CHAPTER I

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THE IVORY GATE

_Sunt geminae Somni portae: quarum altera fertur

Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:

Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto:

Sed falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia manes._

VIRGIL, _AEn._ VI.

NOTE.

After this novel was commenced in _Chambers's Journal_ it was discovered

that the title had already been used by the late Mr. Mortimer Collins,

for a novel published in the year 1865. The Author communicated with Mr.

Collins's representatives, and has to thank them for making no

opposition to the use of this title.

THE IVORY GATE

BY

WALTER BESANT

AUTHOR OF 'ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN' ETC.

[Illustration]

_A NEW EDITION_

London

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

1893

_TO_

_S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE, ESQ., M.D._

_MY DEAR SPRIGGE,_

_Since it was you who first instructed me in the existence

of the brain disease which forms the motif of this story,

and furnished me with such illustrations of its working as

enabled me to write the story, I am in honour bound to make

the most public acknowledgment possible of this fact._

_I therefore beg to inscribe your name on the title page of

this volume in grateful recognition of an obligation which

is not by any means discharged by such recognition. I am

also moved to do so in remembrance of another kind of work

in which I have been so fortunate as to have your invaluable

collaboration._

_Very sincerely yours,_

_WALTER BESANT._

UNITED UNIVERSITY CLUB, S.W.

_September 12, 1892._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

PROLOGUE: WHO IS EDMUND GRAY? 1

I. UP THE RIVER 29

II. IN THE OFFICE 37

III. THE SELECT CIRCLE 47

IV. A REBELLIOUS CHILD 56

V. SOMETHING HAPPENS 65

VI. SOMETHING MORE HAPPENS 74

VII. SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS 83

VIII. IN HONOUR OF THE EVENT 93

IX. AT THE GATES OF PARADISE 102

X. A MYSTERIOUS DISCOVERY 110

XI. A MYSTERIOUS DISCOVERY 118

XII. THE FIRST FIND 134

XIII. THINGS MORE REMARKABLE 142

XIV. CHECKLEY'S CASE 152

XV. WHO IS EDMUND GRAY? 162

XVI. THE VOICE OF DUTY 172

XVII. WAS HE IN RAGS? 180

XVIII. THE PRODIGAL AT HOME 188

XIX. THE WHISPER OF CALUMNY 195

XX. HE COMES FROM EDMUND GRAY 205

XXI. I AM EDMUND GRAY 213

XXII. MASTER AND DISCIPLE 223

XXIII. THE HALL OF THE NEW FAITH 231

XXIV. CAN HE REMEMBER? 240

XXV. WILL HE REMEMBER? 248

XXVI. THE LESSON OF THE STREET 255

XXVII. 'I KNOW THE MAN' 272

XXVIII. ATHELSTAN'S DISCOVERY 280

XXIX. CHECKLEY SEES A GHOST 288

XXX. THE DAY AFTER THE GHOST 296

XXXI. THE THREE ACCOMPLICES 304

XXXII. ELSIE AND HER MOTHER 315

XXXIII. PLENARY CONFESSION 320

XXXIV. LE CONSEIL DE FAMILLE 338

XXXV. THE LAST 355

PROLOGUE

WHO IS EDMUND GRAY?

Mr. Edward Dering, in a rare interval of work, occupied himself with

looking into his bank book. Those humble persons whom the City,

estimating the moral and spiritual worth of a man by his income, calls

'small,' frequently and anxiously examine their bank books, add up the

columns, and check the entries. Mr. Dering, who was not a small man, but

a big man, or rather, from a City point of view, a biggish man, very

seldom looked at his bank book; first because, like other solicitors in

large practice, he had clerks and accountants to do that kind of work

for him: next because, like many solicitors, while he managed the

affairs of other people with unceasing watchfulness, he was apt to

neglect his own affairs. Happily, when one has an income of some

thousands, private affairs from time to time force themselves upon their

owner in the most agreeable manner possible. They obtrude themselves

upon him. They insist upon being noticed. They compel him to look after

them respectfully: to remove them from the dulness of the bank, and to

make them comfortable in investments.

Mr. Dering opened the book, therefore, having for the moment nothing

else to do, looked at the balance, was satisfied with its appearance,

and began working backwards, that is to say, upwards, to read the

entries. Presently, he came to one at which he stopped, holding his

forefinger on the name.

It was on the right-hand side, the side which to small men is so

terrifying, because it always does its best to annihilate the cash

balance, and seems bent upon transforming addition into multiplication,

so amazing are the results. The name which Mr. Dering read was Edmund

Gray. The amount placed in the same line opposite to that name was

720_l_. Therefore, he had drawn a cheque to the order of Edmund Gray for

the sum of 720_l_.

Now, a man may be in very great practice indeed; but if, like Mr.

Dering, he knows the details of every case that is brought into the

House, he would certainly remember drawing a cheque for 720_l_., and the

reason why it was drawn, and the person for whom it was drawn,

especially if the cheque was only three weeks old. Seven hundred and

twenty pounds! It is a sum in return for which many and very substantial

services must be rendered.

'Edmund Gray!' he murmured. 'Strange! I cannot remember the name of

Edmund Gray. Who is Edmund Gray? Why did I give him 720_l_.?'

The strange fact that he should forget so large a sum amused him at

first. Beside him lay a book which was his private Diary. He opened it

and looked back for three months. He could find no mention anywhere of

Edmund Gray. To repeat: he knew all the details of every case that came

into the House: he signed all the cheques: his memory was as tenacious

and as searching as the east wind in April; yet this matter of Edmund

Gray and his cheque for 720_l_. he could not recall to his mind by any

effort.

There is a certain stage in brain fatigue when one cannot remember

names: it is the sure and certain symptom of over-work: the wise man

recognises the symptom as a merciful warning and obeys it. Mr. Dering

knew this symptom. 'I must take a holiday,' he said. 'At sixty-seven,

one cannot afford to neglect the least loss of memory. Edmund Gray! To

forget Edmund Gray and 720_l_.! I must run down to the sea-side for a

fortnight's rest.'

He shut up the bank book and tried to go back to his work. But this name

came back to him. 'Edmund Gray,' he murmured--'Edmund Gray. Who on earth

is this Edmund Gray? Why did he get a cheque for 720_l_.?'

The thing ceased to amuse him: it began to irritate him: in two minutes

it began to torture him: he leaned back in his chair: he drummed with

his fingers on the table: he took up the book and looked at the entry

again. He got up and walked about the room--a long lean figure in a

tight frock-coat. To walk about the room and to swing your arms often

stimulates the memory. In this case, however, no good effect followed.

The _nomme_ Edmund Gray remained a name and nothing more--the shadow of

a name. Mr. Dering rapped the table with his paper-knife, as if to

conjure up that shadow. Futile superstition! No shadow appeared. But how

could the shadow of a name--an unknown name--carry off 720 golden

sovereigns?

'I feel as if I am going mad,' he murmured. 'Seven hundred and twenty

pounds paid by myself in a single lump, only three weeks ago, and I

remember nothing about it! I have no client named Edmund Gray. The money

must therefore have been paid by me for some client to this unknown

person. Yet it was paid by my cheque, and I don't remember it. Strange!

I never forgot such a thing before.'

There was an office bell on the table. He touched it. A clerk--an

elderly clerk--an ancient clerk--obeyed the call. He was the clerk who

sat in the room outside Mr. Dering's office: the clerk who wrote the

cheques for the chief to sign, brought back the letters when they had

been copied, directed the letters for the post, received visitors, and

passed in cards: in fact, the private secretary, stage-manager--we all

want a stage-manager in every profession--or confidential clerk. As

befits a man of responsibility, he was dressed all in black, his office

coat being as shiny as a mirror on the arms and on the shoulders: by

long habit it hung in certain folds or curves which never unbent: his

face was quite shaven and shorn: all that was left of his white hair was

cut short: his eyes were keen and even foxy: his lips were thin: his

general expression was one of watchfulness: when he watched his master

it was with the attention of a servant: when he watched anybody else it

was as one who watches a rogue, and would outwit him, if he could, at

his own roguery. In certain commercial walks of the lower kind, where

honour and morality consist in the success of attempts to cheat each

other, this kind of expression is not uncommon. Whether his expression

was good or bad, he was an excellent clerk: he was always at his post at

nine in the morning: he never left the office before seven, and, because

Mr. Dering was a whale for work, he sometimes stayed without a grumble

until eight or even nine. Man and boy, Checkley had been in the office

of Dering & Son for fifty-five years, entering as an errand-boy at

twelve.

'Checkley,' said his master, 'look at this bank book. Credit side.

Fourth entry. Have you got it?'

'Edmund Gray, 720_l_.,' the clerk read.

'Yes. What is that cheque for? Who is Edmund Gray?'

The clerk looked surprised. 'I don't know,' he said.

