Hamish Channing sat in his private room; his now; for, in the absence
of Mr. Channing, Hamish was master. The insurance office was situated in
Guild Street, a principal street, near to the Town Hall. It consisted of
an entrance hall, two rooms, and a closet for hanging up coats, and for
washing hands. The room on the left of the hall, as you entered, was
the principal office; the room on the right, was the private room of Mr.
Channing; now used, I say, by Hamish. The upper part of the house was
occupied as a dwelling; the people renting it having nothing to do
with the office. It was a large, roomy house, and possessed a separate
entrance.
Hamish--gay, good-tempered, careless, though he was--ruled the office
with a firm hand. There was no familiarity of manner there; the clerks
liked him, but they had to defer to him and obey him. He was seated at
his desk, deep in some accounts, on this same morning--the one mentioned
in the last chapter--when one of the clerks entered, and said that
Mr. Arthur Channing was asking to speak to him: for it was Mr. Hamish
Channing’s good pleasure not to be interrupted indiscriminately, unless
a clerk first ascertained whether he was at liberty to be seen. Possibly
Hamish feared treachery might be abroad.
Arthur entered. Hamish pushed his books from him, and stretched himself.
“Well, old fellow! you seem out of breath.”
“I came down at a pace,” rejoined Arthur. “College is just over. I say,
Hamish, a disagreeable thing has happened at Galloway’s. I have never
seen him put out as he is now.”
“Has his hair taken a change again, and come out a lovely rose colour?”
“I _wish_ you would not turn everything into joke,” cried Arthur, who
was really troubled, and the words vexed him. “You saw a letter on
Jenkins’s desk last Friday--the afternoon, you know, that Yorke went
off, and you remained while I went to college? There was a twenty-pound
note in it. Well, the note has, in some mysterious manner, been
abstracted from it.”
Hamish lifted his eyebrows. “What can Galloway expect, if he sends
bank-notes in letters?”
“Yes, but this was taken before it left our office. Galloway says so. He
sealed it with his private seal, and the letter arrived at his cousin’s
intact, the seal unbroken--a pretty sure proof that the note could not
have been in it when it was sealed.”
“Who took it out?” asked Hamish.
“That’s the question. There was not a soul near the place, that I can
find out, except you and I. Yorke was away, Jenkins was away, and Mr.
Galloway was away. He says some one must have come in while you were in
the office.”
“Not so much as a ghost came in,” said Hamish.
“Are you sure, Hamish?”
“Sure! I am sure they did not, unless I dropped asleep. _That_ was
not an unlikely catastrophe to happen; shut up by myself in that dull
office, amidst musty parchments, with nothing to do.”
“Hamish, can you be serious for once? This is a serious matter.”
“Mr. Martin Pope wants you, sir,” said the clerk again, interrupting
at this juncture. Martin Pope’s face came in also, over the clerk’s
shoulder. It was red, and he looked in a hurry.
“Hamish, he has had a letter, and is off by the half-past eleven train,”
spoke Martin Pope, in some excitement. “You must rush up to the station,
if you want a last word with him. You will hardly catch him, running
your best.”
Up jumped Hamish, in excitement as great as his friend’s. He closed and
locked the desk, caught his hat, and was speeding out of the office,
when Arthur, to whom the words had been a puzzle, seized his arm.
“Hamish, _did_ any one come in? It was Mr. Galloway sent me here to
ascertain.”
“No, they did not. Should I not tell you if they had? Take care, Arthur.
I must fly like the wind. Come away, Pope!”
Arthur walked back to Mr. Galloway’s. That gentleman was out. Roland
Yorke was out. But Jenkins, upon whom the unfortunate affair had taken
great hold, lifted his face to Arthur, his eyes asking the question that
his tongue scarcely presumed to do.
“My brother says no one came in while he was here. It is very strange!”
“Mr. Arthur, sir, if I had repined at all at that accident, and felt it
as a misfortune, how this would have reproved me!” spoke Jenkins, in his
simple faith. “Why, sir, it must have come to me as a mercy, a blessing;
to take me away out of this office at the very time.”
“What do you mean, Jenkins?”
“There’s no telling, sir, but Mr. Galloway might have suspected me. It
is the first loss we have had since I have been here, all these years;
and--”
“Nonsense!” interrupted Arthur. “You may as well fear that Mr. Galloway
will suspect me, or Mr. Yorke.”
