THE TWO FATHERS.
Hope looked wistfully at that crushed figure, and hesitated; it seemed
neither kind nor politic to intrude business upon grief.
But if the child was Bartley's idol, money was his god, and soon in his
strange mind defeated avarice began to vie with nobler sorrow. His child
dead! his poor little flower withered, and her death robbed him of
£20,000, and indeed of ten times that sum, for he had now bought
experience in trade and speculation, and had learned to make money out of
money, a heap out of a handful. Stung by this vulgar torment in its turn,
he started suddenly up, and dashed his wife's will down upon the floor in
a fury, and paced the room excitedly. Hope still stood aghast, and
hesitated to risk his application.
But presently Bartley caught sight of him, and stared at him, but
said nothing.
Then the poor fellow saw it was no use waiting for a better opportunity,
so he came forward and carried out Bolton's instructions; he put on a
tolerably jaunty air, and said, cheerfully, "I beg your pardon, sir; can
I claim your attention for a moment?"
"What do you want?" asked Bartley, but like a man whose mind was
elsewhere.
"Only employment for my talent, sir. I hear you have a vacancy for
a manager."
"Nothing of the sort. _I_ am manager."
Hope drew back despondent, and his haggard countenance fell at such
prompt repulse. But he summoned courage, and, once more acting genial
confidence, returned to the attack.
"But you don't know, sir, in how many ways I can be useful to you. A
grand and complicated business like yours needs various acquirements
in those who have the honor to serve you. For instance, I saw a small
engine at work in your yard; now I am a mechanic, and I can double
the power of that engine by merely introducing an extra band and a
couple of cogs."
"It will do as it is," said Bartley, languidly, "and I can do without
a manager."
Bartley's manner was not irritated but absorbed. He seemed in all his
replies to Hope to be brushing away a fly mechanically and languidly. The
poor fly felt sick at heart, and crept away disconsolate. But at the very
door he turned, and for his child's sake made another attempt.
"Have you an opening for a clerk? I can write business letters in French,
German, and Dutch; and keep books by double entry."
"No vacancy for a clerk," was the weary reply.
"Well, then, a foreman in the yard. I have studied the economy of
industry, and will undertake to get you the greatest amount of labor out
of the smallest number of men."
"I have a foreman already," said Bartley, turning his back on him
peevishly, for the first time, and pacing the room, absorbed in his own
disappointment.
Hope was in despair, and put on his hat to go. But he turned at the
window and said: "You have vans and carts. I understand horses
thoroughly. I am a veterinary surgeon, and I can drive four-in-hand. I
offer myself as carman, or even hostler."
"I do not want a hostler, and I have a carman."
Bartley, when he had said this, sat down like a man who had finally
disposed of the application.
Hope went to the very door, and leaned against it. His jaw dropped. He
looked ten years older. Then, with a piteous attempt at cheerfulness, he
came nearer, and said: "A messenger, then. I'm young and very active,
and never waste my employer's time."
Even this humble proposal was declined, though Hope's cheeks burned
with shame as he made it. He groaned aloud, and his head dropped on
his breast.
His eye fell on the will lying on the ground; he went and picked it up,
and handed it respectfully to Bartley.
Bartley stared, took it, and bowed his head an inch or two in
acknowledgment of the civility. This gave the poor daunted father courage
again. Now that Bartley's face was turned to him by this movement, he
took advantage of it, and said, persuasively:
"Give me some kind of employment, sir. You will never repent it." Then he
began to warm with conscious power. "I've intelligence, practicability,
knowledge; and in this age of science knowledge is wealth. Example: I saw
a swell march out of this place that owns all the parish I was born in. I
knew him in a moment--Colonel Clifford. Well, that old soldier draws his
rents when he can get them, and never looks deeper than the roots of the
grass his cattle crop. But _I_ tell _you_ he never takes a walk about his
grounds but he marches upon millions--coal! sir, coal! and near the
surface. I know the signs. But I am impotent: only fools possess the gold
that wise men can coin into miracles. Try me, sir; honor me with your
sympathy. You are a father--you have a sweet little girl, I
hear."--Bartley winced at that.--"Well, so have I, and the hole my
poverty makes me pig in is not good for her, sir. She needs the sea air,
the scent of flowers, and, bless her little heart, she does enjoy them
so! Give them to her, and I will give you zeal, energy, brains, and a
million of money."
