COMMOTION IN THE OFFICE OF GREATOREX AND GREATOREX.
The summer sun, scorching the walls of houses and the street pavements
with its heat and its glare, threw itself in great might into the
offices of Greatorex and Greatorex. Josiah Hurst and Roland Yorke were
at their desk, writing side by side. Jenner was at his, similarly
occupied; Mr. Brown was holding a conversation in an undertone with
some stranger, who had entered with him as he came in from an errand:
a man of respectable, staid appearance. Something in the cut of his
clothes spoke of the provinces; and Roland Yorke, who never failed to
look after other people's affairs, however pressing his own might be,
decided that the stranger was a countryman, come up to see the sights
of London.
"Which I can't, except from the outside," grumbled Roland to himself.
"It's an awful sell to have to go about with empty pockets. I wonder
who the fellow is?--he has been whispering there twenty minutes if
he's been one. He looks as if he had plenty in _his_."
Mr. Bede Greatorex came in and took his place at his desk. The
head-clerk drew his head away from close proximity with his friend's,
and commenced work; a hint to the stranger that their gossip must be
at an end.
The latter asked for a pen and ink, wrote a few words on a leaf he
tore from his pocketbook, folded it in two, and gave it to Mr. Brown.
"That is my address in town," he said. "Let me see you tonight. I
leave tomorrow at midday."
"Good," replied Mr. Brown, glancing at the writing on the paper.
The stranger went out, lifting his hat to the room generally, and Mr.
Brown put the paper away in his pocket.
"Who was that?" asked Mr. Bede Greatorex.
"A gentleman I used to know, sir, a farmer," was the reply. "I met him
outside just now, and he came in with me. We got talking of old
times."
"Oh, I thought it was someone on business for the office" said Mr.
Bede Greatorex, half in apology for inquiring. His face looked worn as
usual, his eyes bright and restless. Some of the family could remember
that when the late Mrs. Greatorex had first shown symptoms of the
malady that killed _her_, her eyes had been unnaturally bright.
The work went on. The clocks drew near to twelve, and the sun in the
heavens grew fiercer. Roland began to look white and flustered. What
with the work and what with the heat, he thought he might as well be
roughing it at Port Natal. He was doing pretty well on the whole--for
him--and did not get lectures above four times a week. To help liking
Roland was impossible; with his frank manners, his free good-nature,
his unsophisticated mind, and his candid revelations in regard to
himself, that would now and again plunge the office into private
convulsions. It was also within the range of possibility that his good
connections, and the fact of his being free of the house, running up
at will to pay unexpected visits to Mrs. Greatorex, had their due
weight in Mr. Brown's mind; for breaches of office etiquette were
tolerated in Roland that certainly would not have been in any other
clerk, whether he was a gentleman or not. Roland had chosen to
constitute himself a kind of enfant de la maison; he and his brothers
and sisters had been intimate with the Joliffe girls; he could
remember once having nearly got up a fight with Louisa, now Mrs. Bede
Greatorex; and, to make Roland understand that in running upstairs
when he chose, darting in upon Mrs. Greatorex as she sat in her
boudoir or drawing-room, darting in upon Miss Channing as she gave
lessons to Jane Greatorex, he was intruding where he ought not, would
have been a hopeless task. Once or twice Mr. Bede Greatorex had
voluntarily invited him up to luncheon or dinner; and so Roland made
himself free of the house, and in a degree swayed the office.
They were very busy today. The work which he and Hurst and Jenner had
in hand was being waited for, so that Roland had to stick to it, in
spite of the relaxing heat, and fully decided he could not be worse
off at Port Natal. The scratching of the pens was going on pretty
equally, when Frank Greatorex came in.
"I want a cheque from you, Bede."
"Where's Mr. Greatorex?" returned Bede in answer; for it was to him
such applications were made in general.
"Gone out."
Bede put aside the deed he had been sedulously examining, went into
his private room, and came back with his chequebook.
"How much?" he asked of his brother, as he sat down.
"Forty-four pounds. Make it out to Sir Richard Yorke."
With a simultaneous movement, as it seemed, two of those present
raised their heads to look at Frank Greatorex: Roland Yorke and Mr.
Brown. The former was no doubt attracted by the sound of his kinsman's
name; what aroused Mr. Brown's attention did not appear, but he stared
for a moment in a kind of amazement.