“No, sir, you and Mr. Yorke are different; you are gentlemen. Mr.
Galloway would no more suspect you, than he would suspect himself. I am
thankful I was absent.”
“Be easy, Jenkins,” smiled Arthur. “Absent or present, every one can
trust you.”
Mr. Galloway did not return until nearly one o’clock. He went straight
to his own room. Arthur followed him.
“I have seen Hamish, sir. He says no person whatever entered on Friday,
while he was here alone.”
Mr. Galloway paused, apparently revolving the news. “Hamish must be
mistaken,” he answered.
“He told me at the time, last Friday, that no one had been in,” resumed
Arthur. “I asked the question when I returned from college, thinking
people might have called on business. He said they had not done so; and
he says the same now.”
“But look you here, Arthur,” debated Mr. Galloway, in a tone of
reasoning. “I suspect neither you nor Yorke; indeed, as it seems, Yorke
put himself out of suspicion’s way, by walking off; but if no one came
to the office, and yet the note _went_, remember the position in which
you place yourself. I say I don’t blame you, I don’t suspect you; but
I do say that the mystery must be cleared up. Are you certain no person
came into the office during your presence in it?”
“I am quite certain of that, sir. I have told you so.”
“And is Hamish equally certain--that no one entered while he was here
alone?”
“He says so.” But Arthur’s words bore a sound of hesitation, which Mr.
Galloway may or may not have observed. He would have spoken far more
positively had Hamish not joked about it.
“‘Says’ will not do for me,” retorted Mr. Galloway. “I should like to
see Hamish. You have nothing particular to finish before one o’clock;
suppose you run up to Guild Street, and request him to come round this
way, as he goes home to dinner? It will not take him two minutes out of
his road.”
Arthur departed; choosing the nearest way to Guild Street. It led him
through the street Hamish had been careful to avoid on account of a
troublesome creditor. Arthur had no such fear. One o’clock struck as
he turned into it. About midway down it, what was his astonishment
at encountering Hamish! Not hurrying along, dreading to be seen, but
flourishing leisurely at his ease, nodding to every one he knew, his
sweet smile in full play, and his cane whirling circlets in the air.
“Hamish! I thought this was forbidden ground!”
“So it was, until a day or two ago,” laughed Hamish; “but I have managed
to charm the enemy.”
He spoke in his usual light, careless, half-mocking style, and passed
his arm within Arthur’s. At that moment a shopkeeper came to his door,
and respectfully touched his hat to Hamish. Hamish nodded in return, and
laughed again as he walked on with Arthur.
“That was the fiercest enemy in all this street of Philistines, Arthur.
See how civil he is now.”
“How did you ‘charm’ him?”
“Oh, by a process known to myself. Did you come down on purpose to
escort me home to dinner? Very polite of you!”
“I came to ask you to go round by Mr. Galloway’s office, and to call in
and see him. He will not take your word at second hand.”
“Take my word about what?” asked Hamish.
“That the office had no visitors while you were in it the other day.
That money matter grows more mysterious every hour.”
“Then I have not time to go round,” exclaimed Hamish, in--for him--quite
an impatient accent. “I don’t know anything about the money or the
letter. Why should I be bothered?”
“Hamish, you _must_ go,” said Arthur, impressively. “Do you know
that--so far as can be ascertained--no human being was in the office
alone with the letter, except you and I. Were we to shun inquiry,
suspicion might fall upon us.”
Hamish drew himself up haughtily, somewhat after the fashion of Roland
Yorke. “What absurdity, Arthur! steal a twenty-pound note!” But when
they came to the turning where two roads met, one of which led to Close
Street, Hamish had apparently reconsidered his determination.
“I suppose I must go, or the old fellow will be offended. You can tell
them at home that I shall be in directly; don’t let them wait dinner.”
He walked away quickly. Arthur pursued the path which would take him
round the cathedral to the Boundaries. He bent his head in thought. He
was lost in perplexity; in spite of what Mr. Galloway urged, with regard
to the seal, he could not believe but that the money had gone safely to
the post-office, and was stolen afterwards. Thus busied within himself,
he had reached the elm-trees, when he ran up against Hopper, the
bailiff. Arthur looked up, and the man’s features relaxed into a smile.