'Why did I pay that money?'

The clerk shook his head.

'Did you look at the book when you laid it on the table?'

The clerk nodded.

'Well--what did you think of it?'

'I didn't think of it at all. It wasn't one of the cheques you told me

to draw about that time ago. If I had thought, I should have supposed it

was your private business.'

'I was not aware, Checkley, that I have any private affairs that you do

not know.'

'Well--but you might have.'

'True. I might have. Just so. As I haven't--who, I ask you again--who is

this Edmund Gray?'

'I don't know.'

'Have you ever heard of any Edmund Gray?'

'Never to my knowledge.'

'This is the first time you have heard that name?' the lawyer persisted.

'The very first time.'

'Consider. Is there any Edmund Gray in connection with any of my

clients?'

'Not to my knowledge.'

'Not to your knowledge. Has any Edmund Gray ever been employed about the

office?'

'No--certainly not.'

'We have recently been painted and papered and whitewashed and new

carpeted at great expense and inconvenience. Did Edmund Gray conduct any

of those operations?'

'No.'

'Has the name of Edmund Gray ever been mentioned in any letters that

have come here?'

It was notorious in the office that Checkley read all the letters that

came, and that he never forgot the contents of any. If you named any

letter he would at once tell you what was written in it, even if it were

twenty years old.

'I have never even heard the name of Edmund Gray in any letter or in any

connection whatever,' the clerk replied firmly.

'I put all these questions, Checkley, because I was pretty certain

myself from the beginning; but I wanted to make myself quite certain. I

thought it might be a trick of failing memory. Now, look at the name

carefully'--the clerk screwed up his eyes tightly in order to get a good

grip of the name. 'You see I have given him a cheque for 720_l_., only

three weeks ago. I am not the kind of man to give away 720_l_. for

nothing. Yet I have actually forgotten the whole business.'

Certainly he did not look the kind of man to forget such a simple thing

as the giving away of 720_l_. Quite the contrary. His grave face, his

iron-grey hair, his firm lips, his keen, steady eyes, apart from the

methodical regularity with which his papers were arranged before him,

all proclaimed that he was very far from being that kind of man. Very

much the reverse, indeed.

'You don't mean to say, sir,' Checkley began, with a change in his face

from watchfulness to terror--'you can't mean----'

'I mean this, Checkley. I know of no Edmund Gray; and unless the bank

has made a mistake, there has been committed--a--what do they call it in

the law-courts?'

The clerk held the bank book in his hand, staring at his master with

open eyes. 'What?' he repeated. 'What do they call it? Good Lord! They

call it forgery--and for 720_l_.! And on you, of all people in the

world! And in this office! In our office!--our office! What a dreadful

thing, to be sure! Oh, what a dreadful thing to happen! In our

office--here!' The clerk seemed unable to express his astonishment.

'First of all, get me the returned cheques.'

The cheques always came back in the pocket of the bank book. Checkley

was accustomed to take them out and to file them in their proper place.

Again, Mr. Dering neither drew his cheques nor wrote his letters with

his own hand. He only signed them. One clerk wrote the letters; another

drew the cheques by his instruction and dictation.

Checkley went back to his own room and returned with a bundle of

returned drafts. He then looked in the safe--a great fireproof

safe--that stood open in one corner of the room, and took out the

current cheque book.

'Here it is,' he said. 'Check drawn by you yourself in your own

handwriting, and properly signed, payable to order--not crossed--and

duly endorsed. Now you understand why I know nothing about it. Edmund

Gray, Esquire, or order. Seven hundred and twenty pounds. Signed Dering

& Son. Your own handwriting and your own signature.'

'Let me look.' Mr. Dering took the paper and examined it. His eyes

hardened as he looked. 'You call this my handwriting, Checkley?'

'I--I--I did think it was,' the clerk stammered. 'Let me look again. And

I think so still,' he added more firmly.

'Then you're a fool. Look again. When did I ever sign like that?'

Mr. Dering's handwriting was one of those which are impossible to be

read by any except his own clerks, and then only when they know what to

expect. Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he

expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final

consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks,

however, understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a

farce, or a _ballade_, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or

compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word

there. For his signature, however, that was different. It was the

signature of the Firm: it was a signature a hundred and twenty years

old: it was an eighteenth-century signature: bold, large, and clear,

every letter fully formed: with dots and flourishes, the last letter

concluding with a fantasia of penmanship belonging to a time when men

knew how to write, belonging to the decorative time of penmanship.

'Two of the dots are out of place,' said Checkley, 'and the flourish

isn't quite what it should be. But the cheque itself looks like your

hand,' he added stoutly. 'I ought to have seen that there was something

wrong about the signature, though it isn't much. I own to that. But the

writing is like yours, and I would swear to it still.'

'It isn't my handwriting at all, then. Where is the counterfoil?'

Checkley turned over the counterfoils. 'What is the date?' he asked.

'March the 4th? I can't find it. Here are cheques for the 3rd and for

the 6th, but none at all for the 4th.'

'Let me look.' Strange! There was no counterfoil. And the numbers did

not agree with that on the cheque.

'You haven't got another cheque book, have you?'

'No; I certainly have not.'

Mr. Dering sat with the cheque in his hand, looking at it. Then he

compared it with a blank cheque. 'Why,' he said, 'this cheque is drawn

from an old book--two years old--one of the books before the bank

amalgamated and changed its title and the form of the cheques--not much

of a change, it is true--but--how could we be such fools, Checkley, as

not to see the difference?'

'Then somebody or other must have got hold of an old cheque book.

Shameful! To have cheque books lying about for every common rogue to go

and steal!'

Mr. Dering reflected. Then he looked up and said: 'Look again in the

safe. In the left-hand compartment over the drawer, I think you will

find an old cheque book. It belonged to a separate account--a Trust.

That has been closed. The book should be there.--Ah! There it is.--I

wonder now,' the lawyer went on, 'how I came to remember that book? It

is more than two years since I last used it or even thought of it.

Another trick of memory. We forget nothing, in fact, nothing at all.

Give it to me. Strange, that I should remember so slight a thing.

Now--here are the cheques, you see--colour the same--lettering the

same--size the same--the only difference being the style and title of

the Company. The fellow must have got hold of an old book left about, as

you say, carelessly. Ah!' His colour changed. 'Here's the very

counterfoil we wanted! Look! the number corresponds. The cheque was

actually taken from this very book! a book in my own safe! in this very

office! Checkley, what does this mean?'

Checkley took the book from his master with a trembling hand, and read

feebly the writing of the counterfoil, March 4th, 1883. Edmund Gray,

720_l_.'

'Lord knows what it means,' he said. 'I never came across such a thing

in my life before.'

'Most extraordinary! It is two years since I have given a thought to

the existence of that book. Yet I remembered it the moment when it

became useful. Well, Checkley, what have you got to say? Can't you

speak?'

'Nothing--nothing. O Lord, what should I have to say. If you didn't draw

that cheque with your own hand----'

'I did not draw that cheque with my own hand.'

'Then--then it must have been drawn by somebody else's hand.'

'Exactly.'

'Perhaps you dictated it.'

'Don't be a fool, Checkley. Keep your wits together, though this is a

new kind of case for you. Criminal law is not exactly in your line. Do

you think I should dictate my own handwriting as well as my own words?'

'No. But I could swear--I could indeed--that it is your writing.'

'Let us have no more questions and answers. It is a forgery. It is a

forgery. It is not a common forgery. It has been committed in my own

office. Who can have done it? Let me think'--he placed the cheque and

the old cheque book before him. 'This book has been in my safe for two

years. I had forgotten its very existence. The safe is only used for my

private papers. I open it every morning myself at ten o'clock. I shut it

when I go up-stairs to lunch. I open it again when I return. I close it

when I go away. I have not departed from this custom for thirty years. I

could no more sit in this room with the safe shut--I could no more go

away with the safe open--than I could walk the streets in my shirt

sleeves. Therefore, not only has the forgery been committed by some one

who has had access to my safe, but by some one who has stolen the cheque

in my very presence and before my eyes. This consideration should narrow

the field.' He looked at the cheque again. 'It is dated March the 4th.

The date may mean nothing. But it was presented on the 5th. Who came to

my room on the 4th or the days preceding? Go and find out.'

Checkley retired and brought back his journal.

'You saw on the 4th----' He read the list of callers.

'That doesn't help,' said Mr. Dering.

'On the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th you had Mr. Arundel working with you here

every day from ten till twelve.'

'Mr. Arundel. Yes, I remember. Anybody else?'

'Nobody else.'

'You forget yourself, Checkley,' Mr. Dering said. 'You were, as usual,

in and out at different times.'

'O Lord! sir-- I hope you don't think----' The old clerk stammered,

turning pale.

'I think nothing, I want to find out. Go to the bank. See the manager.

