which wasn’t a judicious one. When I suggested that she should speak
frankly to her husband, I meant her to do it in a reasonably amicable
mood. Instead of that, she appears to have flown at his throat, so to
speak, with all the bitterness at her tongue’s disposal. The natural
result was a row. The man slanged back, the woman threatened divorce,
and the man threatened to leave the country altogether. And so
yesterday Mrs. Geldard was here again to get me to follow and watch
him. I had to decline once more, and got something rather like a
slanging myself for my pains. She seemed to think I was in league
with her husband in some way. In the end I promised--more to get rid
of her than anything else--to take the case in hand if ever there
were anything really tangible to go upon; if her husband really did
desert her, you know, or anything like that. If, in fact, there were
anything more for me to consider than these spiteful suspicions.”
“I suppose,” I said, “she had nothing more to tell you than she had
before?”
“Very little. She seems to have startled Geldard, however, by a
chance shot. It seems that she once employed a maid, whom she
subsequently dismissed, because, as she tells me, the young woman was
a great deal too good-looking, and because she observed, or fancied
she observed, signs of some secret understanding between her maid and
her husband. Moreover, it was her husband who discovered this maid
and introduced her into the house, and furthermore, he did all he
could to induce Mrs. Geldard not to dismiss her. He even hinted that
her dismissal might cause serious trouble, and Mrs. Geldard says it
is chiefly since this maid has left the house that his movements have
become so mysterious. Well it seems that in the heat of yesterday’s
quarrel Mrs. Geldard, quite at random, asked tauntingly how many
letters Geldard had received from Emma Trennatt lately--Emma Trennatt
was the girl’s name. This chance shot seemed to hit the target.
Geldard (so his wife tells me, at any rate) winced visibly, paled a
little, and dodged the question. But for the rest of the quarrel he
appeared much less at ease, and made more than one attempt to find
out how much his wife really knew of the correspondence she had
spoken of. But as her reference to it was of course the wildest
possible fluke, he got little guidance, while his better-half waxed
savage in her triumph, and they parted on wild-cat terms. She came
straight here, and evidently thought that after Geldard’s reception
of her allusion to correspondence with Emma Trennatt--which she
seemed to regard as final and conclusive confirmation of all her
jealousies--I should take the case in hand at once. When she found me
still disinclined, she gave me a trifling sample of her rhetoric, as
no doubt commonly supplied to Mr. Geldard. She said in effect that
she had only come to me because she meant having the best assistance
possible, but that she didn’t think much of me after all, and one man
was as bad as another, and so on. I think she was a trifle angrier
because I remained calm and civil. And she went away this time
without the least reference to a consultation fee one way or another.”
[Illustration: “SIGNS OF SOME SECRET UNDERSTANDING.”]
I laughed. “Probably,” I said, “she went off to some agent who’ll
watch as long as she likes to pay.”
“Quite possibly.” But we were quite wrong. Hewitt took his hat, and
we made for the staircase. As we opened the landing-door there were
hurried feet on the stairs below, and as it shut behind Mrs.
Geldard’s bonnet-load of pink flowers hove up before us. She was in a
state of fierce alarm and excitement that had oddly enough something
of triumph in it, as of the woman who says, “I told you so.” Hewitt
gave a tragic groan under his breath.
“Here’s a nice state of things I’m in for now, Mr. Hewitt,” she
began abruptly, “through your refusing to do anything for me while
there was time though I was ready to pay you well as I told your
young man but no, you wouldn’t listen to anything, and seemed to
think you knew my business better than I could tell you and now
you’ve caused this state of affairs by delay perhaps you’ll take the
case in hand now?”
“But you haven’t told me what has happened--” Hewitt began, whereat
the lady instantly rejoined, with a shrill pretence of a laugh,
“Happened? Why, what do you suppose has happened after what I have
told you over and over again? My precious husband’s gone clean away,
that’s all. He’s deserted me and gone nobody knows where. That’s
what’s happened. You said that if he did anything of that sort you’d
take the case up; so now I’ve come to see if you’ll keep your
promise. Not that it’s likely to be of much use _now.”_
We turned back into Hewitt’s private office, and Mrs. Geldard told
her story. Disentangled from irrelevances, repetitions, opinions and
incidental observations, it was this. After the quarrel Geldard had
gone to business as usual, and had not been seen nor heard of since.