“We shut the door when the steed’s stolen, Mr. Arthur,” was his
salutation. “Now that my pockets are emptied of what would have done no
good to your brother, I come here to meet him at the right time. Just to
show folks--should any be about--that I did know my way here; although
it unfortunately fell out that I always missed him.”
He nodded and winked. Arthur, completely at sea as to his meaning, made
some trifling remark in answer.
“He did well to come to terms with them,” continued Hopper, dropping his
voice. “Though it was only a five pound, as I hear, and a promise for
the rest, you see they took it. Ten times over, they said to me, ‘We
don’t want to proceed to extremities with Hamish Channing.’ I was as
glad as could be when they withdrew the writ. I do hope he will go on
smooth and straight now that he has begun paying up a bit. Tell him old
Hopper says it, Mr. Arthur.”
Hopper glided on, leaving Arthur glued to the spot. Begun to pay up!
Paid five pounds off one debt! Paid (there could be no doubt of it)
partially, or wholly, the “enemy” in the proscribed street! What did
it mean? Every drop of blood in Arthur Channing’s body stood still, and
then coursed on fiercely. Had he seen the cathedral tower toppling down
upon his head, he had feared it less than the awful dread which was
dawning upon him.
He went home to dinner. Hamish went home. Hamish was more gay and
talkative than usual--Arthur was silent as the grave. What was the
matter, some one asked him. His head ached, was the answer; and, indeed,
it was no false plea. Hamish did not say a syllable about the loss at
table; neither did Arthur. Arthur was silenced now.
It is useless to attempt to disguise the fear that had fallen upon him.
You, my reader, will probably have glanced at it as suspiciously as did
Arthur Channing. Until this loophole had appeared, the facts had been to
Arthur’s mind utterly mysterious; they now shone out all too clearly, in
glaring colours. He knew that he himself had not touched the money, and
no one else had been left with it, except Hamish. Debt! what had the
paltry fear of debt and its consequences been compared with this?
Mr. Galloway talked much of the mystery that afternoon; Yorke talked
of it; Jenkins talked of it. Arthur barely answered; never, except when
obliged to do so; and his manner, confused at times, for he could not
help its being so, excited the attention of Mr. Galloway. “One would
think you had helped yourself to the money, Channing!” he crossly
exclaimed to him once, when they were alone in the private room.
“No, sir, I did not,” Arthur answered, in a low tone; but his face
flushed scarlet, and then grew deadly pale. If a Channing, his brother,
had done it--why, he felt himself almost equally guilty; and it dyed his
brow with shame. Mr. Galloway noticed the signs, and attributed them to
the pain caused by his question.
“Don’t be foolish, Arthur. I feel sure of you and Yorke. Though, with
Yorke’s carelessness and his spendthrift habits, I do not know that
I should have been so sure of him, had he been left alone with the
temptation.”
“Sir!” exclaimed Arthur, in a tone of pain, “Yorke did not touch it. I
would answer for his innocence with my life.”
“Don’t I say I do not suspect him, or you either?” testily returned
Mr. Galloway. “It is the mystery of the affair that worries me. If no
elucidation turns up between now and to-morrow morning, I shall place it
in the hands of the police.”
The announcement scared away Arthur’s caution; almost scared away his
senses. “Oh! pray, pray, Mr. Galloway, do not let the police become
cognizant of it!” he uttered, in an accent of wild alarm. And Mr.
Galloway stared at him in very amazement; and Jenkins, who had come in
to ask a question, stared too.
“It might not produce any good result, and would cause us no end of
trouble,” Arthur added, striving to assign some plausible explanation to
his words.
“That is my affair,” said Mr. Galloway.
When Arthur reached home, the news had penetrated there also. Mrs.
Channing’s tea-table was absorbed with it. Tom and Charles gave the
school version of it, and the Rev. Mr. Yorke, who was taking tea with
them, gave his. Both accounts were increased by sundry embellishments,
which had never taken place in reality.
“Not a soul was ever near the letter,” exclaimed Tom, “except Arthur and
Jenkins, and Roland Yorke.”
“The post-office must be to blame for this,” observed Mr. Channing.
“But you are wrong, Tom, with regard to Jenkins. He could not have been
there.”
“Mark Galloway says his uncle had a telegraphic despatch, to say the
post-office knew nothing about it,” exclaimed Charles.
“Much you know about it, Miss Charley!” quoth Tom. “The despatch was
about the seal: it was not from the post-office at all. They have not
accused the post-office yet.”