"Upon consideration, I don't think I'll take the cheque with me now; I
will call for it later in the day, when I've been into the city,"
spoke a voice at the door; and Sir Richard Yorke appeared. Bede, who
was just then signing the cheque, "Greatorex and Greatorex," finished
the signature, and came forward to shake hands.
"How d'ye do, sir," spoke up Roland.
Sir Richard's little eyes peered out over his fat face, and he
condescended to recognise his nephew by a nod. Bede Greatorex spoke a
few words to the baronet, touching the matter in hand, and turned back
to his desk, leaving Frank to escort the old gentleman out. Bede,
about to cross the cheque, hesitated.
"Did Mr. Frank say a crossed cheque?" he asked, looking up.
"No, sir; he said simply a cheque," said Jenner, finding nobody else
answered.
"Yes," broke out Roland, "it's fine to be that branch of the family.
Getting their cheques for forty-four pounds! I wish I could get one
for forty-four shillings."
"Have the goodness to attend to your own business, Mr. Yorke."
Bede Greatorex left the cheque uncrossed. In a few minutes, after
putting things to rights on his desk, he gathered up his papers,
including the cheque and chequebook, and went into his room. Putting
the things altogether in his desk there,--for he had an engagement at
twelve and the hour was within a minute or two of striking,--he locked
it and went out by the other door, not coming into the front room
again.
Now it happened that Bede Greatorex, who had expected to be absent
half an hour at the longest, was unavoidably detained, so that when
Sir Richard Yorke returned for his cheque it could not be given to
him. Mr. Greatorex, however, was at home then, and drew out another.
And the day went on.
"You must cancel that cheque, Bede," Mr. Greatorex casually observed
to his son that same evening, after office-hours. "It was very
unbusiness-like to leave it locked up, when you were not sure of
coming back in time to give it to Sir Richard."
"But I thought I was sure. It does not matter."
"If you will bring me those title-deeds of Cardwell's, I'll go over
them myself quietly, and see what I can make out," said Mr. Greatorex.
Bede crossed the passage to his private room, and unlocked his desk.
The deeds Mr. Greatorex asked for were the same that he had been
examining in the front office in the morning.
Some flaw had been discovered in them, or was suspected, and it was
likely to give the office some trouble, which would fall on Bede's
head. There they lay inside the desk, just as Bede had placed them in
the morning, with the paper-weight upon them; detained at Westminster
until a late hour, he had not been to his desk since. Reminded by his
father to destroy the cheque--useless now--Bede thought he would do
it at once.
But he could not find it. Other papers, besides the title-deeds,
cheque, and chequebook, he had placed within, and he went carefully
over them all, one by one. Nothing was missing, nothing had apparently
been touched, but the cheque certainly was not there. He searched his
desk in the front office, quite for form's sake, for he knew that he
had carried the cheque with him to his private room.
"One would think you had been drawing out the deeds," remarked Mr.
Greatorex when he returned.
"I can't find that cheque," answered Bede.
"Not find the cheque!" repeated Mr. Greatorex. "What do you mean,
Bede?"
Bede gave a short history of the affair. He had been in a hurry: and,
instead of staying to put the cheque and chequebook into his cash-box,
had left them loose in his table-desk with the title-deeds and sundry
other papers.
"But you _locked_ your desk?" cried Mr. Greatorex.
"Assuredly. I have only unlocked it now. The cheque would be as safe
there as in the cash-box."
"You could not have put it in, Bede; it must be somewhere about."
"I am just as certain that I put it in, as I am that it is not there
now."
Mr. Greatorex did not believe it. Bede had been for some time showing
himself less the keen, exact man of business be used to be. Trifling
mistakes, inaccuracies, negligences, would come to light now and
again; vexing Mr. Greatorex beyond measure.
"I don't know what to make of you of late, Bede," he said after a
pause. "You know the complaints we have been obliged to hear. These
very title-deeds"--putting his hand on those just brought in--"it was
you who examined and passed them. One negligence or another comes
cropping up continually, and they may all be traced to you. Is your
state of health the cause?"
"I suppose so," replied Bede, who felt conscious the reproach was
merited.
"You had better take some rest for a time. If----."