After her yesterday’s interview with Hewitt, Mrs. Geldard had called
at her husband’s office and found it shut as before. She went home
again, and waited, but he never returned home that evening, nor all
night. In the morning she had gone to the office once more, and
finding it still shut, had told the caretaker that her husband was
missing, and insisted on his bringing his own key and opening it for
her inspection. Nobody was there, and Mrs. Geldard was astonished to
find folded and laid on a cupboard shelf the entire suit of clothes
that her husband had worn when he left home on the morning of the
previous day. She also found in the waste-paper basket the fragments
of two or three envelopes addressed to her husband, which she brought
for Hewitt’s inspection. They were in the handwriting of the girl
Trennatt, and with them Mrs. Geldard had discovered a small fragment
of one of the letters, a mere scrap, but sufficient to show part of
the signature “Emma,” and two or three of a row of crosses running
beneath, such as are employed to represent kisses. These things she
had brought with her.
Hewitt examined them slightly, and then asked, “Can I have a
photograph of your husband, Mrs. Geldard?”
She immediately produced, not only a photograph of her husband, but
also one of the girl Trennatt, which she said belonged to the cook.
Hewitt complimented her on her foresight. “And now,” he said, “I
think we’ll go and take a look at Mr. Geldard’s office, if we may. Of
course I shall follow him up now.” Hewitt made a sign to me, which I
interpreted as asking whether I would care to accompany him. I
assented with a nod, for the case seemed likely to be interesting.
I omit most of Mrs. Geldard’s talk by the way, which was almost
ceaseless, mostly compounded of useless repetition, and very tiresome.
The office was on a third floor in a large building in Finsbury
Pavement. The caretaker made no difficulty in admitting us. There
were two rooms, neither very large, and one of them at the back very
small indeed. In this was a small locked door.
“That leads on to the small staircase, sir,” the caretaker said in
response to Hewitt’s inquiry. “The staircase leads down to the
basement, and it ain’t used much ’cept by the cleaners.”
“If I went down this back staircase,” Hewitt pursued, “I suppose I
should have no difficulty in gaining the street?”
“Not a bit, sir. You’d have to go a little way round to get into
Finsbury Pavement, but there’s a passage leads straight from the
bottom of the stairs out to Moorfields behind.”
“Yes,” remarked Mrs. Geldard bitterly, when the caretaker had left
the room, “that’s the way he’s been leaving the office every day, and
in disguise, too.” She pointed to the cupboard where her husband’s
clothes lay. “Pretty plain proof that he was ashamed of his doings,
whatever they were.”
“Come, come,” Hewitt answered deprecatingly, “we’ll hope there’s
nothing to be ashamed of--at any rate till there’s proof of it.
There’s no proof as yet that your husband has been disguising. A
great many men who rent offices, I believe, keep dress clothes at
them--I do it myself--for convenience in case of an unexpected
invitation, or such other eventuality. We may find that he returned
here last night, put on his evening dress, and went somewhere dining.
Illness, or fifty accidents, may have kept him from home.”
But Mrs. Geldard was not to be softened by any such suggestion,
which I could see Hewitt had chiefly thrown out by way of pacifying
the lady, and allaying her bitterness as far as he could, in view of
a possible reconciliation when things were cleared up.
“_That_ isn’t very likely,” she said. “If he kept a dress suit here
openly, I should know of it; and if he kept it here unknown to me,
what did he want it for? If he went out in dress clothes last night,
who did he go with? Who do you suppose, after seeing those envelopes
and that piece of the letter?”
“Well, well, we shall see,” Hewitt replied. “May I turn out the
pockets of these clothes?”
“Certainly; there’s nothing in them of importance,” Mrs. Geldard
said. “I looked before I came to you.”
Nevertheless Hewitt turned them out. “Here is a cheque-book with a
number of cheques remaining. No counterfoils filled in, which is
awkward. Bankers, the London Amalgamated. We will call there
presently. An ivory pocket paper-knife. A sovereign purse--empty.”
Hewitt placed the articles on the table as he named them. “Gold
pencil case, ivory folding rule, russia-leather card-case.” He turned
to Mrs. Geldard. “There is no pocket-book,” he said, “no pocket-knife
and no watch, and there are no keys. Did Mr. Geldard usually carry
any of these things?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Geldard replied, “he carried all four.” Hewitt’s simple,
methodical calmness, and his plain disregard of her former
volubility, appeared by this to have disciplined Mrs. Geldard into a
businesslike brevity and directness of utterance.