This, for the first time in the interview, arrested Mr. Bartley's
attention.
"I see you are a superior man," said he, "but I have no way to utilize
your services."
"You can give me no hope, sir?" asked the poor fellow, still lingering.
"None--and I am sorry for it."
This one gracious speech affected poor Hope so that he could not speak
for a moment. Then he fought for manly dignity, and said, with a
lamentable mixture of sham sprightliness and real anguish, "Thank you,
sir; I only trust that you will always find servants as devoted to your
interest as my gratitude would have made me. Good-morning, sir." He
clapped his hat on with a sprightly, ghastly air, and marched off
resolutely.
But ere he reached the door, Nature overpowered the father's heart;
way went Bolton's instructions; away went fictitious deportment and
feigned cheerfulness. The poor wretch uttered a cry, indeed a scream, of
anguish, that would have thrilled ten thousand hearts had they heard it;
he dashed his hat on the ground, and rushed toward Bartley, with both
hands out--"FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T SEND ME AWAY--MY CHILD IS STARVING!"
Even Bartley was moved. "Your child!" said he, with some little feeling.
This slight encouragement was enough for a father. His love gushed forth.
"A little golden-haired, blue-eyed angel, who is all the world to me. We
have walked here from Liverpool, where I had just buried her mother. God
help me! God help us both! Many a weary mile, sir, and never sure of
supper or bed. The birds of the air have nests, the beasts of the field a
shelter, the fox a hole, but my beautiful and fragile girl, only four
years old, sir, is houseless and homeless. Her mother died of
consumption, sir, and I live in mortal fear; for now she is beginning to
cough, and I can not give her proper nourishment. Often on this fatal
journey I have felt her shiver, and then I have taken off my coat and
wrapped it round her, and her beautiful eyes have looked up in mine, and
seemed to plead for the warmth and food I'd sell my soul to give her."
"Poor fellow," said Bartley; "I suppose I ought to pity you. But how can
I? Man--man--your child is alive, and while there is life there is hope;
but mine is dead--dead!" he almost shrieked.
"Dead!" said Hope, horrified.
"Dead," cried Bartley. "Cut off at four years old, the very age of yours.
There--go and judge for yourself. You are a father. I can't look upon my
blasted hopes, and my withered flower. Go and see _my_ blue-eyed,
fair-haired darling--clay, hastening to the tomb; and you will trouble me
no more with your imaginary griefs." He flung himself down with his head
on his desk.
Hope, following the direction of his hand, opened the door of the house,
and went softly forward till he met the nurse. He told her Mr. Bartley
wished him to see the deceased. The nurse hesitated, but looked at him.
His sad face inspired confidence, and she ushered him into the chamber of
mourning. There, laid out in state, was a little figure that, seen in the
dim light, drew a cry of dismay from Hope. He had left his own girl
sleeping, and looking like tinted wax. Here lay a little face the very
image of hers, only this was pale wax.
Had he looked more closely, the chin was unlike his own girl's, and there
were other differences. But the first glance revealed a thrilling
resemblance. Hope hurried away from the room, and entered the office pale
and disturbed. "Oh, sir! the very image of my own. It fills me with
forebodings. I pity you, sir, with all my heart. That sad sight
reconciles me to my lot. God help you!" and he was going away; for now he
felt an unreasoning terror lest his own child should have turned from
colored wax to pale.
Mr. Bartley stopped him. "Are they so very like?" said he.