Let him tell you if he can find out by whom the cheque was cashed. If in

notes--it must have been in notes--let those notes be instantly stopped.

It is not crossed, so that we must not expect anything so simple as the

Clearing House. Go at once and find out exactly what happened.'

This happened at about half-past ten. The bank was no more than five

minutes' walk. Yet it was twelve o'clock when the clerk returned.

'Well, what have you found out?' asked the master.

'I have found out a great deal,' Checkley began eagerly. 'First, I saw

the manager, and I saw the pay clerk. The cheque was handed in by a

commissionaire. Everybody trusts a commissionaire. The pay clerk knows

your signature, and thought it was all right. I showed the cheque to the

manager. He knows your handwriting, and he says he would swear that the

cheque was drawn by you yourself. So I am not such a fool as you think.'

'Go on.'

'The commissionaire told the pay clerk that he was ordered to take it

all in ten-pound notes. He took them, put them in his pouch, and walked

away. He was a one-armed man, and took a long time over the job, and

didn't seem a bit in a hurry.'

'About the notes?'

'The manager will stop them at once. But he says that if the thing was

done by an old hand, there must be confederates in it, and there will be

trouble. However, the notes are stopped. That's done. Then I went on to

the commissionaires' barracks in the Strand. The sergeant very soon

found the man, and I had a talk with him. He was employed by an old

gentleman, he says, staying at the Cecil Hotel, Strand. The old

gentleman sent him to the bank with instructions to get the money in

ten-pound notes; and very particular he was with him about not losing

any of them on the way. He didn't seem a bit in a hurry either. Took

the notes from the man and laid them in a pocket-book. It was in the

coffee-room, and half a dozen other gentlemen were there at the same

time. But this gentleman seemed alone.'

'Humph! A pretty cool business, upon my word! No hurry about it. Plenty

of time. That was because they knew that the old cheque book would not

be found and examined.'

'Why did they write the cheque on the counterfoil? Why did they put the

cheque book back again--after they had taken it out?'

'I don't know. The workings of a forger's brain are not within the

compass of my experiences. Go on, Checkley.'

'The commissionaire says that he is certain he would know the gentleman

again.'

'Very good indeed, if we can only find the gentleman.'

'I then went on to the Cecil Hotel and saw the head waiter of the

coffee-room. He remembered the commissionaire being sent for: he saw the

bundle of bank-notes brought back from the bank, and he remembers the

old gentleman very well. Says he should certainly know him again.'

'Did he describe him?'

'There didn't seem anything particular to describe. He was of average

height, so to speak, dressed in grey trousers and a black frock-coat,

and was grey-haired. Much as if I was to describe you.'

'Oh! The notes are stopped. Yet in three weeks there has been ample time

to get them all changed. Every note may have been changed into gold in

three weeks. An elderly gentleman: grey hair: average height: that tells

us nothing. Checkley, the thing has been done by some one who had, or

still has, access to my safe. Perhaps, in some way or other, keys have

been procured. In that case----' He stepped over to the safe and opened

a drawer. 'See, Checkley; this drawer is untouched: it is full of

jewellery and things which belonged to my mother. Nothing touched. Here

is a bag of spade guineas again--nothing taken. What do you say to that?

If the forger had possessed keys, he would, first of all, have cleared

out the things which he could turn into money without any difficulty and

very little risk. Nothing taken except that cheque, and the cheque book

replaced. What do you say to that? Eh?'

'I don't know what to say. I'm struck stupid. I never heard of such a

thing before.'

'Nor I. Why, it must have been done in this room, while the safe was

open, while I was actually present. That is the only solution possible.

Again, who has been in this room?'

'All the callers--I read their names to you--your clients.'

'They all sit in that chair. They never leave that chair so long as they

are with me.' He indicated the chair which stood at the corner of the

lawyer's great table at his left hand. Now the safe was in the far

corner, on the other side of the room. 'They could not possibly----

Checkley, the only two who could possibly have access to that safe in

office hours are yourself and Mr. Arundel.'

'Good heavens! sir--you can't believe--you can't actually think----'

'I believe nothing. I told you so before. I think nothing. I want the

facts.'

The room was long rather than square, lit by two large windows,

overlooking the gardens of New Square, Lincoln's Inn. The lawyer sat

with his back to the fire, protected by a cane-screen, before a large

table. On his left hand, at the corner of the table, stood the clients'

chair: on his right hand, between the two windows, was a small table

with a couple of drawers in it. And in the corner, to the left of any

one writing at the small table, and on the right hand of the lawyer, was

the open safe already mentioned. There were two doors, one communicating

with the clerk's room, the other opening directly on the stairs. The

latter was locked on the inside.

'Call Mr. Arundel,' said the chief.

While Checkley was gone, he walked to the window and observed that any

one sitting at the table could, by merely reaching out, take anything

from the safe and put it back again unobserved, if he himself happened

to be occupied or looking another way. His grave face became dark. He

returned to his own chair, and sat thinking, while his face grew darker

and his eyes harder, until Mr. Arundel appeared.

Athelstan Arundel was at this time a recently admitted member of the

respectable but too numerous family of solicitors. He was between two

and three and twenty years of age, a tall and handsome young fellow, of

a good manly type. He was an ex-articled clerk of the House, and he had

just been appointed a Managing Clerk until something could be found for

him. The Arundels were a City family of some importance: perhaps

something in a City Firm might presently be achieved by the united

influence of family and money. Meantime, here he was, at work, earning a

salary and gaining experience. Checkley--for his part, who was as

jealous of his master as only an old servant, or a young mistress, has

the right to be--had imagined symptoms or indications of a growing

preference or favour toward this young gentleman on the part of Mr.

Dering. Certainly, he had Mr. Arundel in his own office a good deal, and

gave him work of a most confidential character. Besides, Mr. Dering was

Executor and Trustee for young Arundel's mother, and he had been an old

friend and schoolfellow of his father, and had known the young man and

his two sisters from infancy.

'Mr. Arundel,' the lawyer began. At his own house, he addressed his ward

by his Christian name: in the office, as managing clerk, he prefixed the

courtesy title. 'An extremely disagreeable thing has happened here.

Nothing short of a forgery.--Don't interrupt me, if you please'--for the

young man looked as if he was about to practise his interjections.--'It

is a most surprising thing, I admit. You needn't say so, however. That

wastes time. A Forgery. On the fifth of this month, three weeks ago, a

cheque, apparently in my handwriting, and with my signature, so

skilfully executed as to deceive even Checkley and the manager of the

bank, was presented at my bank and duly cashed. The amount

is--large--720_l_.--and the sum was paid across the counter in ten-pound

notes, which are now stopped--if there are any left.' He kept his eyes

fixed on the young man, whose face betrayed no other emotion than that

of natural surprise. 'We shall doubtless trace these notes, and through

them, of course, the forger. We have already ascertained who presented

the cheque. You follow?'

'Certainly. There has been a forgery. The forged cheque has been cashed.

The notes are stopped. Have you any clue to the forgery--any

suspicions?'

'As yet, none. We are only beginning to collect the facts.' The lawyer

spoke in the coldest and most austere manner. 'I am laying them, one by

one, before you.'

Young Arundel bowed.

'Observe then, that the forged cheque belongs to a cheque book which

has been lying, forgotten by me, in this safe for two years. Here is the

book. Turn to the last counterfoil. Here is the cheque, the forged

cheque, which corresponds. You see?'

'Perfectly. The book has been in the safe for two years. It has been

taken out by someone--presumably the forger--the cheque has been forged;

the counterfoil filled up; and the book replaced. Why was all this

trouble taken? If the man had got the cheque, why did he fill up the

counterfoil? Why did he return the book? I beg your pardon.'

'Your questions are pertinent. I come to the next point. The safe is

never opened but by myself. It is open so long as I am in the room, and

at no other time.'

'Certainly, I know that.'

'Very well. The man who took out this cheque book, forged the cheque,

and replaced the book, must have done it in my very presence.'

'Oh! Could not someone--somehow--have got a key?'

'I thought of that. It is possible. But the drawers are full of

valuables, jewellery--curios--all kinds of things which could easily be

turned into money. And they were not touched. Now, had the safe been

opened by a key, these things would certainly have vanished.'

'So it would seem.'

'These are the main facts, Mr. Arundel. Oh! one more. We have found the

messenger who cashed the cheque. Perhaps there are one or two other

points of more or less importance. There is only one more point I wish

to bring before you. Of course--I make no charge--I insinuate none. But

this must be remembered--there are only two persons who have had access

to this safe in such a manner as to make it possible for them to take

anything out of it-- Checkley----'

'No--no--no,' cried the old man.

'And you yourself. At the time of the robbery, you were working at that

table with the safe open and within reach of your left hand. This is a

fact, mind--one of the facts of the case--not a charge.'