“As to the watch now. Can you describe it?”
“Oh, it was only a cheap one. He had a gold one stolen--or at any
rate he told me so--and since then he has only carried a very common
sort of silver one, without a chain.”
“The keys?”
“I only know there _was_ a bunch of keys. Some of them fitted
drawers and bureaux at home, and others, I suppose, fitted locks in
this office.”
“What of the pocket-knife?”
“That was a very uncommon one. It was a present, as a matter of
fact, from an engineering friend, who had had it made specially. It
was large, with a tortoise-shell handle and a silver plate with his
initials. There was only one ordinary knife-blade in it; all the
other implements were small tools or things of that kind. There was a
small pair of silver calipers, for instance.”
“Like these?” Hewitt suggested, producing those he used for
measuring drawers and cabinets in search of secret receptacles.
“Yes, like those. And there were folding steel compasses, a tiny
flat spanner, a little spirit level, and a number of other small
instruments of that sort. It was very well made indeed; he used to
say that it could not have been made for five pounds.”
“Indeed?” Hewitt cast his eyes about the two rooms. “I see no signs
of books here, Mrs. Geldard--account-books I mean, of course. Your
husband must have kept account-books, I take it?”
“Yes, naturally, he must have done. I never saw them, of course, but
every business man keeps books.” Then after a pause Mrs. Geldard
continued: “And they’re gone too. I never thought of _that._ But
there, I might have known as much. Who can trust a man safely if his
own wife can’t? But _I_ won’t shield him. Whatever he’s been doing
with his clients’ money he’ll have to answer for himself. Thank
Heaven I’ve enough to live on of my own without being dependent on a
creature like him! But think of the disgrace! My husband nothing
better than a common thief--swindling his clients and making away
with his books when he can’t go on any longer! But he shall be
punished, oh yes; _I’ll_ see he’s punished, if once I find him!”
Hewitt thought for a moment, and then asked, “Do you know any of
your husband’s clients, Mrs. Geldard?”
“No,” she answered, rather snappishly, “I don’t. I’ve told you he
never let me know anything of his business--never anything at all;
and very good reason he had too, that’s certain.”
“Then probably you do not happen to know the contents of these
drawers?” Hewitt pursued, tapping the writing-table as he spoke.
“Oh, there’s nothing of importance in them--at any rate in the
unlocked ones. I looked at all of them this morning when I first
came.”
The table was of the ordinary pedestal pattern with four drawers at
each side and a ninth in the middle at the top, and of very ordinary
quality. The only locked drawer was the third from the top on the
left-hand side. Hewitt pulled out one drawer after another. In one
was a tin half full of tobacco; in another a few cigars at the bottom
of a box; in a third a pile of notepaper headed with the address of
the office, and rather dusty; another was empty; still another
contained a handful of string. The top middle drawer rather reminded
me of a similar drawer of my own at my last newspaper office, for it
contained several pipes; but my own were mostly briars, whereas these
were all clays.
“There’s nothing really so satisfactory,” Hewitt said, as he lifted
and examined each pipe by turn, “to a seasoned smoker as a well-used
clay. Most such men keep one or more of them for strictly private
use.” There was nothing noticeable about these pipes except that they
were uncommonly dirty, but Hewitt scrutinised each before returning
it to the drawer. Then he turned to Mrs. Geldard and said: “As to the
bank now--the London Amalgamated, Mrs. Geldard. Are you known there
personally?”
“Oh, yes; my husband gave them authority to pay cheques signed by me
up to a certain amount, and I often do it for household expenses, or
when he happens to be away.”
“Then perhaps it will be best for you to go alone,” Hewitt
responded. “Of course they will never, as a general thing, give any
person information as to the account of a customer; but perhaps, as
you are known to them, and hold your husband’s authority to draw
cheques, they may tell you something. What I want to find out is, of
course, whether your husband drew from the bank all his remaining
balance yesterday, or any large sum. You must go alone, ask for the
manager, and tell him that you have seen nothing of Mr. Geldard since
he left for business yesterday morning. Mind, you are not to appear
angry, or suspicious, or anything of that sort, and you mustn’t say
you are employing me to bring him back from an elopement. That will
shut up the channel of information at once. Hostile inquiries they’ll
never answer, even by the smallest hint, except after legal
injunction. You can be as distressed and as alarmed as you please.