"Wonderfully like." And again he was going, but Bartley, who had received
him so coldly, seemed now unwilling to part with him.
"Stay," said he, "and let me think." The truth is, a daring idea had
just flashed through that brain of his; and he wanted to think it out.
He walked to and fro in silent agitation, and his face was as a book in
which you may read strange matter. At last he made up his mind, but
the matter was one he did not dare to approach too bluntly, so he went
about a little.
"Stay--you don't know all my misfortunes. I am ambitious--like you. I
believe in science and knowledge--like you. And, if my child had
lived, you should have been my adviser and my right hand: I want such
a man as you."
Hope threw up his hands. "My usual luck!" said he: "always a day too
late." Bartley resumed:
"But my child's death robs me of the money to work with, and I can't help
you nor help myself."
Hope groaned.
Bartley hesitated. But after a moment he said, timidly, "Unless--" and
then stopped.
"Unless what?" asked Hope, eagerly. "I am not likely to raise objections
my child's life is at stake."
"Well, then, unless you are really the superior man you seem to be: a man
of ability and--courage."
"Courage!" thought Hope, and began to be puzzled. However, he said,
modestly, that he thought he could find courage in a good cause.
"Then you and I are made men," said Bartley. These were stout words; but
they were not spoken firmly; on the contrary, Mr. Bartley's voice
trembled, and his brow began to perspire visibly.
His agitation communicated itself to Hope, and the latter said, in a
low, impressive voice, "This is something very grave, Mr. Bartley. Sir,
what is it?"
Mr. Bartley looked uneasily all round the room, and came close to Hope.
"The very walls must not hear what I now say to you." Then, in a
thrilling whisper, "My daughter must not die."
Hope looked puzzled.
"Your daughter must take her place."
Now just before this, two quick ears began to try and catch the
conversation. Monckton had heard all that Colonel Clifford said, that
warrior's tones were so incisive; but, as the matter only concerned Mr.
Bartley, he merely grinned at the disappointment likely to fall on his
employer, for he knew Mary Bartley was at death's door. He said as much
to himself, and went out for a sandwich, for it was his lunch-time. But
when he returned with stealthy foot, for all his movements were cat-like,
he caught sight of Bartley and Hope in earnest conversation, and felt
very curious.
There was something so mysterious in Bartley's tones that Monckton drew
up against the little window, pushed it back an inch, and listened hard.
But he could hear nothing at all until Hope's answer came to
Bartley's proposal.
Then the indignant father burst out, so that it was easy enough to hear
every word. "I part with my girl! Not for the world's wealth. What! You
call yourself a father, and would tempt me to sell my own flesh and
blood? No! Poverty, beggary, anything, sooner than that. My darling, we
will thrive together or starve together; we will live together or die
together!"
He snatched up his hat to leave. But Bartley found a word to make him
hesitate. He never moved, but folded his arms and said, "So, then, your
love for your child is selfish."
"Selfish!" cried Hope; "so selfish that I would die for her any hour of
the day." For all that, the taunt brought him down a step, and Bartley,
still standing like a rock, attacked him again. "If it is not selfish, it
is blind." Then he took two strides, and attacked him with sudden power.
"Who will suffer most if you stand in her light? Your daughter: why, she
may die." Hope groaned. "Who will profit most if you are wise, and
really love her, not like a jealous lover, but like a father? Why, your
daughter: she will be taken out of poverty and want, and carried to
sea-breezes and scented meadows; her health and her comfort will be my
care; she will fill the gap in my house and in my heart, and will be my
heiress when I die."
"But she will be lost to me," sighed poor Hope.
"Not so. You will be my right hand; you will be always about us; you can
see her, talk to her, make her love you, do anything but tell her you are
her father. Do this one thing for me, and I will do great things for you
and for her. To refuse me will be to cut your own throat and hers--as
well as mine."
Hope faltered a little. "Am I selfish?" said he.
