THEORIES OF THE THEFT
I
The inspiring and agreeable image of Rachel floated above vast
contending forces of ideas in the mind of Louis Fores as he bent
over his petty-cash book amid the dust of the vile inner office at
Horrocleave's; and their altercation was sharpened by the fact that
Louis had not had enough sleep. He had had a great deal more sleep
than Rachel, but he had not had what he was in the habit of calling
his "whack" of it. Although never in a hurry to go to bed, he
appreciated as well as any doctor the importance of sleep in the
economy of the human frame, and his weekly average of repose was high;
he was an expert sleeper.
He thirsted after righteousness, and the petty-cash book was permeated
through and through with unrighteousness; and it was his handiwork. Of
course, under the unconscious influence of Rachel, seen in her kitchen
and seen also in various other striking aspects during the exciting
night, he might have bravely exposed the iniquity of the petty-cash
book to Jim Horrocleave, and cleared his conscience, and then gone and
confessed to Rachel, and thus prepared the way for the inner peace and
a new life. He would have suffered--there was indeed a possibility of
very severe suffering--but he would have been a free man--yes, free
even if in prison, and he would have followed the fine tradition of
rectitude, exhorting the respect and admiration of all true souls,
etc. He had read authentic records of similar deeds. What stopped him
from carrying out the programme of honesty was his powerful worldly
common sense. Despite what he had read, and despite the inspiring
image of Rachel, his common sense soon convinced him that confession
would be an error of judgment and quite unremunerative for, at any
rate, very many years. Hence he abandoned regretfully the notion of
confession, as a beautifully impossible dream. But righteousness was
not thereby entirely denied to him; his thirst for it could still be
assuaged by the device of an oath to repay secretly to Horrocleave
every penny that he had stolen from Horrocleave, which oath he
took--and felt better and worthier of Rachel.
He might, perhaps, have inclined more effectually towards confession
had not the petty-cash book appeared to him in the morning light as an
admirably convincing piece of work. It had the most innocent air,
and was markedly superior to his recollection of it. On many pages he
himself could scarcely detect his own traces. He began to feel that he
could rely pretty strongly on the cleverness of the petty-cash book.
Only four blank pages remained in it. A few days more and it would be
filled up, finished, labelled with a gummed white label showing
its number and the dates of its first and last entries, shelved and
forgotten. A pity that Horrocleave's suspicions had not been delayed
for another month or so, for then the book might have been mislaid,
lost, or even consumed in a conflagration! But never mind! A certain
amount of ill luck fell to every man, and he would trust to his
excellent handicraft in the petty-cash book. It was his only hope in
the world, now that the mysterious and heavenly bank-notes were gone.
His attitude towards the bank-notes was, quite naturally, illogical
and self-contradictory. While the bank-notes were in his pocket he had
in the end seen three things with clearness. First, the wickedness of
appropriating them. Second, the danger of appropriating them--having
regard to the prevalent habit of keeping the numbers of bank-notes.
Third, the wild madness of attempting to utilize them in order to
replace the stolen petty cash, for by no ingenuity could the presence
of a hoard of over seventy pounds in the petty-cash box have been
explained. He had perfectly grasped all that; and yet, the notes
having vanished, he felt forlorn, alone, as one who has lost his best
friend--a prop and firm succour in a universe of quicksands.
In the matter of the burning of the notes his conscience did not
accuse him. On the contrary, he emerged blameless from the episode. It
was not he who first had so carelessly left the notes lying about. He
had not searched for them, he had not purloined them. They had been
positively thrust upon him. His intention in assuming charge of them
for a brief space was to teach some negligent person a lesson. During
the evening Fate had given him no opportunity to produce them. And
when in the night, with honesty unimpeachable, he had decided to
restore them to the landing, Fate had intervened once more. At
each step of the affair he had acted for the best in difficult
circumstances. Persons so ill-advised as to drop bank-notes under
chairs must accept all the consequences of their act. Who could have
foreseen that while he was engaged on the philanthropic errand of
fetching a doctor for an aged lady Rachel would light a fire under
the notes?... No, not merely was he without sin in the matter of the
bank-notes, he was rather an ill-used person, a martyr deserving of
sympathy. And, further, he did not regret the notes; he was glad they
were gone. They could no longer tempt him now, and their disappearance
would remain a mystery for ever. So far as they were concerned, he
could look his aunt or anybody else in the face without a tremor. The
mere destruction of the immense, undetermined sum of money did not
seriously ruffle him. As an ex-bank clerk he was aware that though an
individual would lose, the State, through the Bank of England,
would correspondingly gain, and thus for the nonce he had the large
sensation of a patriot.
II
Axon, the factotum of the counting-house, came in from the outer
office, with a mien composed of mirth and apprehension in about equal
parts. If Axon happened to be a subject of a conversation and there
was any uncertainty as to which Axon out of a thousand Axons he
might be, the introducer of the subject would always say, "You
know--sandy-haired fellow." This described him--hair, beard,
moustache. Sandy-haired men have no age until they are fifty-five, and
Axon was not fifty-five. He was a pigeon-flyer by choice, and a clerk
in order that he might be a pigeon-flyer. His fault was that, with
no moral right whatever to do so, he would treat Louis Fores as a
business equal in the office and as a social equal in the street.
He sprang upon Louis now as one grinning valet might spring upon
another, enormous with news, and whispered--
"I say, guv'nor's put his foot through them steps from painting-shop
and sprained his ankle. Look out for ructions, eh? Thank the Lord it's
a half-day!" and then whipped back to his own room.