Your husband has disappeared since yesterday morning, and you’ve no
notion what has become of him; that is your tale, and a perfectly
true one. You would like to know whether or not he has withdrawn his
balance, or a considerable sum, since that would indicate whether or
not his absence was intentional and premeditated.”
Mrs. Geldard understood and undertook to make the inquiry with all
discretion. The bank was not far, and it was arranged that she should
return to the office with the result.
As soon as she had left, Hewitt turned to the pedestal table and
probed the keyhole of the locked drawer with the small stiletto
attached to his penknife. “This seems to be a common sort of lock,”
he said. “I could probably open it with a bent nail. But the whole
table is a cheap sort of thing. Perhaps there is an easier way.”
He drew the unlocked drawer above completely out, passed his hand
into the opening and felt about. “Yes,” he said, “it’s just as I
hoped--as it usually is in pedestal tables not of the best quality;
the partition between the drawers doesn’t go more than two-thirds of
the way back, and I can drop my hand into the drawer below. But I
can’t feel anything there--it seems empty.”
He withdrew his hand and we tilted the whole table backward, so as
to cause whatever lay in the drawers to slide to the back. This dodge
was successful. Hewitt reinserted his hand and withdrew it with two
orderly heaps of papers, each held together by a metal clip.
The papers in each clip, on examination, proved to be all of an
identical character, with the exception of dates. They were, in fact,
rent receipts. Those for the office, which had been given quarterly,
were put back in their place with scarcely a glance, and the others
Hewitt placed on the table before him. Each ran, apart from dates, in
this fashion: “Received from Mr. J. Cookson 15_s_., one month’s rent
of stable at 3, Dragon Yard, Benton Street, to”--here followed the
date. “Also rent, feed and care of horse in own stable as agreed,
£2.--W. Gask.” The receipts were ill-written, and here and there
ill-spelt. Hewitt put the last of the receipts in his pocket, and
returned the others to the drawer. “Either,” he said, “Mr. Cookson is
a client who gets Mr. Geldard to hire stables for him, which may not
be likely, or Mr. Geldard calls himself Mr. Cookson when he goes
driving--possibly with Miss Trennatt. We shall see.”
The pedestal table put in order again, Hewitt took the poker and
raked in the fireplace. It was summer, and behind the bars was a sort
of screen of cartridge paper with a frilled edge, and behind this
various odds and ends had been thrown--spent matches, trade circulars
crumpled up, and torn paper. There were also the remains of several
cigars, some only half smoked, and one almost whole. The torn paper
Hewitt examined piece by piece, and finally sorted out a number of
pieces, which he set to work to arrange on the blotting pad. They
formed a complete note, written in the same hand as were the
envelopes already found by Mrs. Geldard--that of the girl Emma
Trennatt. It corresponded also with the solitary fragment of another
letter which had accompanied them, by way of having a number of
crosses below the signature, and it ran thus:--
_Tuesday Night._
_Dear Sam,--To-morrow, to carry. Not late because people are coming
for flowers. What you did was no good. The smoke leaks worse than
ever, and F. thinks you must light a new pipe or else stop smoking
altogether for a bit. Uncle is anxious._
_Emma._
Then followed the crosses, filling one line and nearly half the
next--seventeen in all.
Hewitt gazed at the fragments thoughtfully. “This is a find,” he
said--“most decidedly a find. It looks so much like nonsense that it
must mean something of importance. The date, you see, is Tuesday
night. It would be received here on Wednesday--yesterday--morning. So
that it was immediately after the receipt of this note that Geldard
left. It’s pretty plain the crosses don’t mean kisses. The note isn’t
quite of the sort that usually carries such symbols, and moreover,
when a lady fills the end of a sheet of notepaper with kisses she
doesn’t stop less than half way across the last line--she fills it to
the end. These crosses mean something very different. I should like,
too, to know what ‘smoke’ means. Anyway this letter would probably
astonish Mrs. Geldard if she saw it. We’ll say nothing about it for
the present.” He swept the fragments into an envelope, and put away
the envelope in his breast pocket. There was nothing more to be found
of the least value in the fireplace, and a careful examination of the
office in other parts revealed nothing that I had not noticed before,
so far as I could see, except Geldard’s boots standing on the floor
of the cupboard wherein his clothes lay. The whole place was
singularly bare of what one commonly finds in an office in the way of
papers, hand-books, and general business material.