'What?' cried the young man, his cheek aflame--'you mean----'

'I mean nothing--nothing at all. I want you--and Checkley--who alone

have used this room, not counting callers who sat in that chair--to know

the facts.'

'The facts--yes--of course--the facts. Well'--he spoke rapidly and a

little incoherently--'it is true that I worked here--but--oh! it is

absurd. I know nothing of any cheque book lying in your safe. I was

working at this table'--he went to the table--'sitting in this chair.

How could I get up and search about in a safe for an unknown and

unsuspected cheque book before your very eyes?'

'I do not know. It seems impossible. I only desire you to consider, with

me, the facts.'

Had Mr. Dering spoken just a little less coldly, with just a little less

dryness in his manner, what followed would perhaps have been different.

'Yes--the facts,' repeated the young man. 'Well--let us get at the

facts. The chief fact is that whoever took that cheque and filled it up

must have known the existence of that cheque book more than two years

old.'

'It would seem so.'

'Who could know about that old cheque book? Only one who had been about

your office more than two years, or one who had had opportunities of

examining the safe. Now, you sat there--I sat here'--he seated himself,

only turning the chair round. 'How is it possible for a man sitting here

to take anything out of that safe without your seeing him? How is it

possible for him, without your knowledge, to examine slowly and

carefully the contents of the safe?'

'Everything is possible,' said Mr. Dering, still coldly. 'Let us not

argue on possibilities. We have certain facts before us. By the help of

these, I shall hope to find out others.'

'At five o'clock every day I put the work in the drawer of this table

and I go away.' He opened the drawer, as if to illustrate this

unimportant fact. He saw in it two or three pieces of paper with writing

on them. He took them out. 'Good Heavens!' he cried. 'They are

imitations of your handwriting.'

Checkley crossed the room swiftly, snatched them from him, and laid them

before his master. 'Imitations of your handwriting,' he said,

'imitations--exercises in forgery--practice makes perfect. Found in the

drawer. Now!'

Mr. Dering looked at the papers and laid them beside the forged cheque.

'An additional fact,' he said. 'These are certainly imitations. The

probable conclusion is that they were made by the same hand that forged

this cheque.'

'Found in the drawer,' said Checkley, 'used by Mr. Arundel. Never by me.

Ah! The only two, are we? These imitations will prove that I'm not in

it.'

'The fact that these imitations are found in the drawer,' said Mr.

Dering, 'is a fact which may or may not be important.'

'What?' cried the young man, flaring up. 'You think that I made those

imitations?'

'I do not permit myself--yet--to make any conclusions at all.

Everything, however, is possible.'

Then this foolish young man lost his temper and his head.

'You have known me all my life,' he cried. 'You have known me and all my

people. Yet at the first moment you are ready to believe that I have

committed a most abominable forgery! You--my father's oldest friend--my

mother's Trustee! My own Guardian! You!'

'Pardon me. There are certain facts in this case. I have laid them

before you. I have shown----'

'To suspect me,' Arundel repeated, 'and all the time another man--that

man--your clerk--who knows everything ever done in this office, is in

and about the place all day long.'

'The imitations,' said Checkley quietly, 'were found in his own

drawer--by himself.'

'Who put them there? Who made them? You--villain and scoundrel!'

'Stop, stop,' said Mr. Dering coldly. 'We go too fast. Let us first

prove our facts. We will then proceed to conclusions.'

'Well, sir, you clearly believe that I forged your name and robbed you

of all this money. I have not got ten pounds in the world; but that is

not, I suppose, a fact which bears on the case. You think I have seven

hundred pounds somewhere. Very good. Think so, if you please. Meanwhile,

I am not going to stay in the service of a man who is capable of

thinking such a thing. I leave your service--at once. Get some one else

to serve you--somebody who likes being charged with forgery and theft.'

He flung himself out of the room and banged the door behind him.

'He has run away,' said Checkley. 'Actually, run away at the very

outset! What do you think now?'

'I do not think. We shall, I daresay, find out the truth in due course.

Meantime, these documents will remain in my keeping.'

'Only, I hope, sir,' the clerk began, 'that after what you've just seen

and heard, after such insolence and running away and all----'

'Don't be an ass, Checkley. So far as appearances go, no one could get

at the safe except you and Arundel. So far as the ascertained facts go,

there is nothing to connect either of you with the thing. He is a

foolish young man; and if he is innocent, which we must, I suppose,

believe'--but his look did not convey the idea of robust faith--'he will

come back when he has cooled down.'

'The imitations of your handwriting in his drawer----'

'The man who forged the cheque,' said Mr. Dering, 'whoever he was, could

easily have written those imitations. I shall see that hot-headed boy's

mother, and bring him to reason.--Now, Checkley, we will resume work.

And not a word of this business, if you please, outside. You have

yourself to think of as well, remember. You, as well as that boy, have

access to the safe. Enough--enough.'

Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No

omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such

a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good

measured miles from Lincoln's Inn. He walked the whole way, walking

through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and

cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them. When he reached

home, he dashed into the drawing-room, where he found his two

sisters--Hilda and Elsie--one of them a girl of eighteen, the other of

thirteen. With flaming cheeks and fiery eyes he delivered himself of his

story; he hurled it at their heads; he called upon them to share his

indignation, and to join with him in scorn and contempt of the

man--their supposed best friend, Trustee, Guardian, Adviser--their

father's best friend--who had done this thing--who had accused him, on

the bare evidence of two or three circumstantial facts, of such a crime!

There is something magnetic in all great emotions: one proof of their

reality is that they are magnetic. It is only an actor who can endow an

assumed emotion with magnetism. Elsie, the younger girl, fell into a

corresponding sympathy of wrath: she was equal to the occasion: passion

for passion, she joined him and fed the flame. But--for all persons are

not magnetic--the elder sister remained cold. From time to time she

wanted to know exactly what Mr. Dering had said: this her brother was

too angry to remember: she was pained and puzzled: she neither soothed

him nor sympathised with him.

Then the mother returned, and the whole story was told again, Elsie

assisting. Now, Mrs. Arundel was a woman of great sense: a practical

woman: a woman of keen judgment. She prided herself upon the possession

of these qualities, which are not supposed to be especially feminine.

She heard the story with disturbed face and knitted brow.

'Surely,' she said, 'what you tell me, Athelstan, is beyond belief. Mr.

Dering, of all men, to accuse you--you--of such a thing! It is

impossible.'

'I wish it was impossible. He accuses me of forging that cheque for

720_l_. He says that while I was working in his office for him, a

fortnight ago, I took a certain cheque book out of the safe, forged his

writing on a cheque, and returned the cheque book. This is what he says.

Do you call that accusing, or don't you?'

'Certainly. If he says that. But how can he--Mr. Dering--the most exact

and careful of men? I will drive to Lincoln's Inn at once and find out.

My dear boy, pray calm yourself. There is--there must be--some terrible

mistake.'

She went immediately; and she had a long interview with the solicitor.

Mr. Dering was evidently much disturbed by what had happened. He did not

receive her as he usually received his clients, sitting in his

arm-chair. He pushed back the chair and stood up, leaning a hand on the

back of it, a tall, thin, erect figure, gray-haired, austere of face.

There was little to reassure the mother in that face. The very trouble

of it made her heart sink.

'I certainly have not accused Athelstan,' he said. 'It is, however,

quite true that there has been a robbery here, and that of a large sum

of money--no less than 720_l_.'

'But what has that to do with my boy?'

'We have made a few preliminary inquiries. I will do for you, Mrs.

Arundel, what I did for your son, and you shall yourself understand

what connection those inquiries have with him.'

He proceeded coldly and without comment to set forth the case so far as

he had got at the facts. As he went on, the mother's heart became as

heavy as lead. Before he finished, she was certain. There is, you see, a

way of presenting a case without comment which is more efficacious than

any amount of talk; and Mrs. Arundel plainly perceived--which was indeed

the case--that the lawyer had by this time little doubt in his own mind

that her son had done this thing.

'I thought it right,' he continued, 'to lay before him these facts at

the outset. If he is innocent, I thought, he will be the better able to

prove his innocence, and perhaps to find the guilty person. If he is

guilty, he may be led to confession or restitution. The facts about the

cheque book and the safe are very clear. I am certain that the safe has

not been opened by any other key. The only persons who have had access

to it are Checkley and your son Athelstan. As for Checkley--he couldn't

do it, he could not possibly do it. The thing is quite beyond him.'

Mrs. Arundel groaned. 'This is terrible!' she said.

'Meantime, the notes are numbered: they may be traced: they are stopped:

we shall certainly find the criminal by means of those notes.'

'Mr. Dering'--Mrs. Arundel rose and laid her hand on his--'you are our

very old friend. Tell me--if this wretched boy goes away--if he gives

back the money that remains--if I find the rest--will there be--any

further--investigation?'