On any ordinary Saturday morning Louis by a fine frigidity would
have tried to show to the obtuse Axon that he resented such demeanour
towards himself on the part of an Axon, assuming as it did that the
art-director of the works was one of the servile crew that scuttled
about in terror if the ferocious Horrocleave happened to sneeze. But
to-day the mere sudden information that Horrocleave was on the works
gave him an unpleasant start and seriously impaired his presence of
mind. He had not been aware of Horrocleave's arrival. He had been
expecting to hear Horrocleave's step and voice, and the rustle of
him hanging up his mackintosh outside (Horrocleave always wore a
mackintosh instead of an overcoat), and all the general introductory
sounds of his advent, before he finally came into the inner room. But,
now, for aught Louis knew, Horrocleave might already have been in the
inner room, before Louis. He was upset. The enemy was not attacking
him in the proper and usual way.
And the next instant, ere he could collect and reorganize his forces,
he was paralysed by the footfall of Horrocleave, limping, and the bang
of a door.
And Louis thought--
"He's in the outer office. He's only got to take his mackintosh off,
and then I shall see his head coming through this door, and perhaps
he'll ask me for the petty-cash book right off."
But Horrocleave did not even pause to remove his mackintosh. In
defiance of immemorial habit, being himself considerably excited and
confused, he stalked straight in, half hopping, and sat down in his
frowsy chair at his frowsy desk, with his cap at the back of his head.
He was a spare man, of medium height, with a thin, shrewd face and a
constant look of hard, fierce determination.
And there was Louis staring like a fool at the open page of the
petty-cash book, incriminating himself every instant.
"Hello!" said Louis, without looking round. "What's up?"
"What's up?" Horrocleave scowled. "What d'ye mean?"
"I thought you were limping just the least bit in the world," said
Louis, whose tact was instinctive and indestructible.
"Oh, _that_!" said Horrocleave, as though nothing was farther
from his mind than the peculiarity of his gait that morning. He bit
his lip.
"Slipped over something?" Louis suggested.
"Aye!" said Horrocleave, somewhat less ominously, and began to open
his letters.
Louis saw that he had done well to feign ignorance of the sprain and
to assume that Horrocleave had slipped, whereas in fact Horrocleave
had put his foot through a piece of rotten wood. Everybody in the
works, upon pain of death, would have to pretend that the employer had
merely slipped, and that the consequences were negligible. Horrocleave
had already nearly eaten an old man alive for the sin of asking
whether he had hurt himself!
And he had not hurt himself because two days previously he had
ferociously stopped the odd-man of the works from wasting his time in
mending just that identical stair, and had asserted that the stair was
in excellent condition. Horrocleave, though Napoleonic by disposition,
had a provincial mind, even a Five Towns mind. He regarded as sheer
loss any expenditure on repairs or renewals or the processes of
cleansing. His theory was that everything would "do" indefinitely. He
passed much of his time in making things "do." His confidence in the
theory that things could indeed be made to "do" was usually justified,
but the steps from the painting-shop--a gimcrack ladder with
hand-rail, attached somehow externally to a wall--had at length
betrayed it. That the accident had happened to himself, and not to a
lad balancing a plankful of art-lustre ware on one shoulder, was sheer
luck. And now the odd-man, with the surreptitious air of one engaged
in a nefarious act, was putting a new tread on the stairs. Thus
devoutly are the Napoleonic served!
Horrocleave seemed to weary of his correspondence.
"By the by," he said in a strange tone, "let's have a look at that
petty-cash book."
Louis rose, and with all his charm, with all the elegance of a man
intended by Nature for wealth and fashion instead of a slave on a foul
pot-bank, gave up the book. It was like giving up hope to the last
vestige, like giving up the ghost. He saw with horrible clearness that
he had been deceiving himself, that Horrocleave's ruthless eye could
not fail to discern at the first glance all his neat dodges, such as
additions of ten to the shillings, and even to the pounds here and
there, and ingenious errors in carrying forward totals from the bottom
of one page to the top of the next. He began to speculate whether
Horrocleave would be content merely to fling him out of the office, or
whether he would prosecute. Prosecution seemed much more in accordance
with the Napoleonic temperament, and yet Louis could not, then,
conceive himself the victim of a prosecution.... Anybody else, but not
Louis Fores!
Horrocleave, his elbow on the table, leaned his head on his hand and
began to examine the book. Suddenly he looked up at Louis, who could
not move and could not cease from agreeably smiling.
Said Horrocleave in a still more peculiar tone--
"Just ask Axon whether he means to go fetch wages to-day or to-morrow.
Has he forgotten it's Saturday morning?"
Louis shot away into the outer office, where Axon was just putting on
his hat to go to the bank.
Alone in the outer office Louis wondered. The whole of his vitality
was absorbed in the single function of wondering. Then through the
thin slit of the half-open door between the top and the middle hinges,
he beheld Horrocleave bending in judgment over the book. And he
gazed at the vision in the fascination of horror. In a few moments
Horrocleave leaned back, and Louis saw that his face had turned paler.
It went almost white. Horrocleave was breathing strangely, his arms
dropped downward, his body slipped to one side, his cap fell off, his
eyes shut, his mouth opened, his head sank loosely over the back
of the chair like the head of a corpse. He had fainted. The
thought passed through Louis' mind that stupefaction at the complex
unrighteousness of the petty-cash records had caused Horrocleave to
lose consciousness. Then the true explanation occurred to him. It was
the pain in his ankle that had overcome the heroic sufferer. Louis
had desired to go to his aid, but he could not budge from his post.
Presently the colour began slowly to return to Horrocleave's cheek;
his eyes opened; he looked round sleepily and then wildly; and then he
rubbed his eyes and yawned. He remained quiescent for several minutes,
while a railway lorry thundered through the archway and the hoofs of
the great horse crunched on shawds in the yard. Then he called, in a
subdued voice--
"Louis! Where the devil are ye?"