"Of course not," was the soothing reply. "No true father is--give him
time to think."
Hope clinched his hands in agony, and pressed them against his brow. "It
is selfish to stand in her light; but part with her--I can't; I can't."
"Of course not: who asks you? She will never be out of your sight; only,
instead of seeing her sicken, linger, and die, you will see her
surrounded by every comfort, nursed and tended like a princess, and
growing every day in health, wealth, and happiness."
"Health, wealth, and happiness?"
"Health, wealth, and happiness!"
These words made a great impression on the still hesitating father; he
began to make conditions. They were all granted heartily.
"If ever you are unkind to her, the compact is broken, and I claim my
own again."
"So be it. But why suppose anything so monstrous; men do not ill-treat
children. It is only women, who adore them, that kill them and ill-use
them accordingly. She will be my little benefactress, God bless her! I
may love her more than I ought, being yours, for my home is desolate
without her; but that is the only fault you shall ever find with me.
There is my hand on it."
Hope at the last was taken off his guard, and took the proffered hand.
That is a binding action, and somehow he could no longer go back.
Then Bartley told him he should live in the house at first, to break the
parting. "And from this hour," said he, "you are no clerk nor manager,
but my associate in business, and on your own terms."
"Thank you," said Hope, with a sigh.
"Now lose no time; get her into the house at once while the clerks are
away, and meantime I must deal with the nurse, and overcome the many
difficulties. Stay, here is a five-pound note. Buy yourself a new suit,
and give the child a good meal. But pray bring her here in half an hour
if you can."
Then Bartley took him to the lobby, and let him out in the street, whilst
he went into the house to buy the nurse, and make her his confidante.
He had a good deal of difficulty with her; she was shocked at the
proposal, and, being a woman, it was the details that horrified her. She
cried a good deal. She stipulated that her darling should have Christian
burial, and cried again at the doubt. But as Bartley conceded everything,
and offered to settle a hundred pounds a year on her, so long as she
lived in his house and kept his secret, he prevailed at last, and found
her an invaluable ally.
To dispose of this character for the present we must inform the reader
that she proved a woman can keep a secret, and that in a very short time
she was as fond of Grace Hope as she had been of Mary Bartley.
We have said that Colonel Clifford's talk penetrated Monckton's ear, but
produced no great impression at the time. Not so, however, when he had
listened to Bartley's proposal, Hope's answer, and all that followed.
Then he put this and Colonel Clifford's communication together, and saw
the terrible importance of the two things combined. Thus, as a
congenital worm grew with Jonah's gourd, and was sure to destroy it,
Bartley's bold and elaborate scheme was furnished from the outset with a
most dangerous enemy.
Leonard Monckton was by nature a schemer and by habit a villain, and he
was sure to put this discovery to profit. He came out of the little
office and sat down at his desk, and fell into a brown-study.
He was not a little puzzled, and here lay his difficulty. Two attractive
villainies presented themselves to his ingenious mind, and he naturally
hesitated between them. One was to levy black-mail on Bartley; the other,
to sell the secret to the Cliffords.
But there was a special reason why he should incline toward the
Cliffords, and, whilst he is in his brown-study, we will let the reader
into his secret.
This artful person had immediately won the confidence of young Clifford,
calling himself Bolton, and had prepared a very heartless trap for him.
He introduced to him a most beautiful young woman--tall, dark, with oval
face and glorious black eyes and eyebrows, a slight foreign accent, and
ingratiating manners. He called this beauty his sister, and instructed
her to win Walter Clifford in that character, and to marry him. As she
was twenty-two, and Master Clifford nineteen, he had no chance with her,
and they were to be married this very day at the Register Office.
Manoeuvring Monckton then inclined to let Bartley's fraud go on and
ripen, but eventually expose it for the benefit of young Walter and his
wife, who adored this Monckton, because, when a beautiful woman loves an
ugly blackguard, she never does it by halves.