Mrs. Geldard was not long away. At the bank she found that the
manager was absent, and his deputy had been very reluctant to say
anything definite without his sanction. He gave Mrs. Geldard to
understand, however, that there was a balance still remaining to her
husband’s credit; also that Mr. Geldard had drawn a cheque the
previous morning, Wednesday, for an amount “rather larger than
usual.” And that was all.
“By the way, Mrs. Geldard,” Hewitt observed, with an air of
recollecting something, “there _was_ a Mr. Cookson I believe, if I
remember, who knew a Mr. Geldard. You don’t happen to know, do you,
whether or not Mr. Geldard had a client or an acquaintance of that
name?”
“No, I know nobody of the name.”
“Ah, it doesn’t matter. I suppose it isn’t necessary for your
husband to keep horses or vehicles of any description in his
business?”
“No, certainly not.” Mrs. Geldard looked surprised at the question.
“Of course--I should have known that. He does not drive to business,
I suppose?”
“No; he goes by omnibus.”
“But as to Emma Trennatt now. This photograph is most welcome, and
will be of great assistance, I make no doubt. But is there anything
individual by which I might identify her if I saw her--anything
beyond what I see in the photograph? A peculiarity of step, for
instance, or a scar, or what not.”
“Yes, there is a large mole--more than a quarter of an inch across,
I should think--on her left cheek, an inch below the outer corner of
her eye. The photograph only shows the other side of the face.”
“That will be useful to know. Now has she a relative living at
Crouch End, or thereabout?”
“Yes, her uncle; she’s living with him now--or she was at any rate
till lately. But how did you know that?”
“The Crouch End postmark was on those envelopes you found. Do you
know anything of her uncle?”
“Nothing, except that he’s a nurseryman, I believe.”
“Not his full address?”
“No.”
“And Trennatt is his name?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. I think, Mrs. Geldard,” Hewitt said, taking his hat,
“that I will set out after your husband at once. You, I think, can do
no better than stay at home till I have news for you. I have your
address. If anything comes to your knowledge, please telegraph it to
my office at once.”
The office door was locked, the keys were left with the caretaker,
and we saw Mrs. Geldard into a cab at the door. “Come,” said Hewitt,
“we’ll go somewhere and look at a directory, and after that to Dragon
Yard. I think I know a man in Moorgate Street who’ll let me see his
directory.”
We started to walk down Finsbury Pavement. Suddenly Hewitt caught my
arm and directed my eyes toward a woman who had passed hurriedly in
the opposite direction. I had not seen her face, but Hewitt had. “If
that isn’t Miss Emma Trennatt,” he said, “it’s uncommonly like the
notion I’ve formed of her. We’ll see if she goes to Geldard’s office.”
We hurried after the woman, who, sure enough, turned into the large
door of the building we had just left. As it was impossible that she
should know us, we followed her boldly up the stairs, and saw her
stop before the door of Geldard’s office, and knock. We passed her as
she stood there--a handsome young woman enough--and well back on her
left cheek, in the place Mrs. Geldard had indicated, there was plain
to see a very large mole. We pursued our way to the landing above and
there we stopped in a position that commanded a view of Geldard’s
door. The young woman knocked again and waited.
“This doesn’t look like an elopement yesterday morning, does it?”
Hewitt whispered. “Unless Geldard’s left both this one and his wife
in the lurch.”
The young woman below knocked once or twice more, walked
irresolutely across the corridor and back, and in the end, after a
parting knock, started slowly back downstairs.
“Brett,” Hewitt exclaimed with suddenness, “will you do me a favour?
That woman understands Geldard’s secret comings and goings, as is
plain from the letter. But she would appear to know nothing of where
he is now, since she seems to have come here to find him. Perhaps
this last absence of his has nothing to do with the others. In any
case, will you follow this woman? She must be watched; but I want to
see to the matter in other places. Will you do it?”
Of course I assented at once. We had been descending the stairs as
Hewitt spoke, keeping distance behind the girl we were following.
“Thank you,” Hewitt now said. “Do it. If you find anything urgent to
communicate, wire to me in care of the inspector at Crouch End Police
Station. He knows me, and I will call there in case you may have
sent. But if it’s after five this afternoon, wire also to my office.
If you keep with her to Crouch End, where she lives, we shall
probably meet.”
We parted at the door of the office we were at first bound for, and
I followed the girl southward.