Louis re-entered the room, and as he did so Horrocleave shut the
petty-cash book with an abrupt gesture.
"Here, take it!" said he, pushing the book away.
"Is it all right?" Louis asked.
Horrocleave nodded. "Well, I've checked about forty additions." And he
smiled sardonically.
"I think you might do it a bit oftener," said Louis, and then went on:
"I say, don't you think it might be a good thing if you took your boot
off. You never know, when you've slipped, whether it won't swell--I
mean the ankle."
"Bosh!" exclaimed Horrocleave, with precipitation, but after an
instant added thoughtfully: "Well, I dun'no'. Wouldn't do any harm,
would it? I say--get me some water, will you? I don't know how it is,
but I'm as thirsty as a dog."
The heroic martyr to the affirmation that he had not hurt himself had
handsomely saved his honour. He could afford to relax a little now the
rigour of consistency in conduct. With twinges and yawns he permitted
Louis to help him with the boot and to put an art-lustre cup to his
lips.
Louis was in the highest spirits. He had seen the gates of the
Inferno, and was now snatched up to Paradise. He knew that Horrocleave
had never more than half suspected him, and that the terrible
Horrocleave pride would prevent Horrocleave from asking for the
book again. Henceforth, saved by a miracle, he could live in utter
rectitude; he could respond freely to the inspiring influence of
Rachel, and he would do so. He smiled at his previous fears, and was
convinced, by no means for the first time, that a Providence watched
over him because of his good intentions and his nice disposition--that
nothing really serious could ever occur to Louis Fores. He reflected
happily that in a few days he would begin a new petty-cash book--and
he envisaged it as a symbol of his new life. The future smiled. He
made sure that his aunt Maldon was dying, and though he liked her very
much and would regret her demise, he could not be expected to be blind
to the fact that a proportion of her riches would devolve on himself.
Indeed, in unluckily causing a loss of money to his aunt Maldon he had
in reality only been robbing himself. So that there was no need for
any kind of remorse. When the works closed for the week-end, he
walked almost serenely up to Bycars for news--news less of his aunt's
condition than of the discovery that a certain roll of bank-notes had
been mislaid.
III
The front door was open when Louis arrived at Mrs. Maldon's house, and
he walked in. Anybody might have walked in. There was nothing unusual
in this; it was not a sign that the mistress of the house was ill in
bed and its guardianship therefore disorganized. The front doors of
Bursley--even the most select--were constantly ajar and the fresh wind
from off the pot-bank was constantly blowing through those exposed
halls and up those staircases. For the demon of public inquisitiveness
is understood in the Five Towns to be a nocturnal demon. The fear
of it begins only at dusk. A woman who in the evening protects her
parlour like her honour, will, while the sun is above the horizon,
show the sacred secrets of the kitchen itself to any one who chooses
to stand on the front step.
Louis put his hat and stick on the oak chest, and with a careless,
elegant gesture brushed back his dark hair. The door of the parlour
was slightly ajar. He pushed it gently open, and peeped round it with
a pleasant arch expression, on the chance of there being some one
within.
Rachel was lying on the Chesterfield. Her left cheek, resting on her
left hand, was embedded in the large cushion. A large coil of her
tawny hair, displaced, had spread loosely over the dark green of the
sofa. The left foot hung limp over the edge of the sofa; the jutting
angle of the right knee divided sharply the drapery of her petticoat
into two systems, and her right shoe with its steel buckle pressed
against the yielding back of the Chesterfield. The right arm lay
lissom like a snake across her breast. All her muscles were lax,
and every full curve of her body tended downward in response to the
negligent pose. Her eyes were shut, her face flushed; and her chest
heaved with the slow regularity of her deep, unconscious breathing.
Louis as he gazed was enchanted. This was not Miss Fleckring, the
companion and household help of Mrs. Maldon, but a nymph, a fay, the
universal symbol of his highest desire.... He would have been happy to
kiss the glinting steel buckle, so feminine, so provocative, so coy.
The tight rounded line of the waist, every bend of the fingers, the
fall of the eye-lashes--all were exquisite and precious to him after
the harsh, unsatisfying, desolating masculinity of Horrocleave's.
This was the divine reward of Horrocleave's, the sole reason of
Horrocleave's. Horrocleave's only existed in order that this might
exist and be maintained amid cushions and the softness of calm and
sequestered interiors, waiting for ever in acquiescence for the
arrival of manful doers from Horrocleave's. The magnificent pride of
male youth animated Louis. He had not a care in the world. Even
his long-unpaid tailor's bill was magically abolished. He was an
embodiment of exulting hope and fine aspirations.
Rachel stirred, dimly aware of the invasion. And Louis, actuated by
the most delicate regard for her sensitive modesty, vanished back for
a moment into the hall, until she should have fitted herself for his
beholding.
Mrs. Tams had come from somewhere into the hall. She was munching a
square of bread and cold bacon, and she curtsied, exclaiming--
"It's never Mester Fores! That's twice her's been woke up this day!"
"Who's there?" Rachel called out, and her voice had the breaking,
bewildered softness of a woman's in the dark, emerging from a dream.
"Sorry! Sorry!" said Louis, behind the door.
"It's all right," she reassured him.
He returned to the room. She was sitting upright on the sofa, her arms
a little extended and the tips of her fingers touching the sofa. The
coil of her hair had been arranged. The romance of the exciting night
still clung to her, for Louis; but what chiefly seduced him was the
mingling in her mien of soft confusion and candid, sturdy honesty and
dependableness. He felt that here was not only a ravishing charm, but
a source of moral strength from which he could draw inexhaustibly that
which he had had a slight suspicion he lacked. He felt that here was
joy and salvation united, and it seemed too good to be true. Strange
that when she greeted him at the door-step on the previous evening, he
had imagined that she was revealing herself to him for the first
time; and again later, in the kitchen, he had imagined that she was
revealing herself to him for the first time; and again, still later,
in the sudden crisis at his bedroom door, he had imagined that she was
revealing herself to him for the first time. For now he perceived that
he had never really seen her before; and he was astounded and awed.