But he had no sooner thought out this conclusion than there came an
obstacle. Lucy Muller's heart failed her at the last moment, and she
came into the office with a rush to tell her master so. She uttered a cry
of joy at sight of him, and came at him panting and full of love. "Oh,
Leonard, I am so glad you are alone! Leonard, dear Leonard, pray do not
insist on my marrying that young man. Now it comes to the time, my heart
fails me." The tears stood in her glorious eyes, and an honest man would
have pitied her, and even respected her a little for her compunction,
though somewhat tardy.
But her master just fixed his eyes coldly on his slave, and said,
brutally, "Never mind your heart; think of your interest."
The weak woman allowed herself to be diverted into this topic. "Why, he
is no such great catch, I am sure."
"I tell you he is, more than ever: I have just discovered another £20,000
he is heir to, and not got to wait for that any longer than I choose."
Lucy stamped her foot. "I don't care for his money. Till he came with
his money you loved me."
"I love you as much as ever," said Monckton, coldly.
Lucy began to sob. "No, you don't, or you wouldn't give me up to that
young fool."
The villain made a cynical reply, that not every Newgate thief could
have matched. "You fool," said he, "can't you marry him, and go on
loving me? you won't be the first. It is done every day, to the
satisfaction of all parties."
"And to their unutterable shame," said a clear, stern voice at their
back. Walter Clifford, coming rapidly in, had heard but little, but heard
enough; and there he stood, grim and pale, a boy no longer. These two
skunks had made a man of him in one moment. They recoiled in dismay, and
the woman hid her face.
He turned upon the man first, you may be sure. "So you have palmed this
lady off on me as your sister, and trapped me, and would have destroyed
me." His lip quivered; for they had passed the iron through his heart.
But he manned himself, and carried it off like a soldier's son:
"But if I was fool enough to leave my father, I am not fool enough to
present to the world your cast-off mistress as my wife." (Lucy hid her
face in her hands.) "Here, Miss Lucy Monckton--or whatever your name may
be--here is the marriage license. Take that and my contempt, and do what
you like with them."
With these words he dashed into Bartley's private room, and there broke
down. It was a bitter cup, the first in his young life.
The baffled schemers drank wormwood too; but they bore it differently.
The woman cried, and took her punishment meekly; the man raged and
threatened vengeance.
"No, no," said Lucy; "it serves us right. I wish I had never seen the
fellow: then you would have kept your word, and married me."
"I will marry you now, if you can obey me."
"Obey you, Leonard? You have been my ruin; but only marry me, and I will
be your slave in everything--your willing, devoted, happy slave."
"That is a bargain," said Monckton, coolly. "I'll be even with him; I
will marry you in his name and in his place."
This puzzled Lucy.
"Why in his name?" said she.
He did not answer.
"Well, never mind the name," said she, "so that it is the right man--and
that is you."
Then Monckton's fertile brain, teeming with villainies, fell to hatching
a new plot more felonious than the last. He would rob the safe, and get
Clifford convicted for the theft; convicted as Bolton, Clifford would
never tell his real name, and Lucy should enter the Cliffords' house with
a certificate of his death and a certificate of his marriage, both
obtained by substitution, and so collar his share of the £20,000, and
off with the real husband to fresh pastures.
Lucy looked puzzled. Hers was not a brain to disentangle such a
monstrous web.
Monckton reflected a moment. "What is the first thing? Let me see. Humph!
I think the first thing is to get married."
"Yes," said Lucy, with an eagerness that contrasted strangely with his
cynical composure, "that is the first thing, and the most
understandable." And she went dancing off with him as gay as a lark, and
leaning on him at an angle of forty-five; whilst he went erect and cold,
like a stone figure marching.
Walter Clifford came out in time to see them pass the great window. He
watched them down the street, and cursed them--not loud but deep.
"Mooning, as usual," said a hostile voice behind him. He turned round,
and there was Mr. Bartley seated at his own table. Young Clifford walked
smartly to the other side of the table, determined this should be his
last day in that shop.