'To compound a felony is a crime. It is, however, one of those crimes

which men sometimes commit without repentance or shame. My dear lady, if

he will confess and restore--we shall see.'

Mrs. Arundel drove home again. She came away fully persuaded in her own

mind that her son--her only son--and none other, must be that guilty

person. She knew Mr. Dering's room well: she had sat there hundreds of

times: she knew the safe: she knew old Checkley. She perceived the

enormous improbability of this ancient clerk's doing such a thing. She

knew, again, what temptations assail a young man in London: she saw what

her Trustee thought of it: and she jumped to the conclusion that her

son--and none other--was the guilty person. She even saw how he must

have done it: she saw the quick look while Mr. Dering's back was turned:

the snatching of the cheque book: the quick replacing it. Her very

keenness of judgment helped her to the conviction. Women less clever

would have been slower to believe. Shameful, miserable termination of

all her hopes for her boy's career! But that she could think of

afterwards. For the moment the only thing was to get the boy away--to

induce him to confess--and to get him away.

He was calmer when she got home, but he was still talking about

the thing: he would wait till the right man was discovered: then

he would have old Dering on his knees. The thing would be set right

in a few days. He had no fear of any delay. He was quite certain

that it was Checkley--that old villain. Oh! He couldn't do it by

himself, of course--nobody could believe that of him. He had

accomplices--confederates--behind him. Checkley's part of the job was to

steal the cheque book and give it to his confederates and share the

swag.

'Well, mother?' he asked.

His mother sat down. She looked pale and wretched.

'Mother,' cried Hilda, the elder sister. 'Quick! What has happened? What

does Mr. Dering say?'

'He accuses nobody,' she replied in a hard dry voice. 'But----'

'But what?' asked Hilda.

'He told me everything--everything--and--and----Oh!' She burst into sobs

and crying, though she despised women who cry. 'It is terrible-- It is

terrible-- It is incredible. Yet, what can I think? What can any one

think? Leave us, Hilda. Leave us, Elsie.' The two girls went out

unwillingly. 'Oh! my son--how can I believe it? And yet--on the one

hand, a boy of two-and-twenty exposed to all the temptations of town: on

the other, an old clerk of fifty years' service and integrity. And when

the facts are laid before you both--calmly and coldly--you fly into a

rage and run away, while Checkley calmly remains to await the inquiry.'

Mrs. Arundel had been accustomed all her life to consider Mr. Dering as

the wisest of men. She felt instinctively that he regarded her son with

suspicion: she heard all the facts: she jumped to the conclusion that he

was a prodigal and a profligate: that he had fallen into evil ways, and

spent money in riotous living: she concluded that he had committed these

crimes in order to get more money for more skittles and oranges.

'Athelstan '--she laid her hand upon his arm, but did not dare to lift

her eyes and behold that guilty face--'Athelstan'--confess--make

reparation so far as you can--confess--oh! my son--my son! You will be

caught and tried and found guilty, and--oh! I cannot say it--through the

notes which you have changed. They are all known and stopped.'

The boy's wrath was now changed to madness.

'You!' he cried. 'You! My own mother! You believe it, no! Oh! we are all

going mad together. What? Then I am turned out of this house, as I am

turned out of my place. I go, then--I go; and'--here he swore a mighty

oath, as strong as anybody out of Spain can make them--'I will

never--never--never come home again till you come yourself to beg

forgiveness--you--my own mother!'

Outside, in the hall, his sisters stood, waiting and trembling.

'Athelstan,' cried the elder, 'what, in the name of Heaven, have you

done?'

'Go, ask my mother. She will tell you. She knows, it seems, better than

I know myself. I am driven away by my own mother. She says that I am

guilty of--of--of forgery.'

'If she says so, Athelstan,' his sister replied coldly, 'she must have

her reasons. She would not drive you out of the house for nothing. Don't

glare like that. Prove your innocence.'

'What? You, too? Oh! I am driven away by my sisters as well----'

'No, Athelstan--no,' cried Elsie, catching his hand. 'Not both your

sisters.'

'My poor child;' he stooped and kissed her. 'They will make you believe

what they believe. Good Heavens! They make haste to believe it; they are

glad to believe it.'

'No--no. Don't go, Athelstan.' Elsie threw her arms about him. 'Stay,

and show that they are wrong. Oh! you are innocent. I will

never--never--never believe it.'

He kissed her again, and tore himself away. The street door slammed

behind him: they heard his footsteps as he strode away. He had gone.

Then Elsie fell into loud weeping and wailing. But Hilda went to comfort

her mother.

'Mother,' she said, 'did he really, really and truly do it?'

'What else can I believe? Either he did it or that old clerk. Where is

he?'

'He is gone. He says he will come back when his innocence is proved.

Mother, if he is innocent, why does he run away? It's foolish to say

that it is because we believe it. I've said nothing except that you

couldn't believe it without reasons. Innocent young men don't run away

when they are charged with robbery. They stay and fight it out.

Athelstan should have stayed.'

Later on, when they were both a little recovered, Hilda tried to

consider the subject more calmly. She had not her mother's cleverness,

but she was not without parts. The following remarks--made by a girl of

eighteen--prove so much.

'Mother,' she said, 'perhaps it is better, so long as this suspicion

rests upon him, that he should be away. We shall certainly know where

he is: he will want money, and will write for it. If it should prove

that somebody else did the thing, we can easily bring him back as a

martyr--for my own part I should be so glad that I would willingly

beg his pardon on my knees--and of course we could easily get him

replaced in the office. If it is proved that he did do it--and that,

you think, they will be certain to find out--Mr. Dering, for your sake,

will be ready to hush it up--perhaps we may get the notes back--he

can't have used them all; in any case it will be a great comfort to

feel that he is out of the way: a brother convicted--tried in open

court--sentenced--oh!' She shuddered. 'We should never get over it:

never, never! It would be a most dreadful thing for Elsie and me. As for

his going away, if people ask why he is gone and where, we must invent

something--we can easily make up a story--hint that he has been

wild--there is no disgrace, happily, about a young man being wild--that

is the only thing that reconciles one to the horrid selfishness of wild

young men--and if, by going away in a pretended rage, Athelstan has

really enabled us to escape a horrid scandal--why, mother, in that

case--we may confess that the blow has been by Providence most

mercifully softened for us--most mercifully. We ought to consider that,

mother.'

'Yes, dear, yes. But he is gone. Athelstan is gone. And his future

seems ruined. There is no hope for him. I can see no hope whatever. My

dear, he was so promising. I thought that all the family influence would

be his--we haven't got a single City solicitor in the whole family. I

thought that he was so clever and so ambitious and so eager to get on

and make money and be a credit to the family. Solicitors do

sometimes--especially City solicitors--become so very, very rich; and

now it is all gone and done--and nothing left to hope but the miserable

wish that there should be no scandal.'

'It is indeed dreadful. But still--consider--no scandal. Mother, I think

we should find out, if we can, something about his private life--how he

has been living. He has been out a good deal of evenings lately. If

there is any--any person--on whom he has been tempted to spend money--if

he has been gambling--or betting, or any of the things that I read

of'--this young lady, thanks to the beneficent assistance of certain

works of fiction, was tolerably acquainted with the ways of young men

and their temptations--'it would be a satisfaction to know it at least.'

The ladies of a family where there is a 'wild' young man do not

generally find it easy to get at the facts of his wildness: these remain

locked up in the bosoms of his companions. No details could be learned

about any wildness--quite the contrary. He seemed, so far as could be

learned, to have led a very quiet and regular life. 'But then,' said the

philosopher of eighteen, quoting from a novel, 'men shelter each other.

They are all bad together.'

But--no scandal.

Everybody knows that kind of brother or sister by whom all family events

are considered with a view to the scandal likely to be caused and the

personal injury resulting to himself; or the envy that will follow and

the personal advantage accruing from that event. That her brother was

perhaps a shameful criminal might be considered by Hilda Arundel later

on: at first, she was only capable of perceiving that this horrid fact,

unless it could be hidden away and kept secret, might very materially

injure herself.

Almost naturally, she folded her hands sweetly and laid her comely head

a little on one side--it is an attitude of resignation which may be

observed in certain pictures of saints and holy women. Hilda knew many

little attitudes. Also, quite naturally, she glanced at a mirror on the

wall and observed that her pose was one of sorrow borne with Christian

resignation.

We must blame neither Hilda nor her mother. The case as put by Mr.

Dering in the form of plain fact without any comment, did seem very

black indeed against Athelstan. In every family the first feeling in

such a case--it is the instinct of self-preservation--is to hush up the

thing if possible--to avoid a scandal.

Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery--with a

verdict of guilty--is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It

takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment,

when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability: it ruins

the chances of the girls: it blights the prospects of the boys: it

drives away friends: it is a black spot which all the soaps ever

advertised could never wash off. Therefore, while the mother hoped,

first of all, that the boy would escape the clutch of the law, Hilda

was, first of all, grateful that there would be no scandal. Mr. Dering

would not talk about it. The thing would not interfere with her own

prospects. It was sad: it was miserable; but yet--no scandal. With what

a deep, deep sigh of satisfaction did the young lady repeat that there

would probably be no scandal!

As for Elsie, that child went about for many days with tearful eyes, red

cheeks, and a swollen nose. She was rebellious and sharp with her

mother. And to her sister she refused to speak. The days went on. They

became weeks, months, years. Otherwise they would not have been days.

Nothing at all was heard of Athelstan. He sent no letters to any one: he

did not even write for money: they knew not where he was or what he was

doing. He disappeared. It was understood that there had been wildness.

Now--which was very remarkable--though the forger had had a clear run of

three weeks, it could not be discovered that any of the notes had been

presented. Perhaps they were sent abroad: yet foreign and colonial banks

would know the numbers of stopped notes. And towards the discovery of

the forger no further step had been taken. The commissionaire who took

the cheque had been, as you have seen, easily found: he said he should

know the old gentleman who gave him the forged draft to cash. He said,

being again interrogated, that Checkley was not in the least like that

old gentleman. What could be thought, then? Athelstan must have 'made

up' as an old man: he was fond of private theatricals: he could make up

very well: of course he had made up. And then, this point being settled,

they left off talking about the business.

Other things happened--important things--which made the memory of the

prodigal son to wax dim. First of all came Hilda's case. She was a

graceful young person, with features of great regularity: her expression

was cold, her eyes were hard, and her lips were a little thin, but these

things at nineteen are hardly perceived. She was that sort of a girl who

seems created for the express purpose, first of wearing and beautifying

costly raiment, and next of sitting in a splendid vehicle. The finer the

dress, the more beautiful she looked. The grander the carriage, the more

queenly she seemed. In rags her coldness would be arctic, her hardness

would be granitic: in silk and velvet she became a goddess. It was

therefore most fitting that she should marry a rich man. Now, to be rich

in these days, one must be old. It is the price that one has to pay for

wealth. Sometimes one pays the price and gets old, and yet does not get

what one has paid for. That seems hardly fair. There was a certain rich

man, Mr. Dering's younger brother, Sir Samuel Dering, Knight, one of the

most substantial City men, a man who had a house in Kensington Palace

Gardens, a yacht, a country place in Sussex, and piles of papers in a

safe, meaning investments. He was a widower without encumbrance: he was

fifty-seven years of age, not yet decayed: he wanted a wife to be the

mistress of his house, and to look well at his dinner-parties. Of

course, when one does want a wife, at any age, one wants her young.

Hilda Arundel, his brother's ward, looked as if she would discharge the

duties required of the position admirably. He suggested the arrangement

to his brother, who spoke about it.

There was a good deal of taking about it. Mrs. Arundel showed that she

knew the value of her daughter; but there was no doubt about the

conclusion of the matter. There was a grand wedding, at which all the

richer Arundels were present, and none of the poor relations. Mr.

Dering, the young lady's guardian, gave her away; Hilda became Lady

Dering, and has been perfectly happy ever since. Elsie remained with her

mother. Her brother was never spoken of between them. But she

remembered him, and she was firm in her conviction that his innocence

would be some day established.

After five years, nothing at all having been heard of the notes, Mr.

Dering made application to the Bank of England, and received from them

the sum of 720_l_. in new crisp notes in the place of those of which he

had been robbed, so that the actual loss at 4 per cent. compound

interest amounted to no more than 155_l_. 19_s_. 9-3/4_d_., which is

more than one likes to lose, yet is not actually embarrassing to a man

whose income is about ten thousand a year. He ceased to think about the

business altogether, except as a disagreeable episode of his office.

Then Athelstan Arundel became completely forgotten. His old friends, the

young men with whom he had played and sported, only remembered him from

time to time as a fellow who had come to some unknown grief, and had

gone away. There is always some young fellow in every set of young

fellows who gets into some scrape, and so leaves the circle, and is no

more seen or heard of. We go on just the same without him: very seldom

is such a man remembered long: it is the way of the world: we cannot

stop to lament over the fallen: we must push on: others fall: close up

the ranks: push on: Time drives: the memory of the fallen swiftly waxes

dim.

Fours years or so after the mysterious business of Edmund Gray, Mr.

Dering received a letter with an American stamp marked 'Private and

Confidential.' He laid this aside until he had got through the business

letters; then he opened it. He turned first to the signature. 'Ha!' he

said, 'Athelstan Arundel. At last. Now we shall see. We shall see.'

He expected a full confession of the crime. We should never expect, says

the Sage, what we desire, because we never obtain what we expect. It

would have made Mr. Dering more comfortable in his mind had the letter

contained a confession. Of course, Athelstan had done it. Nobody else

could have done it. Yet when he thought about the business at all, there

always arose in his mind an uneasy feeling that perhaps the boy had been

treated unwisely. It might have been more prudent to have kept the facts

from him, although they pointed so strongly in his direction, until

proof positive was obtained. It might, again, have been better had the

facts been put before him with a few words of confidence, even though

that confidence did not exist. Time only strengthened Mr. Dering's

suspicions against the young man. The thing _must_ have been done by

Checkley or by him. Now, Checkley was not able, if he had wished, to

imitate any handwriting. No! It was done by Athelstan. Why he did it,

what he got by it, seeing that those notes had never been presented, no

one could explain. But he did it--he did it. That was certain.

Mr. Dering therefore began to read the letter with interest. Its

commencement was without any opening words of respect or friendliness.

And it was not by any means the letter of a wicked man turning away from

his wickedness. Not a word of repentance from beginning to end.

'Four years ago,' Mr. Dering read, 'you drove me from your place and

changed my whole life, by a suspicion--amounting to a charge--of the

gravest kind. You assumed, without explanation or examination, that

because certain facts seemed to point in a certain direction, I had been

guilty of an enormous crime, that I had robbed my father's oldest

friend, my mother's Trustee, my own guardian, my employer, of a great

sum of money. You never asked yourself if this suspicion was justified

by any conduct of mine--you jumped at it.'

'Quite wrong. Wilfully wrong,' said Mr. Dering. 'I laid the facts before

him. Nothing but the facts. I brought no charge.'

'I daresay that by this time the criminal has been long since detected.

Had I remained, I would have brought the thing home to him. For of

course it could be none other than your clerk. I have thought over the

case thousands of times. The man who forged the cheque must have been

one of two--either your clerk--the man Checkley--or myself. It did not

take you long, I apprehend, to learn the truth. You would discover it

through the presentation of the notes.'--'This is a very crafty letter,'

said Mr. Dering; 'when he never presented any of the notes. Very

crafty.' He resumed the letter--'Enough said about that. I daresay,

however, that I shall some day or other--before you are dead, I

hope--return in order to receive some expression of sorrow from you if

you can feel shame.'--'Certainly not,' said Mr. Dering with

decision.--'Meantime, there is a service which I must ask of you for

the sake of my people. There is no one else whom I can ask. It is the

reason of my writing this letter.

'I came away with ten pounds--all I had in the world--in my pocket. Not

seven hundred and twenty pounds, as you imagined or suspected. Ten

pounds. With that slender capital I got across the Atlantic. I have now

made twelve thousand pounds. I made it in a very short time by

extraordinary good luck.' Mr. Dering laid down the letter and

considered. Twelve thousand pounds might be made--perhaps--by great good

luck--with a start of seven hundred and twenty, but hardly with ten

pounds. A silver reef--or more likely a gambling table, or a second

crime, or a series of crimes. It will be observed that his opinion of

the young man was now very bad indeed: otherwise, he would have

reflected that as none of those notes had been presented, none of them

had been used. Even if an English ten-pound note is converted into

American dollars, the note comes home before ten years. 'Extraordinary

good luck.' He read the words again, and shook his head. 'Now, I want

you to take charge of this money, to say nothing at all about it, to

keep the matter a profound secret, to invest it or put it in some place

of safety, where confidential clerks with a taste for forgery cannot get

at it, and to give it, on her twenty-first birthday, to my sister Elsie.

Do not tell her or anybody from whom the money comes. Do not tell

anybody that you have heard from me. When I came away, she was the only

one of all my friends and people who declared that she believed in me. I

now strip myself of my whole possessions in order to show this mark of

my love and gratitude towards her. In sending you this money I go back

to the ten pounds with which I started.'

Mr. Dering laid the letter down. The words, somehow, seemed to ring

true. Could the boy--after all----? He shook his head, and went on. 'You

will give Elsie this money on her twenty-first birthday, to be settled

on her for herself.'

'ATHELSTAN ARUNDEL.'

The letter was dated, but no address was given. The post-mark was Idaho,

which, as we all know, belongs to a Western State.