"No," came the hasty interruption, as though the proposal were
unpalatable. "Work is better for me than idleness. Put me out of
harness, and I should knock up."
"Bede," said Mr. Greatorex, in a tone of considerate kindness, but
with some hesitation, "it appears to me that you get more of a changed
man day by day. You have not been the same since your marriage. I fear
the cause, or a great portion of it, lies in _her_; I fear she gives
you trouble. As you know, I have never spoken to you before of this; I
have abstained from doing so."
A flush, that had shown itself in the clear olive face when Mr.
Greatorex began to speak, faded to whiteness; the hand, that
accidentally touched his father's, felt fevered in all its veins.
"At least, my wife is not the cause of my illness," he answered in a
low tone.
"I don't know that, Bede. That a great worry lies on your heart
continually, that a kind of restless, nervous anxiety never leaves you
by night or by day, is sufficiently plain to me; I know that it can
only arise from matters connected with your wife: and I also know that
this, and this alone, tells upon your bodily health. Your wife's
extravagance is bringing you care: ruin will surely supervene if you
do not check it."
Bede Greatorex opened his lips to speak, but seemed to think better of
it, and closed them again. His brow was knitted in two upright lines.
"Unless you can do so, Bede, I shall be compelled to make an
alteration in our arrangements. In justice to myself and to my other
children, your name must be withdrawn from the firm. Not yourself and
your profits: only the name, as a matter of safety."
Bede Greatorex bit his lips. His father's heart ached for him. For a
long while Mr. Greatorex had seen that his son's unhappy state of mind
(and that it was unhappy no keen observer, much with him, could
mistake) arose through his wife. And he thought Bede a fool for
putting up with her.
"You need not be afraid," said Bede. "I will take care the firm's
interests are not affected."
"How can you take care?" retorted Mr. Greatorex, in rather a stern
tone. "When debts are being made daily in the most reckless manner:
debts that you know nothing of, until the bills come trooping in and
you are called upon to pay, can you answer for what it will go on to?
Can I? Many a richer man than either of us, Bede, has been brought to
the Bankruptcy Court through less than this. Ay, and I will tell you
what else, Bede--it has brought husbands to the grave. When people
remark to me, 'Your son Bede looks ill,' I quietly answer 'Do you
think so?' when all the while I am secretly wondering that you can
look even as well as you do."
"Who remarks on it?" asked Bede.
"Who! Many people. Only the other night, when Henry Ollivera was here,
he spoke of it."
"Let Henry Ollivera concern himself with his own affairs," was the
fierce answer. "Does he want to be a----"
Bede's voice dropped to an inaudible whisper. But the concluding words
had sounded like--"curse amongst us."
"Bede! Did you say _curse?_"
"I said _king_," answered Bede. His nostrils were working, his lips
were quivering, his chest was heaving; all with a passion he was
trying to suppress. Mr. Greatorex looked at him, and waited. He had
seen Bede in these intemperate fits of anger before: sometimes for no
apparent cause.
"We will go book to the starting-point, this cheque, Bede," he quietly
said. "You must have overlooked it. Go and search your desk again."
Bede was leaving the room when he met a servant coming to it with a
message. Mr. Yorke had called, and wished to see Mr. Greatorex for a
couple of minutes: his business was important.
The notion of Roland Yorke and important business being in connexion,
brought a smile to the face of Mr. Greatorex. He told the servant to
send him in.
But instead of Roland, it was the son of Sir Richard Yorke who
advanced. A very fashionable gentleman in evening dress, small and
slight, with white hands, a lisp, and a silky moustache. He had come
about the cheque.
Sir Richard, fatigued with his visit to the city, had gone straight
home to Portland Place, after receiving the cheque from Mr. Greatorex,
and sent his son to the bankers' to get it cashed: a branch office of
the London and Westminster. The clerk, before he cashed it, looked at
it rather attentively, and then went away for a minute.
"We have cashed one cheque before today, sir, precisely similar to
this," he said on his return. "Would Sir Richard be likely to have two
cheques from Greatorex and Greatorex in one day, each drawn for the
same amount--forty-four pounds?"
"Greatorex and Greatorex are my father's men of business: he went to
get some money for them today, I know; I suppose he chose to receive
it in two cheques instead of one," replied Mr. Yorke haughtily, for he
deemed the question an impertinence. "Sir Richard may have wished to
pay the half of it away."