"There are the payments," said he.
Bartley inspected them.
"About one in five," said he, dryly.
"Thereabouts," was the reply. (Consummate indifference.)
"You can't have pressed them much."
"Well, I am not good at dunning."
"What _are_ you good at?"
"Should be puzzled to say."
"You are not fit for trade."
"That is the highest compliment was ever paid me."
"Oh, you are impertinent as well as incompetent, are you? Then take a
week's warning, Mr. Bolton."
"Five minutes would suit me better, Mr. Bartley."
"Oh! indeed! Say one hour."
"All right, sir; just time for a city clerk's luncheon--glass of bitter,
sandwich, peep at _Punch_, cigarette, and a chat with the bar-maid."
Mr. Walter Clifford was a gentleman, but we must do him the justice to
say that in this interview with his employer he was a very impertinent
one, not only in words, but in the delivery thereof. Bartley, however,
thought this impertinence was put on, and that he had grave reasons for
being in a hurry. He took down the numbers of the notes Clifford had
given him, and looked very grave and suspicious all the time.
Then he locked up the notes in the safe, and just then Hope opened the
door of the little office and looked in.
"At last," said Bartley.
"Well, sir," said Hope, "I have only been half an hour, and I have
changed my clothes and stood witness to a marriage. She begged me so
hard: I was at the door. Such a beautiful girl! I could not take my
eyes off her."
"The child?" said Bartley, with natural impatience.
"I have hidden her in the yard."
"Bring her this moment, while the clerks are out."
Hope hurried out, and soon returned with his child, wrapped up in a nice
warm shawl he had bought her with Bartley's money.
Bartley took the child from him, looked at her face, and said, "Little
darling, I shall love her as my own;" then he begged Hope to sit down in
the lobby till he should call him and introduce him to his clerks. "One
of them is a thief, I'm afraid."
He took the child inside, and gave her to his confederate, the nurse.
"Dear me," thought Hope, "only two clerks, and one of them dishonest. I
hope it is not that good-natured boy. Oh no! impossible."
And now Bartley returned, and at the same time Monckton came briskly in
through the little office.
At sight of him Bartley said, "Oh, Monckton, I gave that fellow Bolton a
week's notice. But he insists on going directly," Monckton replied,
slyly, that he was sorry to hear that.
"Suspicious? Eh?" said Bartley.
"So suspicious that if I were you--Indeed, Mr. Bartley, I think, in
justice to _me_, the matter ought to be cleared to the bottom."
"You are right," said Bartley: "I'll have him searched before he goes.
Fetch me a detective at once."
Bartley then wrote a line upon his card, and handed it to Monckton,
directing him to lose no time. He then rushed out of the house with an
air of virtuous indignation, and went to make some delicate arrangements
to carry out a fraud, which, begging his pardon, was as felonious, though
not so prosaic, as the one he suspected his young clerk of. Monckton was
at first a little taken aback by the suddenness of all this; but he was
too clear-headed to be long at fault. The matter was brought to a point.
Well, he must shoot flying.
In a moment he was at the safe, whipped out a bunch of false keys, opened
the safe, took out the cash-box, and swept all the gold it contained into
his own pockets, and took possession of the notes. Then he locked up the
cash-box again, restored it to the safe, locked that, and sat down at
Bartley's table. He ran over the notes with feverish fingers, and then
took the precaution to examine Bartley's day-book. His caution was
rewarded--he found that the notes Bolton had brought in were _numbered_.
He instantly made two parcels--clapped the unnumbered notes into his
pocket. The numbered ones he took in his hand into the lobby. Now this
lobby must be shortly described. First there was a door with a glass
window, but the window had dark blue gauze fixed to it, so that nobody
could see into the lobby from the office; but a person in the lobby, by
putting his eye close to the gauze, could see into the office in a filmy
sort of way. This door opened on a lavatory, and there were also pegs on
which the clerks hung their overcoats. Then there was a swing-door
leading direct to the street, and sideways into a small room
indispensable to every office.
