
being employed or what I want with the man I wish traced. At present he
is working, as far as that goes, in the dark. I might have put him on a
false scent, just as cleverly and unsuspiciously as I dare say he could
put me; but I've not done it. What's the matter with you to-day,
Hartledon? You look ill."
"I only look what I am, then," was the answer. "But I'm no worse
than usual. I'd rather be transported--I'd rather be hanged, for that
matter--than lead the life of misery I am leading. At times I feel
inclined to give in, but then comes the thought of Maude."