"Auntie still on the up-grade?" he inquired, using all his own charm.
He guessed, of course, that Mrs. Maldon must be still better, and he
was very glad, although, if she recovered, it would be she and not
himself that he had deprived of bank-notes.
"Oh yes, she's better," said Rachel, not moving from the sofa; "but
have you heard what's happened?"
In spite of himself he trembled, awaiting the disclosure. "Now for the
bank-notes!" he reflected, bracing his nerves. He shook his head.
She told him what had happened; she told him at length, quickening
her speech as she proceeded. And for a few moments it was as if he
was being engulfed by an enormous wave, and would drown. But the next
instant he recollected that he was on dry land, safe, high beyond the
reach of any catastrophe. His position was utterly secure. The past
was past; the leaf was turned. He had but to forget, and he was
confident of his ability to forget. The compartments of his mind were
innumerable, and as separate as the dungeons of a mediaeval prison.
"Isn't it awful?" she murmured.
"Well, it is rather awful!"
"Nine hundred and sixty-five pounds! Fancy it!"
The wave approached him again as she named the sum. Nevertheless,
he never once outwardly blenched. As he had definitely put away
unrighteousness, so his face showed no sign of guilt. Like many
ingenuous-minded persons, he had in a high degree the faculty of
appearing innocent--except when he really was innocent.
"If you ask me," said Rachel, "she never took any of the notes
upstairs at all; she left them all somewhere downstairs and only took
the serviette upstairs."
"Yes," he agreed thoughtfully, wondering whether on the other hand,
Mrs. Maldon had not taken all the notes upstairs, and left none of
them downstairs. Was it possible that in that small roll, in that
crushed ball that he had dropped into the grate, there was nearly a
thousand pounds--the equivalent of an income of a pound a week
for ever and ever?... Never mind! The incident, so far as he was
concerned, was closed. The dogma of his future life would be that the
bank-notes had never existed.
"And I've looked _ev_'rywhere!" Rachel insisted with strong
emphasis.
Louis remarked, thoughtfully, as though a new aspect of the affair was
presenting itself to him--
"It's really rather serious, you know!"
"I should just say it was--as much money as that!"
"I mean," said Louis, "for everybody. That is to say, Julian and me.
We're involved."
"How can you be involved? You didn't even know it was in the house."
"No. But the old lady might have dropped it. I might have picked it
up. Julian might have picked it up. Who's to prove--"
She cut in coldly--
"Please don't talk like that!"
He smiled with momentary constraint. He said to himself--
"It won't do to talk to this kind of girl like that. She won't stand
it.... Why, she wouldn't even _dream_ of suspicion falling on
herself--wouldn't dream of it."
After a silence he began--
"Well--" and made a gesture to imply that the enigma baffled him.
"I give it up!" breathed Rachel intimately. "I fairly give it up!"
"And of course that was the cause of her attack?" he said suddenly, as
if the idea had just occurred to him.
Rachel nodded--"Evidently."
"Well," said he, "I'll look in again during the afternoon. I must
be getting along for my grub." He was hoping that he had not
unintentionally brought about his aunt's death.
"Not had your dinner!" she cried. "Why! It's after half-past two!"
"Oh, well, you know ... Saturday...."
"I shall get you a bit of dinner here," she said. "And then perhaps
Mrs. Maldon will be waking up. Yes," she repeated, positively, "I
shall get you a bit of dinner here, myself. Mrs. Maldon would not be
at all pleased if I didn't."
"I'm frightfully hungry," he admitted.
And he was.
When she had left the parlour he perceived evidences here and there
that she had been hunting up hill and down dale for the notes; and he
went into the back room with an earnest, examining air, as though
he might find part of the missing hoard, after all, in some niche
overlooked by Rachel. He would have preferred to think that Mrs.
Maldon had not taken the whole of the money upstairs, but reflection
did much to convince him that she had. It was infinitely regrettable
that he had not counted his treasure-trove under the chair.
IV
The service of his meal, which had the charm of a picnic, was
interrupted by the arrival of the doctor, whose report on the invalid,
however, was so favourable that Louis could quite dismiss the possibly
homicidal aspect of his dealings with the bank-notes. The shock of the
complete disappearance of the vast sum had perhaps brought Mrs.
Maldon to the brink of death, but she had edged safely away again,
in accordance with her own calm prophecy that very morning. When the
doctor had gone, and the patient was indulged in her desire to be
left alone for sleep, Louis very slowly and luxuriously finished his
repast, with Rachel sitting opposite to him, in Mrs. Maldon's place,
at the dining-table. He lit a cigarette and, gracefully leaning
his elbows on the table, gazed at her through the beautiful grey
smoke-veil, which was like the clouds of Paradise.
What thrilled Louis was the obvious fact that he fascinated her. She
was transformed under his glance. How her eyes shone! How her cheek
flushed and paled! What passionate vitality found vent in her little
gestures! But in the midst of this transformation her honesty,
her loyalty, her exquisite ingenuousness, her superb dependability
remained. She was no light creature, no flirt nor seeker after dubious
sensations. He felt that at last he was appreciated by one whose
appreciation was tremendously worth having. He was confirmed in that
private opinion of himself that no mistakes hitherto made in his
career had been able to destroy. He felt happy and confident as never
before.