He looked into the envelope. There fell out a paper, which was a draft

on a well-known London Firm, payable to his order for twelve thousand

and fifty pounds.

'This is very unbusiness-like,' said Mr. Dering. 'He puts all this money

into my hands, and vanishes. These are the ways he learns in America, I

suppose. Puts the money blindly in my hands without giving me the means

of communicating with him. Then he vanishes. How could he prove that it

was a Trust? Well, if I could only think--but I cannot--the

circumstantial evidence is too strong--that the boy was innocent--I

should be very sorry for him. As for Elsie--she must be eighteen

now--about eighteen--she will get this windfall in three years or so. It

will be a wonderful lift for her. Perhaps it may make all the difference

in her future! If I could only think that the boy was innocent--a clever

lad, too--which makes his guilt more probable. But I can't--no--I can't.

Either Checkley or that boy--and Checkley couldn't do it. He couldn't if

he were to try. What did the boy do it for? And what did he do with the

notes?'

CHAPTER I

UP THE RIVER

'Can you not be content, George?' asked the girl sitting in the stern.

'I think that I want nothing more than this. If we could only go on

always, and always, and always, just like this.' She had taken off her

right-hand glove, and she was dipping her fingers into the cool waters

of the river as the boat slowly drifted down stream. 'Always like this,'

she repeated softly. 'With you close to me--so that I could touch you if

I wanted to--so that I could feel safe, you know--the sun behind us,

warm and splendid, such a sweet and fragrant air about us, trees and

gardens and fields and lanes on either side--and both of us always

young, George, and--and nice to look at, and all the world before us.'

She, for one, was not only young and nice to look upon, but fair--very

fair to look upon. Even young persons of her own sex, critics and

specialists in the Art and Science of Beauty--rivals as well--had to

confess that Elsie was rather pretty. I believe that few such critics

ever go farther. She was, to begin with, of sufficient stature, in a

time when dumpy women are not considered, and when height is a first

necessity of comeliness: she paid, next, such obedience to the laws of

figure as becomes the age of twenty, and is, with stature, rigorously

demanded at this end of the century. Her chief points, perhaps, lay in

her eyes, which were of a darker shade of blue than is common. They were

soft, yet not languid; they were full of light; they were large, and yet

they could be quick. Her face was subject to sudden changes that made it

like a spring-time sky of shower, rainbow, sunshine, and surprise. Her

hair was of a very common brown, neither dark nor light. She was

attired, this evening, in a simple gray frock of nun's cloth with a

bunch of white roses on her left shoulder.

When one says that her companion was a young man, nearly all is said,

because the young men of the present day are surprisingly alike.

Thousands of young men can be found like George Austin: they are all

excellent fellows, of much higher principles, on some subjects, than

their fathers before them; not remarkably intellectual, to judge by

their school record: yet with intelligence and application enough to get

through their examinations moderately: for the most part they do pass

them with moderate success: they are not ambitious of obtaining any of

the great prizes--which, indeed, they know to be out of their reach--but

they always set before themselves and keep always well in sight the

ideal suburban villa and the wife: they always work steadily, if not

feverishly, with the view of securing these two blessings; they always

hope to secure an income that will enable them to maintain that

wife--with a possible following of babies--in silk attire (for Sundays);

in ease as to household allowance; and in such freedom of general

expenditure as may enable her to stand up among her neighbours in church

without a blush.

The world is quite full of such men: they form the rank and file, the

legionaries: their opinion on the subject of labour is purely

Scriptural--namely, that it is a curse: they do not particularly love

any kind of work: they would prefer, if they had the choice, to do

nothing at all: when they get their summer holiday they do nothing all

day long, with zeal: they give no more thought to their work than is

sufficient for the bread-winning: whether they are professional men or

trading men their view of professional work is solely that it brings in

the money. If such a young man becomes a clerk, he never tries to learn

any more after he has left school: he accepts the position: a clerk and

a servant he is, a clerk and a servant he will remain. If he is engaged

in trade he gives just so much attention to his business as will keep

his connection together: that and no more: others may soar: others may

become Universal Providers: for his part he is contented with his shop

and his Sunday feast. If he becomes a professional man he learns no more

of his science than is wanted every day. The lawyer passes his exam, and

puts away his law-books; he knows enough for professional purposes: the

doctor reads no more; he knows enough for the ordinary needs of the

G. P.: the schoolmaster lays aside his books; scholarship and science

interest him no longer; he has learned enough to teach his boys: the

curate makes no farther research into the history and foundations of his

church; he has learned enough. In a word, the average young man is

without ambition; he is inclined to be lazy; he loves the present far

more than the future--indeed, all his elders unite in letting him know

that his own is quite the most enviable time of life; he likes to enjoy

whatever he can afford, so that he very often eats up all his wages: he

does not read too much; he does not think too much: he does not vex his

soul too much with the problems of life--greater problems or lesser

problems--he accepts the teaching of his newspaper, and agrees with the

words and the wisdom of yesterday's leading article: he accepts

religion, politics, morals, social systems, constitutions, things

present, past, and future, as if--which is perfectly true--he had

nothing to do with them, and could not help it whatever was to happen.

He never wants to alter anything; he believes that all British

institutions are built on the solid rock and fashioned out of the

hardest granite: any exceptions to this rule, he thinks, have come

straight down from Heaven.

Observe, if you please, that this kind of young man confers the greatest

possible benefits upon the country. He ought to be made a Baronet at

least, if honours meant anything. His apparent sluggishness keeps us

from the constant changes which trouble some nations: his apparent lack

of ambition makes it easy for the restless spirits to rise: were the

country full of aspiring young men we should be for ever having civil

wars, revolutions, social upsydowns, new experiments, new religions, new

governments, new divisions of property, every year. Again, it is this

young man who by his steady attention to business, his readiness to work

as much as is wanted, but no more; his disregard of theories and

speculations, his tenacity; his honesty, his loyalty, his courage, and

his stout heart, has built up the British name so that there has never

been any name like unto it, nor ever will be again, for these solid and

substantial virtues.

Being, then, just a young man of the time, George Austin was naturally

like most young men in dress, in appearance, in language, and in

manners. And had it not been for the strange experience which he was to

undergo, he would have remained to this day just like other young men.

He was better looking than most, having a good figure, a well-shaped

head, and regular features, with eyes rather fuller of possibilities

than falls to the lot of most young men. In short, a good-looking

fellow, showing a capability for something or other in his firm mouth,

ample cheek, strong chin, and resolute carriage. He would have made a

fine soldier; but perhaps an unsuccessful general, for want of that

quality which in poets is called genius. In the same way he would in a

lower walk keep a business together, but would fail to achieve a great

fortune for lack of the same quality. As for his age, he was

seven-and-twenty.

'Always like this,' the girl went on. 'Always floating down the stream

under a summer sky. Always sweet looks and love and youth. It seems as

if we could never be unhappy, never be worried, never want anything, on

such an evening as this.' She turned and looked up the stream, on which

lay the glory of the sinking sun--she sighed. 'It is good to come out on

such an evening only to have a brief dream of what might be. When will

the world give up their foolish quarrels, and join together to make the

lives of all happy?'

They had been talking, among other things, of socialism, all out of

yesterday's leading article.

'When,' George replied, 'there is enough of good things to go round:

when we invent a way to make all men ready to do their share as well as

to devour it: when we find out how to make everybody contented with his

share.'

Elsie shook her head, which was filled with vague ideas--the ideas of a

restless and a doubting time. Then she went back to her original

proposition. 'Always like this, George--and never to get tired of it.

Time to stand still--nothing to change: never to get tired of it: never

to want anything else. That is Heaven, I suppose.'

'We are on earth, Elsie,' said her lover. 'And on earth Everything

changes. If we were to go on drifting down the stream, we should get

into trouble over the weir. To capsize would be a pretty interruption to

your Heaven, wouldn't it! And the sun will soon be setting and the river

will get misty; and the banks will grow ugly. But the chief thing is

that we shall both grow old. And there is such a lot that we have got to

do before we grow old.'

'Everything has to be done,' said Elsie. 'I suppose we have done nothing

yet.'

'We have got to get married for the first thing, before we grow old.'

'Couldn't you love an old woman, George?'

'Not so well, Elsie,' her lover replied, truthfully. 'At least, I think

not.--And oh! Elsie, whenever I do think of the future, my heart goes

down into my boots. For the prospect grows darker and darker.'

Elsie sighed. She knew, already, too well, what was in his mind. Plenty

of girls, in these days, know the familiar tale.

'Darker every day,' he repeated. 'They keep on crowding into the

profession by multitudes, as if there was room for any number. They

don't understand that what with the decay of the landed interest and of

the country towns, and the cutting down of the costs, and the work that

goes to accountants, there isn't half the business to do that there was.