The clerk counted out the money and said no more. The cheques were
undoubtedly genuine, the first made out in the well-known hand of Bede
Greatorex, the last in that of his father, and the clerk supposed it
was all right. Mr. Yorke sent the money up to Sir Richard when he got
home, and went out again. At dinner-time, he mentioned what the clerk
had said--"Insolent fellah!" and the old baronet, who knew of the fact
of two cheques having been drawn, took alarm.
"He'd not let me wait an instant; sent me off here before I'd well
tasted my soup," grumbled Mr. Yorke. "One of you had better come and
see him if the cheque _has_ been lost and cashed; or he'll ask me five
hundred questions which I can't answer, and fret himself into a fit.
He has had one fit, you know. As to the cheque, it must have got into
the hands of some clever thief, who made haste to reap the benefit of
it."
"And your desk must have been picked, Bede, if you are sure you put it
in," observed Mr. Greatorex.
"I'm sure of that," answered Bede. "But I don't see how the desk can
have been picked. Not a thing in it was displaced, and the lock is
uninjured."
Bede had a frightful headache--which was the cause of his looking
somewhat worse than usual that evening, so Mr. Greatorex went to Sir
Richard Yorke's. And in coming home he passed round by Scotland Yard.
On the following morning, sitting in his room, he held a conference
with his two sons, whom he had not seen on his return the previous
night.
"They think at Scotland Yard it must inevitably have been one of the
clerks in your room, Bede," said Mr. Greatorex.
"One would think it, but that it seems so very unlikely," answered
Bede. "Brown and Jenner have been with us quite long enough for their
honesty to be proved; and the other two are gentlemen."
"Their theory is this; that someone, possessing easy access to your
private room, opened the desk with a false key."
"For the matter of that, the clerks on our side the house could obtain
nearly if not quite as easy access to Bede's room through its other
door," observed Frank Greatorex.
"Yes. But you forget, Frank, that none of them on our side the house
knew of the cheque having been drawn out and left there. Jelf will be
in by-and-by."
The morning's letters, recently delivered, lay before Mr. Greatorex in
a stack, and he began to look at them one by one before opening; his
common custom. He came to one addressed to Bede, marked "Private" on
both sides, and tossed it to his son!
Bede opened it. There was an inner envelope, sealed, and, addressed
and marked just like the outer one, which Bede opened in turn. Frank
Greatorex, standing near his brother, was enabled to see that but a
few lines formed its contents. Almost in a moment, before Bede could
have read the whole, he crushed the letter together and thrust it into
his pocket. Frank laughed.
"Your correspondent takes his precautions, Bede. Was he afraid that
Mrs. Bede----"
The words were but meant in jest, but Frank did not finish them. Bede
turned from the room with a kind of staggering movement, his face
blanched, his whole countenance livid with some awful terror. Frank
simply stared after him, unable to say another word.
"What was that?" cried Mr. Greatorex, looking up at the abrupt
silence.
"I don't know," said Frank. "Bede seems moonstruck with that letter he
has had. It must contain tidings of some bother or other."
"Then rely upon it, it is connected with his wife," severely spoke Mr.
Greatorex.
The news relating to the cheque fell upon the office like a clap of
thunder. Every clerk in it felt uncomfortable especially those
attached to Mr. Bede's department. The clerk at the bank, who had
cashed the cheque, was questioned. It had been presented at the bank
early in the afternoon, about half-past one o'clock he said, or
between that and two. He had not taken notice of the presenter, but
seemed to remember that he was a tall dark man, with black whiskers.
Had taken it and cashed it quite as a matter of course; making no
delay or query; it was a common thing for strangers, that is strangers
to the bank, to present the cheques of Greatorex and Greatorex. No; he
had not taken the number of the notes, for the best of all possible
reasons--that he had paid it in gold, as requested. This clerk
happened also to be the one to whom Sir Richard Yorke's son had
presented the second cheque; he spoke to that gentleman of the fact of
having cashed one an hour or two before, exactly similar; but Mr.
Yorke seemed to intimate that it was all right; in short appeared
offended at the subject being named to him.
At present that comprised all the information they possessed.