Luck, of course; but luck deserved! He could marry this unique
creature and be idolized and cherished for the rest of his life. In
an instant, from being a scorner of conjugal domesticity, he became
a scorner of the bachelor's existence, with its immeasurable secret
ennui hidden beneath the jaunty cloak of a specious freedom--freedom
to be bored, freedom to fret, and long and envy, freedom to eat ashes
and masticate dust! He would marry her. Yes, he was saved, because he
was loved. And he meant to be worthy of his regenerate destiny. All
the best part of his character came to the surface and showed in his
face. But he did not ask his heart whether he was or was not in love
with Rachel. The point did not present itself. He certainly never
doubted that he was seeing her with a quite normal vision.
Their talk went through and through the enormous topic of the night
and day, arriving at no conclusion whatever, except that there was no
conclusion--not even a theory of a conclusion. (And the Louis who now
discussed the case was an innocent, reborn Louis, quite unconnected
with the Louis of the previous evening; he knew no more of the
inwardness of the affair than Rachel did. Of such singular feats of
doubling the personality is the self-deceiving mind capable.) After
a time it became implicit in the tone of their conversation that
the mysterious disappearance in a small, ordinary house of even so
colossal a sum as nine hundred and sixty-five pounds did not mean
the end of the world. That is to say, they grew accustomed to the
situation. Louis, indeed, permitted himself to suggest, as a man of
the large, still-existing world, that Rachel should guard against
over-estimating the importance of the sum. True, as he had several
times reflected, it did represent an income of about a pound a
week! But, after all, what was a pound a week, viewed in a proper
perspective?...
Louis somehow glided from the enormous topic to the topic of the
newest cinema--Rachel had never seen a cinema, except a very primitive
one, years earlier--and old Batchgrew was mentioned, he being
notoriously a cinema magnate. "I cannot stand that man," said Rachel
with a candour that showed to what intimacy their talk had developed.
Louis was delighted by the explosion, and they both fell violently
upon Thomas Batchgrew and found intense pleasure in destroying him.
And Louis was saying to himself, enthusiastically, "How well she
understands human nature!"
So that when old Batchgrew, without any warning or preliminary sound,
stalked pompously into the room their young confusion was excessive.
They felt themselves suddenly in the presence of not merely a personal
adversary, but of an enemy of youth and of love and of joy--of a being
mysterious and malevolent who neither would nor could comprehend them.
And they were at once resentful and intimidated.
During the morning Councillor Batchgrew had provided
himself--doubtless by purchase, since he had not been home--with a
dandiacal spotted white waistcoat in honour of the warm and sunny
weather. This waistcoat by its sprightly unsuitability to his
aged uncouthness, somehow intensified the sinister quality of his
appearance.
"Found it?" he demanded tersely.
Rachel, strangely at a loss, hesitated and glanced at Louis as if for
succour.
"No, I haven't, Mr. Batchgrew," she said. "I haven't, I'm sure. And
I've turned over every possible thing likely or unlikely."
Mr. Batchgrew growled--
"From th' look of ye I made sure that th' money had turned up all
right--ye were that comfortable and cosy! Who'd guess as nigh on a
thousand pound's missing out of this house since last night!"
The heavy voice rolled over them brutally. Louis attempted to
withstand Mr. Batchgrew's glare, but failed. He was sure of the
absolute impregnability of his own position; but the clear memory
of at least one humiliating and disastrous interview with Thomas
Batchgrew in the past robbed Louis' eye of its composure. The
circumstances under which he had left the councillor's employ some
years ago were historic and unforgettable.
"I came in back way instead of front way," said Thomas Batchgrew,
"because I thought I'd have a look at that scullery door. Kitchen's
empty."
"What about the scullery door?" Louis lightly demanded.
Rachel murmured--
"I forgot to tell you; it was open when I came down in the middle of
the night." And then she added: "Wide open."
"Upon my soul!" said Louis slowly, with marked constraint. "I really
forget whether I looked at that door before I went to bed. I know I
looked at all the others."
"I'd looked at it, anyway," said Rachel defiantly, gazing at the
table.
"And when you found it open, miss," pursued Thomas Batchgrew, "what
did ye do?"
"I shut it and locked it."
"Where was the key?"
"In the door."
"Lock in order?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, how could it have been opened from the outside? There
isn't a mark on the door, outside _or_ in."
"As far as that goes, Mr. Batchgrew," said Rachel, "only last week the
key fell out of the lock on the inside and slid down the brick floor
to the outside--you know there's a slope. And I had to go out of the
house by the front and the lamplighter climbed over the back gate for
me and let me into the yard so that I could get the key again. That
might have happened last night. Some one might have shaken the key
out, and pulled it under the door with a bit of wire or something."
"That won't do," Thomas Batchgrew stopped her. "You said the key was
in the door on the inside."
"Well, when they'd once opened the door from the outside, couldn't
they have put the key on the inside again?"
"They? Who?"
"Burglars."
Thomas Batchgrew repeated sarcastically--
"Burglars! Burglars!" and snorted.
"Well, Mr. Batchgrew, either burglars must have been at work," said
Louis, who was fascinated by Rachel's surprising news and equally
surprising theory--"either burglars must have been at work," he
repeated impressively, "_or_--the money is still in the house.
That's evident."
"Is it?" snarled Batchgrew. "Look here, miss, and you, young Fores, I
didn't make much o' this this morning, because I thought th' money 'ud
happen be found. But seeing as it isn't, and _as_ we're talking
about it, what time was the rumpus last night?"
"What time?" Rachel muttered. "What time was it, Mr. Fores?"
"I dun'no'," said Louis. "Perhaps the doctor would know."
"Oh!" said Rachel, "Mrs. Tams said the hall clock had stopped; that
must have been when Mrs. Maldon knocked up against it."
She went to the parlour door and opened it, displaying the hall clock,
which showed twenty-five minutes past twelve. Louis had crept up
behind Mr. Batchgrew, who in his inapposite white waistcoat stood
between the two lovers, stertorous with vague anathema.