Arthur let them talk on; headache the excuse for his own silence. It
did ache, in no measured degree. When appealed to, “Was it this way,
Arthur?” “Was it the other?” he was obliged to speak, so that an
accurate version of the affair was arrived at before tea was over.
Constance alone saw that something unusual was the matter with him. She
attributed it to fears at the absence of Hamish, who had been expected
home to tea, and did not come in. Constance’s own fears at this absence
grew to a terrific height. Had he been _arrested_?
She beckoned Arthur from the room, for she could no longer control
herself. Her lips were white, as she drew him into the study, and spoke.
“Arthur, what has become of Hamish? Has anything happened to him?”
“Happened to him!” repeated Arthur, vaguely, too absorbed in his own sad
thoughts to reply at once.
“Has--he--been--_taken_?”
“Taken! Hamish? Oh, you mean for debt!” he continued, his heart beating,
and fully aroused now. “There is no further fear, I believe. He has
managed to arrange with the people.”
“How has he contrived it?” exclaimed Constance, in wonder.
Arthur turned his face away. “Hamish does not make me his confidant.”
Constance stole her hand into his. “Arthur, what is the matter with you
this evening? Is it that unpleasant affair at Mr. Galloway’s?”
He turned from her. He laid his face upon the table and groaned in
anguish. “Be still, Constance! You can do no good.”
“But _what_ is it?” uttered Constance in alarm. “You surely do not fear
that suspicion should be cast on you, or on Hamish--although, as it
appears, you and he were alone in the office with the letter?”
“Be still, I say, Constance,” he wailed. “There is nothing for it but
to--to--to bear. You will do well to ask no more about it.”
A faint dread began to dawn upon her. “You and Hamish were alone with
the letter!” the echo of the words came thumping against her brain. But
she beat it off. Suspect a Channing! “Arthur, I need not ask if you are
innocent; it would be a gratuitous insult to you.”
“No,” he quietly said, “you need not ask that.”
“And--Hamish?” she would have continued, but the words would not come.
She changed them for others.
“How do you know that he has paid any of his debts, Arthur?”
“I heard it. I--”
At that moment they heard something else--Hamish’s voice in the hall.
In the impulse of the moment, in the glad revulsion of feeling--for, if
Hamish were safe in the hall, he could not be in prison--Constance flew
to him, and clasped her hands round his neck. “Oh, Hamish, Hamish! thank
Heaven that you are here!”
Hamish was surprised. He went with Constance into the study, where
Arthur had remained. “What do you mean, Constance? What is the matter?”
“I am always fearful,” she whispered; “always fearful; I know you owe
money, and that they might put you in prison. Hamish, I think of it by
night and by day.”
“My pretty sister!” cried Hamish, caressingly, as he smoothed her hair,
just as Constance sometimes smoothed Annabel’s: “that danger has passed
for the present.”
“If you were arrested, papa might lose his post,” she murmured.
“I know it; it is that which has worried me. I have been doing what I
could to avert it. Constance, these things are not for you. Who told you
anything about them?”
“Never mind. I--”
“What will you give me for something I have found?” exclaimed Annabel,
bursting in upon them, her hands behind her, and her eyes dancing. “It
is one of your treasures, Hamish.”
“Then give it me, Annabel. Come! I am tired; I cannot play with you this
evening.”
“I won’t give it you until you guess what it is.”
Hamish was evidently in no mood for play. Annabel danced round and about
him, provokingly eluding his grasp. He caught her suddenly, and laid his
hands upon hers. With a shriek of laughing defiance, she flung something
on the floor, and four or five sovereigns rolled about.
It was Hamish’s purse. She had found it on the hall table, by the side
of his hat and gloves, left there most probably inadvertently. Hamish
stooped to pick up the money.
“See how rich he is!” danced Annabel; “after telling us he was as poor
as a church mouse! Where has it all come from?”
Never had they seen Hamish more annoyed. When he had secured the money,
he gave a pretty sharp tap to Annabel, and ordered her, in a ringing
tone of command, not to meddle with his things again. He quitted the
room, and Annabel ran after him, laughing and defiant still.
“_Where has it all come from_?” The words, spoken in innocence by the
child, rang as a knell on the ears of Constance and Arthur Channing.
Constance’s very heart turned sick--sick as Arthur’s had been since the
meeting with Hopper under the elm-trees.