It was Mr. Bede Greatorex who, made the communication to the clerks in
his room. He was sitting at his desk in the front office when they
arrived,--an unusual circumstance; and when all were assembled and had
settled to their several occupations, then he entered upon it. The
cheque he had drawn out, as they might remember, on the previous
morning for Sir Richard Yorke, and which he had locked up subsequently
in his table-desk in the other room, had been abstracted from it, and
cashed at the bank. He spoke in a quiet, friendly manner, just in the
same tone he might have related it to a friend, not appearing to cast
the least thought of possible suspicion upon any one of them.
Nevertheless, no detective living could have watched their several
demeanours, as they heard it, more keenly than did Mr. Bede Greatorex.
The clerks seemed thunderstruck. Three of them gazed at him, unable
for the moment to shape any reply; the other burst out at once.
"The cheque gone! Stolen out of the desk, and cashed al the bank! My
goodness! Who took it, sir?"
The words came from nobody but Roland, you may be sure. Mr. Bede
Greatorex went on to give a few explanatory details; and Roland's next
movement was to rush into the adjoining room without asking
permission, and give a few tugs to the lid of the table-desk. Back he
clattered in a commotion.
And here let it be remarked, en passant, that it is somewhat annoying
to have to apply so frequently the word "clatter" to Roland's
progress, imparting no doubt a good deal of unnecessary sameness. But
there is really no other graphic expression that can be found to
describe it. His steps were quick, and the soles of his boots made
noise enough for ten.
"I say, Mr. Bede Greatorex," he exclaimed, "it is no light hand
that could open that desk without a key. I've had experience in
lifting weights over at Port Natal when helping to load the ships
with coal----"
"Kindly oblige me by making less noise, Mr. Yorke," came the
interrupting reproof.
Which Roland seemed not to heed in the least. He tilted himself on to
a high stool in the middle of the room, his legs dangling, just as
though he had been at a free-and-easy meeting; and there he sat,
staring in consternation.
"Will the bank know the fellow again that cashed it?"
"My opinion is that the desk was opened with a key in the ordinary
way," observed Mr. Bede Greatorex, referring to a previous remark of
Roland's, but passing over his present question.
"Perhaps you left your keys about?" suggested Roland. "I did not leave
them about, Mr. Yorke. I had them with me."
"Well, this is a go! _I_ say!" he resumed, with quite a burst of
excitement, his eyes beaming, his face glowing, "who'll be at the loss
of the money? Old Dick Yorke?"
"Ah, that is a nice question," said Bede Greatorex.
"I beg your pardon, sir," interposed Mr. Brown, who had been very
thoughtful. "Don't you think you must be mistaken in supposing you put
the cheque in the desk? I could understand it all so easily if----"
"I know I put it in my desk, and left it there locked up," said Mr.
Bede Greatorex, stopping the words. "What were you about to say?"
"If you had carried the cheque out inadvertently, and dropped it in
the street," concluded Mr. Brown, "it would have been quite easy to
understand then. Some unprincipled man might have picked it up, and
made off at once to the bank with it, hazarding the risk."
"But I did nothing of the sort," said Bede: and Mr. Brown shook his
head, as if he were hard of conviction.
"Of course there's not much difference in the degree of guilt, but
many a man who would not for the world touch a locked desk might
appropriate a picked-up cheque, sir."
"I tell you, the cheque was taken from my desk," reiterated Mr. Bede
Greatorex, slightly irritated at the persistency.
"Well, sir, then all I can say is, that it is an exceedingly
disagreeable thing for every one of us," said the head-clerk.
"I do not wish to imply that it is," said Bede Greatorex. "Mr. Yorke,
allow me to suggest that sitting on that stool will not do your work."
"I hope old Dick will be the one to lose it!" cried Roland, with
fervour, as he quitted the stool for his place by Mr. Hurst.
"Forty-four pounds! it's stunning. He's the meanest old chap alive,
Mr. Greatorex. I'd almost have taken it myself from him."
"Did you take it?" questioned Hurst in a whisper. "What's that?"
retorted Roland.
He faced Hurst as he spoke, waiting for a reply. All in a moment the
proud countenance and bearing changed. The face fell, the clear eyes
looked away, the brow became suffused with crimson. Hurst saw the
signs, and felt sorry for what he had said; had said in
thoughtlessness rather than in any real meaning. For he knew that it
had recalled to Roland Yorke a terrible escapade of his earlier life.