"So that was the time," said he. "And th' burglars must ha' been and
gone afore that. A likely thing burglars coming at twelve o'clock
at night, isn't it? And I'll tell ye summat else. Them burglars was
copped last night at Knype at eleven o'clock when th' pubs closed, if
ye want to know--the whole gang of three on 'em."
"Then what about that burglary last night down the Lane?" Rachel asked
sharply.
"Oh!" exclaimed Louis. "Was there a burglary down the Lane last night?
I didn't know that."
"No, there wasn't," said Batchgrew ruthlessly. "That burglary was a
practical joke, and it's all over the town. Denry Machin had a hand in
that affair, and by now I dare say he wishes he hadn't."
"Still, Mr. Batchgrew," Louis argued superiorly, with the philosophic
impartiality of a man well accustomed to the calm unravelling of
crime, "there may be other burglars in the land beside just those
three." He would not willingly allow the theory of burglars to
crumble. Its attractiveness increased every moment.
"There may and there mayn't, young Fores," said Thomas Batchgrew. "Did
_you_ hear anything of 'em?"
"No, I didn't," Louis replied restively.
"And yet you ought to have been listening out for 'em."
"Why ought I to have been listening out for them?"
"Knowing there was all that money in th' house."
"Mr. Fores didn't know," said Rachel.
Louis felt himself unjustly smirched.
"It's scarcely an hour ago," said he, "that I heard about this money
for the first time." And he felt as innocent and aggrieved as he
looked.
Mr. Batchgrew smacked his lips loudly.
"Then," he announced, "I'm going down to th' police-station, to put it
i' Snow's hands."
Rachel straightened herself.
"But surely not without telling Mrs. Maldon?"
Mr. Batchgrew fingered his immense whiskers.
"Is she better?" he inquired threateningly. This was his first sign of
interest in Mrs. Maldon's condition.
"Oh, yes; much. She's going on very well. The doctor's just been."
"Is she asleep?"
"She's resting. She may be asleep."
"Did ye tell her ye hadn't found her money?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
"She didn't say anything."
"It might be municipal money, for all she seems to care!" remarked
Thomas Batchgrew, with a short, bitter grin. "Well, I'll be moving to
th' police-station. I've never come across aught like this before, and
I'm going to get to the bottom of it."
Rachel slipped out of the door into the hall.
"Please wait a moment, Mr. Batchgrew," she whispered timidly.
"What for?"
"Till I've told Mrs. Maldon."
"But if her's asleep?"
"I must waken her. I couldn't think of letting you go to the
police-station without letting her know--after what she said this
morning."
Rachel waited. Mr. Batchgrew glanced aside.
"Here! Come here!" said Mr. Batchgrew in a different tone. The fact
was that, put to the proof, he dared not, for all his autocratic
habit, openly disobey the injunction of the benignant, indifferent,
helpless Mrs. Maldon. "Come here!" he repeated coarsely. Rachel
obeyed, shamefaced despite herself. Batchgrew shut the door. "Now,"
he said grimly, "what's your secret? Out with it. I know you and her's
got a secret. What is it?"
Rachel sat down on the sofa, hid her face in her hands, and startled
both men by a sob. She wept with violence. And then through her tears,
and half looking up, she cried out passionately: "It's all your fault.
Why did you leave the money in the house at all? You know you'd no
right to do it, Mr. Batchgrew!"
The councillor was shaken out of his dignity by the incredible
impudence of this indictment from a chit like Rachel. Similar
experiences, however, had happened to him before; for, though as a
rule people most curiously conspired with him to keep up the fiction
that he was sacred, at rare intervals somebody's self-control would
break down, and bitter, inconvenient home truths would resound in
the ear of Thomas Batchgrew. But he would recover himself in a few
moments, and usually some diversion would occur to save him--he was
nearly always lucky. A diversion occurred now, of the least expected
kind. The cajoling tones of Mrs. Tams were heard on the staircase.
"Nay, ma'am! Nay, ma'am! This'll never do. Must I go on my bended
knees to ye?"
And then the firm but soft voice of Mrs. Maldon--
"I must speak to Mr. Batchgrew. I must have Mr. Batchgrew here at
once. Didn't you hear me call and call to you?"
"That I didn't, ma'am! I was beating the feather bed in the back
bedroom. Nay, not a step lower do you go, ma'am, not if I lose me job
for it."
Thomas Batchgrew and Louis were already out in the hall. Half-way down
the stairs stood Mrs. Maldon, supporting herself by the banisters and
being supported by Mrs. Tams. She was wearing her pink peignoir with
white frills at the neck and wrists. Her black hair was loose on her
shoulders like the hair of a young girl. Her pallid and heavily seamed
features with the deep shining eyes trembled gently, as if in response
to a distant vibration. She gazed upon the two silent men with
an expression that united benignancy with profound inquietude and
sadness. All her past life was in her face, inspiring it with strength
and sorrow.
"Mr. Batchgrew," she said. "I've heard your voice for a long time. I
want to speak to you."
And then she turned, yielded to the solicitous alarm of Mrs. Tams,
climbed feebly up the stairs, and vanished round the corner at the
top. And Mrs. Tams, putting her frowsy head for an instant over the
hand-rail, stopped to adjure Mr. Batchgrew--
"Eh, mester; ye'd better stop where ye are awhile."
From the parlour came the faint sobbing of Rachel.
The two men had not a word to say. Mr. Batchgrew grunted, vacillating.