Monckton entered this lobby, and inserted the numbered notes into young
Clifford's coat, and the false keys into his bag. Then he whipped back
hastily into the office, with his craven face full of fiendish triumph.
He started for the detective. But it was bitter cold, and he returned to
the lobby for his own overcoat. As he opened the lobby door the
swing-door moved, or he thought so; he darted to it and opened it, but
saw nobody, Hope having whipped behind the open door of the little room.
Monckton then put on his overcoat, and went for the detective.
He met Clifford at the door, and wore an insolent grin of defiance, for
which, if they had not passed each other rapidly, he would very likely
have been knocked down. As it was, Walter Clifford entered the office
flushed with wrath, and eager to leave behind him the mortifications and
humiliations he had endured.
He went to his own little desk and tore up Lucy Mailer's letters, and his
heart turned toward home. He went into the lobby, and, feeling hot, which
was no wonder, bundled his office overcoat and his brush and comb into
his bag. He returned to the office for his penknife, and was going out
all in a hurry, when Mr. Bartley met him.
Bartley looked rather stern, and said, "A word with you, sir."
"Certainly, sir," said the young man, stiffly.
Mr. Bartley sat down at his table and fixed his eyes upon the young man
with a very peculiar look.
"You seem in a very great hurry to go."
"Well, I _am_."
"You have not even demanded your salary up to date."
"Excuse the oversight; I was not made for business, you know."
"There is something more to settle besides your salary."
"Premium for good conduct?"
"No, sir. Mr. Bolton, you will find this no jesting matter. There are
defalcations in the accounts, sir."
The young man turned serious at once. "I am sorry to hear that, sir,"
said he, with proper feeling.
Bartley eyed him still more severely. "And even cash abstracted."
"Good heavens!" said the young man, answering his eyes rather than his
words. "Why, surely you can't suspect me?"
Bartley answered, sternly, "I know I have been robbed, and so I suspect
everybody whose conduct is suspicious."
This was too much for a Clifford to bear. He turned on him like a lion.
"Your suspicions disgrace the trader who entertains them, not the
gentleman they wrong. You are too old for me to give you a thrashing, so
I won't stay here any longer to be insulted."
He snatched up his bag and was marching off, when the door opened, and
Monckton with a detective confronted him.
"No," roared Bartley, furious in turn; "but you will stay to be
examined."
"Examined!"
"Searched, then, if you like it better."
"No, don't do that," said the young fellow. "Spare me such a
humiliation."
Bartley, who was avaricious, but not cruel, hesitated.
"Well," said he, "I will examine the safe before I go further."
Mr. Bartley opened the safe and took out the cash-box. It was empty. He
uttered a loud exclamation. "Why, it's a clean sweep! A wholesale
robbery! Notes and gold all gone! No wonder you were in such a hurry to
leave! Luckily some of the notes were numbered. Search him."
"No, no. Don't treat me like a thief!" cried the poor boy, almost
sobbing.
"If you are innocent, why object?" said Monckton, satirically.
"You villain," cried Clifford, "this is your doing! I am sure of it!"
Monckton only grinned triumphantly; but Bartley fired up. "If there is a
villain here, it is you. _He_ is a faithful servant, who warned his
employer." He then pointed sternly at young Bolton, and the detective
stepped up to him and said, curtly, "Now, sir, if I _must_."
He then proceeded to search his waistcoat pockets. The young man hung his
head, and looked guilty. He had heard of money being put into an innocent
man's pockets, and he feared that game had been played with him.
The detective examined his waistcoat pockets and found--nothing. His
other pockets--nothing.
The detective patted his breast and examined his stockings--nothing.
"Try the bag," said Monckton.
Then the poor fellow trembled again.
The detective searched the bag--nothing.