There don't seem any partnerships to be had for love or money, because

the few people who have got a good thing have got no more than enough

for themselves. It is no use for the young fellows to start by

themselves; so they have got to take whatever they can get, and they are

glad to get even a hundred a year to begin with--and I am

seven-and-twenty, Elsie, and I'm drawing two hundred pounds a year.'

'Patience, George! something will turn up. You will find a partnership

somewhere.'

'My child, you might as well tell Robinson Crusoe that a boiled leg of

mutton with caper sauce was going to turn up on his desert island. We

must not hope for the impossible. I ought to be grateful, I suppose,

considering what other men are doing. I am planted in a good solid

House. It won't run away, so long as the old man lives.'

'And after that?'

'Well, Mr. Dering is seventy-five. But he will not die yet, not for a

long time to come. He is made of granite: he is never ill: he never

takes a holiday: he works harder than any of his people; and he keeps

longer hours. To be sure, if he were to die without taking a

partner--well--in that case, there would be an end of everything, I

suppose.--Elsie, here's the position.' She knew it already, too

well--but it pleased them both to parade the facts as if they were

something quite novel. 'Let us face it'--they were always facing it. 'I

am Managing Clerk to Dering & Son--I get two hundred pounds a year--I

have no prospect of anything better. I am bound all my life to be a

servant. Elsie, it is not a brilliant prospect: I found out at school

that it was best not to be too ambitious. But--a servant all my life--I

confess that did not enter into my head. If I knew any other trade, I

would cut the whole business. If there was any mortal thing in the whole

world by which I could keep myself, I would try it. But there's nothing.

I have but one trade. I can't write novels, or leading articles; I can't

play on any instrument; I can't paint or act or sing or anything--I am

only a solicitor--that's all. Only a solicitor who can't get on--a

clerk, Elsie. No wonder her ladyship turns up her nose--a clerk.' He

leaned his chin upon his hands and laughed the conventional laugh of the

young man down on his luck.

'Poor George!' she sighed. In such a case there are only two words of

consolation. One may say 'Poor George!' or one may say 'Patience!' There

is nothing else to say. Elsie first tried one method and then the other,

as a doctor tries first one remedy and then another when Nature sulks

and refuses to get well.

'And,' he went on, piling up the misery, 'I am in love with the sweetest

girl in the whole world--and she is in love with me!'

'Poor George!' she repeated with a smile. 'That is indeed a dreadful

misfortune.'

'I am wasting your youth, Elsie, as well as my own.'

'If it is wasted for your sake, George, it is well spent. Some day,

perhaps----'

'No--no--not some day--immediately--at once.' The young man changed

colour and his eyes sparkled. It was not the first time that he had

advanced this revolutionary proposal. 'Let prudence go to the----'

'Not there, George--oh! not there. To the winds, perhaps, or to that

famous city of Palestine. But not there. Why, we might never get her

back again--poor Prudence! And we shall be sure to want her all our

lives--very badly. We will, if you please, ask her to go for a short

voyage for the benefit of her health. We will give her six months' leave

of absence: but we shall want her services again after her holiday--if

you think we can do without her for so long.'

'For a whole twelvemonth, Elsie. Let us brave everything, get married at

once, live in a garret, and have a splendid time--for a whole

twelvemonth--on my two hundred pounds.'

'And am I to give up my painting?'

'Well, dear, you know you have not yet had a commission from anybody.'

'How can you say so, George? I have painted you--and my sister--and my

mother--and your sisters. I am sure that no studio even of an R.A. could

make a braver show of work. Well--I will give it up--until Prudence

returns. Is it to be a garret? A real garret, with sloping walls, where

you can only stand upright in the middle?'

'We call it a garret. It will take the form, I suppose, of a tiny house

in a cheap quarter. It will have six rooms, a garden in front and a

garden behind. The rent will be thirty pounds. For a whole twelvemonth

it will be a real slice of Eden, Elsie, and you shall be Eve.'

Elsie laughed. 'It will be great fun. We will make the Eden last longer

than a twelvemonth. I daresay I shall like it. Of course I shall have to

do everything for myself. To clean the doorstep will be equivalent to

taking exercise in the fresh air: to sweep the floors will be a kind of

afternoon dance or a game of lawn-tennis: to wash up the cups and

saucers will be only a change of amusement.--There is one thing,

George--one thing'--she became very serious--'I suppose you never--did

you ever witness the scouring of a frying-pan? I don't think I _could_

do that. And did you ever see beef-steaks before they are cooked? They

suggest the animal in the most terrible way. I don't really think I

could handle those bleeding lumps.'

'You shan't touch a frying-pan, and we will have nothing roasted or

fried. We will live on cold Australian beef eaten out of its native tin:

the potatoes shall be boiled in their skins. And perhaps--I don't

know--with two hundred pounds a year we could afford a servant--a very

little one--just a girl warranted not to eat too much.'

'What shall we do when our clothes are worn out?'

'The little maid will make some more for you, I suppose. We certainly

shall not be able to buy new things--not nice things, that is--and you

must have nice things, mustn't you?'

'I do like things to be nice,' she replied, smoothing her dainty skirts

with her dainty hand. 'George, where shall we find this house--formerly

Eve's own country villa before she--resigned her tenancy, you know?'

'There are places in London where whole streets are filled with families

living on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Checkley--the chief's

private clerk--lives in such a place: he told me so himself. He says

there is nobody in his parish who has got a bigger income than himself:

he's a little king among them because he gets four hundred pounds a

year, besides what he has saved--which is enormous piles. Elsie, my

dear, we must give up our present surroundings, and take up with

gentility in its cheapest form.'

'Can we not go on living among our own friends?'

George shook his head wisely. 'Impossible. Friendship means equality of

income. You can't live with people unless you do as they do. People of

the same means naturally live together. Next door to Lady Dering is

another rich Madam, not a clerk's wife. For my own part I shall sell my

dress clothes for what they will fetch--you can exchange your evening

things for morning things. That won't matter much. Who cares where we

live, or how we live, so that we live together? What do you say, Elsie

dear?'

'The garret I don't mind--nor the door-steps--and since you see your way

out of the difficulty of the frying-pan----'

'You will be of age next week, when you can please yourself.'

'Hilda gives me no peace nor rest. She says that there can be no

happiness without money. She has persuaded my mother that I am going to

certain starvation. She promises the most splendid establishment if I

will only be guided by her.'

'And marry a man fifty years older than yourself with one foot already

well in----'

'She says she has always been perfectly happy.--Well, George, you know

all that. Next Wednesday, which is my birthday, I am to have a grand

talk with my guardian. My mother hopes that he will bring me to my

senses. Hilda says that she trusts entirely to Mr. Dering's good sense.

I shall arm myself with all my obstinacy. Perhaps, George--who knows?--I

may persuade him to advance your salary.'

'No, Elsie. Not even you would persuade Mr. Dering to give a managing

clerk more than two hundred pounds a year. But arm yourself with all you

have got--don't forget any piece of that armour, child. The

breastplate--there was a poor damsel once who forgot that and was caught

by an appeal to her heart--nor the helmet--another poor damsel was once

caught by an appeal to her reason after forgetting the helmet. The

shield, of course, you will not forget--and for weapons, my dear, take

your sweet eyes and your lovely face and your winning voice--and I

swear that you will subdue even Mr. Dering himself--that hardened old

parchment.'

This was the kind of talk which these lovers held together whenever they

met. George was poor--the son of a clergyman, whose power of advancing

him ceased when he had paid the fees for admission. He was only a clerk,

and he saw no chance of being anything else but a clerk. Elsie could

bring nothing to the family nest, unless her mother made her an

allowance. Of this there could be no hope. The engagement was considered

deplorable: marriage, under the circumstances, simple madness. And Hilda

had done so well for herself, and could do so much for a sister so

pretty, so bright as Elsie! Oh! she was throwing away all her chances.

Did one ever hear of anything so lamentable? No regard for the family:

no ambition: no sense of what a girl owes to herself: no recognition nor

gratitude for the gift of good looks--as if beauty was given for the

mere purpose of pleasing a penniless lover! And to go and throw herself

away upon a twopenny lawyer's clerk!

'George,' she said seriously, 'I have thought it all out. If you really

mean it--if you really can face poverty--mind--it is harder--much--for a

man than a woman----'

'I can face everything--with you, Elsie,' replied the lover. Would he

have been a lover worth having if he had not made that answer? And,

indeed, he meant it, as every lover should.

'Then--George--what in the whole world is there for me unless I can make

my dear boy happy? I will marry you as soon as you please, rich or poor,

for better for worse--whatever they may say at home.--Will that do for

you, George?'

Since man is so constituted that his happiness wholly depends upon the

devotion of a woman, I believe that no dear boy ever had a better chance

of happiness than George Austin--only a managing clerk--with his Elsie.

And so this history begins where many end, with an engagement.