It seemed as if the majestic apparition of Mrs. Maldon had rebuked
everything that was derogatory and undignified in her trustee, and
that both he and Louis were apologizing to the empty hall for being
common, base creatures. Each of them--and especially Louis--had
the sense of being awakened to events of formidable grandeur whose
imminence neither had suspected. Still assuring himself that his
position was absolutely safe, Louis nevertheless was aware of a
sinking in the stomach. He could rebut any accusation. "And yet ...!"
murmured his craven conscience. What could be the enigma between Mrs.
Maldon and Rachel? He was now trying to convince himself that Mrs.
Maldon had in fact divided the money into two parts, of which he had
handled only one, and that the impressive mystery had to do with the
other part of the treasure, which he had neither seen nor touched.
How, then, could he personally be threatened? "And yet!..." said his
conscience again.
In about a minute Mrs. Tarns reappeared at the head of the stairs.
"Her _will_ have ye, mester!" said she to the councillor.
Thomas Batchgrew mounted after her.
Louis made a noise with his tongue as if starting a horse, and
returned to the parlour.
Rachel, still on the sofa, showed her wet face.
"I've got no secret," she said passionately. "And I'm sure Mrs. Maldon
hasn't. What's he driving at?"
The natural freedom of her gestures and vehement accent was enchanting
to Louis.
She jumped from the Chesterfield and ran away upstairs, flying.
He followed to the lobby, and saw her dash into her own room and
feverishly shut the door, which was in full view at the top of
the stairs. And Louis thought he had never lived in any moment so
exquisite and so alarming as that moment.
He was now alone on the ground floor. He caught no sound from above.
"Well, I'd better get out of this," he said to himself. "Anyhow, I'm
all right!... What a girl! Terrific!" And, lighting a fresh cigarette,
he left the house.
V
"And now what's amiss?" Thomas Batchgrew demanded, alone with Mrs.
Maldon in the tranquillity of the bedroom.
Mrs. Maldon lay once more in bed; the bedclothes covered her without
a crease, and from the neat fold-back of the white sheet her wrinkled
ivory face and curving black hair emerged so still and calm that her
recent flight to the stairs seemed unreal, impossible. The impression
her mien gave was that she never had moved and never would move from
the bed. Thomas Batchgrew's blusterous voice frankly showed acute
irritation. He was angry because nine hundred and sixty-five pounds
had monstrously vanished, because the chance of a good investment was
lost, because Mrs. Maldon tied his hands, because Rachel had forgotten
her respect and his dignity in addressing him; but more because he
felt too old to impose himself by sheer rough-riding, individual
force on the other actors in the drama, and still more because he, and
nobody else, had left the nine hundred and sixty-five pounds in the
house. What an orgy of denunciation he would have plunged into had
some other person insisted on leaving the money in the house with a
similar result!
Mrs. Maldon looked up at him with a glance of compassion. She was
filled with pity for him because he had arrived at old age without
dignity and without any sense of what was fine in life; he was not
even susceptible to the chastening influences of a sick-room. She
knew, indeed, that he hated and despised sickness in others, and
that when ill himself he became a moaning mass of cowardice and
vituperation. And in her heart she invented the most wonderful excuses
for him, and transformed him into a martyr of destiny who had suffered
both through ancestry and through environment. Was it his fault that
he was thus tragically defective? So that by the magic power of her
benevolence he became dignified in spite of himself.
She said--
"Mr. Batchgrew, I want you to oblige me by not discussing my affairs
with any one but me."
At that moment the front door closed firmly below, and the bedroom
vibrated.
"Is that Louis going?" she asked.
Batchgrew went to the window and looked downward, lowering the pupils
as far as possible so as to see the pavement.
"It's Louis going," he replied.
Mrs. Maldon sighed relief.
Mr. Batchgrew said no more.
"What were you talking about downstairs to those two?" Mrs. Maldon
went on carefully.
"What d'ye suppose we were talking about?" retorted Batchgrew,
still at the window. Then he turned towards her and proceeded in an
outburst: "If you want to know, missis, I was asking that young wench
what the secret was between you and her."
"The secret? Between Rachel and me?"
"Aye! Ye both know what's happened to them notes, and ye've made it up
between ye to say nowt!"
Mrs. Maldon answered gravely--
"You are quite mistaken. I know nothing, and I'm sure Rachel doesn't.
And we have made nothing up between us. How can you imagine such
things?"
"Why don't ye have the police told?"
"I cannot do with the police in my house."
Mr. Batchgrew approached the bed almost threateningly.
"I'll tell you why ye won't have the police told. Because ye know
Louis Fores has taken your money. It's as plain as a pikestaff. Ye put
it on the chair on the landing here, and ye left it there, and he came
along and pocketed it." Mrs. Maldon essayed to protest, but he cut her
short. "Did he or did he not come upstairs after ye'd been upstairs
yourself?"
As Mrs. Maldon hesitated, Thomas Batchgrew began to feel younger and
more impressive.
"Yes, he did," said Mrs. Maldon at length. "But only because I asked
him to come up--to fasten the window."
"What window?"
"The landing window."
Mr. Batchgrew, startled and delighted by this unexpected confirmation
of his theory, exploded--
"Ha!... And how soon was that after ye'd been upstairs with the
notes?"
"It was just afterwards."
"Ha!... I don't mind telling ye I've been suspecting that young man
ever since this morning. I only learnt just now as he was in th' house
all night. That made me think for a moment as he'd done it after ye'd
all gone to bed. And for aught I know he may have. But done it some
time he has, and you know it as well as I do, Elizabeth."
Mrs. Maldon maintained her serenity.
"We may be unjust to him. I should never forgive myself if I was. He
has a very good side to him, has Louis!"
"I've never seen it," said Mr. Batchgrew, still growing in authority.
"He began as a thief and he'll end as a thief, if it's no worse."
"Began as a thief?" Mrs. Maldon protested.
"Well, what d'ye suppose he left the bank for?"