He took the overcoat and turned the pockets out--nothing.
Bartley looked surprised. Monckton still more so. Meantime Hope had gone
round from the lobby, and now entered by the small office, and stood
watching a part of this business, viz., the search of the bag and the
overcoat, with a bitter look of irony.
"But my safe must have been opened with false keys," cried Bartley.
"Where are they?"
"And the numbered notes," said Monckton, "where are they?"
"Gentlemen," said Hope, "may I offer my advice?"
"Who the devil are you?" said Monckton.
"He is my new partner, my associate in business," said the politic
Bartley. Then deferentially to Hope, "What do you advise?"
"You have two clerks. I would examine them both."
"Examine me?" cried Monckton. "Mr. Bartley, will you allow such an
affront to be put on your old and faithful servant?"
"If you are innocent, why object?" said young Clifford, spitefully,
before Bartley could answer.
The remark struck Bartley, and he acted on it.
"Well, it is only fair to Mr. Bolton," said he. "Come, come, Monckton, it
is only a form."
Then he gave the detective a signal, and he stepped up to Monckton, and
emptied his waistcoat pockets of eighty-five sovereigns.
"There!" cried Walter Clifford, "There! there!"
"My own money, won at the Derby," said Monckton, coolly; "and only a part
of it, I am happy to say. You will find the remainder in banknotes."
The detective found several notes.
Bartley examined the book and the notes. The Derby! He was beginning to
doubt this clerk, who attended that meeting on the sly. However, he was
just, though no longer confiding.
"I am bound to say that not one of the numbered notes is here."
The detective was now examining Monckton's overcoat. He produced a small
bunch of keys.
"How did they come there?" cried Monckton, in amazement.
It was an incautious remark. Bartley took it up directly, and pounced on
the keys. He tried them on the safe. One opened the safe, another opened
the cash-box.
Meantime the detective found some notes in the pocket of the overcoat,
and produced them.
"Great heavens!" cried Monckton, "how did they come there?"
"Oh, I dare say you know," said the detective.
Bartley examined them eagerly. They were the numbered notes.
"You scoundrel," he roared, "these show me where your gold and your
other notes came from. The whole contents of my safe--in that
villain's pockets!"
"No, no," cried Monckton, in agony. "It's all a delusion. Some rogue has
planted them there to ruin me."
"Keep that for the beak," said the policeman; "he is sure to believe it.
Come, my bloke. I knew who was my bird the moment I clapped eyes on the
two. 'Tain't his first job, gents, you take my word. We shall find his
photo in some jail or other in time for the assizes."
"Away with him!" cried Bartley, furiously.
As the policeman took him off, the baffled villain's eye fell on Hope,
who stood with folded arms, and looked down on him with lowering brow and
the deep indignation of the just, and yet with haughty triumph.
That eloquent look was a revelation to Monckton.
"Ah," he cried, "it was _you_."
Hope's only reply was this: "You double felon, false accuser and thief,
you are caught in your own trap."
And this he thundered at him with such sudden power that the thief went
cringing out, and even those who remained were awed. But Hope never told
anybody except Walter Clifford that he had undone Monckton's work in the
lobby; and then the poor boy fell upon his neck, and kissed his hand.
To run forward a little: Monckton was tried, and made no defense. He
dared not call Hope as his witness, for it was clear Hope must have seen
him commit the theft and attempt the other villainy. But the false
accusation leaked out as well as the theft. A previous conviction was
proved, and the indignant judge gave him fourteen years.
Thus was Bartley's fatal secret in mortal peril on the day it first
existed; yet on that very day it was saved from exposure, and buried deep
in a jail.
Bartley set Hope over his business, and was never heard of for months.
Then he turned up in Sussex with a little girl, who had been saved from
diphtheria by tracheotomy, and some unknown quack.
There was a scar to prove it. The tender parent pointed it out
triumphantly, and railed at the regular practitioners of medicine.