"I never knew quite why he left the bank. I always understood there
was some unpleasantness."
"If ye didn't know, it was because ye didn't want to know. Ye never do
want to know these things. 'Unpleasantness!' There's only one sort of
unpleasantness with the clerks in a bank!... _I_ know, anyhow,
because I took the trouble to find out for myself, when I had that
bother with him in my own office. And a nice affair that was, too!"
"But you told me at the time that his books were all right with you.
Only you preferred not to keep him." Mrs. Maiden's voice was now
plaintive.
Thomas Batchgrew came close to the bed and leaned on the foot of it.
"There's some things as you won't hear, Elizabeth. His books were all
right, but he'd made 'em all right. I got hold of him afore he'd done
more than he could undo--that's all. There's one trifle as I might
ha' told ye if ye hadn't such a way of shutting folks up sometimes,
missis. I'll tell ye now. Louis Fores went down on his knees to me in
my office. On his knees, and all blubbing. What about that?"
Mrs. Maldon replied--
"You must have been glad ever since that you did give the poor boy
another chance."
"There's nothing I've regretted more," said Thomas Batchgrew, with a
grimness that became him. "I heard last week he's keeping books and
handling cash for Horrocleave nowadays. I know how that'll end! I'd
warn Horrocleave, but it's no business o' mine, especially as ye made
me help ye to put him into Horrocleave's.... There's half a dozen
people in this town and in Hanbridge that can add up Louis Fores, and
have added him up! And now he's robbed ye in yer own house. But it
makes no matter. He's safe enough!" He sardonically snorted. "He's
safe enough. We canna' even stop the notes without telling the police,
and ye won't have the police told. Oh, no! He's managed to get on th'
right side o' you. However, he'll only finish in one way, that chap
will, whether you and me's here to see it or not."
Mr. Batchgrew had grown really impressive, and he knew it.
"Don't let us be hard," pleaded Mrs. Maldon. And then, in a firmer,
prouder voice: "There will be no scandal in my family, Mr. Batchgrew,
as long as I live."
Mr. Batchgrew's answer was superb in its unconscious ferocity--
"That depends how long ye live."
His meaningless eyes rested on her with frosty impartiality, as he
reflected--
"I wonder how long she'll last."
He felt strong; he felt immortal. Exactly like Mrs. Maldon, he was
convinced that he was old only by the misleading arithmetic of years,
that he was not really old, and that there was a subtle and vital
difference between all other people of his age and himself. As for
Mrs. Maldon, he regarded her as a mere poor relic of an organism.
"At our age," Mrs. Maldon began, and paused as if collecting her
thoughts.
"At our age! At our age!" he repeated, sharply deprecating the phrase.
"At our age," said Mrs. Maldon, with slow insistence, "we ought not to
be hard on others. We ought to be thinking of our own sins."
But, although Mrs. Maldon was perhaps the one person on earth whom he
both respected and feared, Thomas Batchgrew listened to her injunction
only with rough disdain. He was incapable of thinking of his own sins.
While in health, he was nearly as unaware of sin as an animal.
Nevertheless, he turned uneasily in the silence of the pale room, so
full of the shy and prim refinement of Mrs. Maldon's individuality.
He could talk morals to others in the grand manner, and with positive
enjoyment, but to be sermonized himself secretly exasperated him
because it constrained him and made him self-conscious. Invariably,
when thus attacked, he would execute a flank movement.
He said bluntly--
"And I suppose ye'll let him marry this Rachel girl if he's a mind
to!"
Slowly a deep flush covered Mrs. Maldon's face.
"What makes you say that?" she questioned, with rising agitation.
"I have but just seen 'em together."
Mrs. Maldon moved nervously in the bed.
"I should never forgive myself if I stood by and let Louis marry
Rachel," she said, and there was a sudden desperate urgency in her
voice.
"Isn't she good enough for a nephew o' yours?"
"She's good enough for any man," said Mrs. Maldon quietly.
"Then it's him as isna' good enough! And yet, if he's got such a good
side to him as ye say--" Mr. Batchgrew snorted.
"He's not suited to her--not at all."
"Now, missis," said Mr. Batchgrew in triumph, "at last we're getting
down to your real opinion of young Fores."
"I feel I'm responsible for Rachel, and--What ought I to do about it?"
"Do? What can a body do when a respectable young woman wi' red hair
takes a fancy to a youth? Nowt, Elizabeth. That young woman'll marry
Louis Fores, and ye can take it from me."
"But why do you say a thing like that? I only began to notice anything
myself last night."
"She's lost her head over him, that's all. I caught 'em just now....
As thick as thieves in your parlour!"
"But I'm by no means sure that he's smitten with her."
"What does it matter whether he is or not? She's lost her head over
him, and she'll have him. It doesn't want a telescope to see as far as
that."
"Well, then, I shall speak to her--I shall speak to her to-morrow
morning, after she's had a good night's rest, when I feel stronger."
"Ay! Ye may! And what shalt say?"
"I shall warn her. I think I shall know how to do it," said Mrs.
Maldon, with a certain air of confidence amid her trouble. "I wouldn't
run the risk of a tragedy for worlds."
"It's no _risk_ of a tragedy, as ye call it," said Thomas
Batchgrew, very pleased with his own situation in the argument. "It's
a certainty. She'll believe him afore she believes you, whatever ye
say. You mark me. It's a certainty."
After elaborate preparations of his handkerchief, he blew his nose
loudly, because blowing his nose loudly affected him in an agreeable
manner.
A few minutes later he left, saying the car would be waiting for him
at the back of the Town Hall. And Mrs. Maldon lay alone until Mrs.
Tams came in with a tray.
"An' I hope that's enough company for one day!" said Mrs. Tarns. "Now,
sup it up, do!"