A MYSTERIOUS DISCOVERY
On Monday morning the Unexpected happened. It came with more than common
malignity. In fact, nothing more threatening to the persons chiefly
concerned in the calamity could have happened, though at first they were
happily spared the comprehension of its full significance.
There is a wide-spread superstition--so wide that it must be true--that
at those rare moments when one feels foolishly happy, at peace with all
the world, at peace with one's own conscience, all injuries forgiven,
the future stretched out before like a sunlit peaceful lake, some
disaster, great or small, is certainly imminent. 'Don't feel too happy,'
says Experience Universal. The Gods resent the happiness of man. Affect
a little anxiety. Assume a certain sadness. Restrain that dancing leg.
If you must shake it, do so as if by accident, or as if in terror--for
choice, shake it over an open grave in the churchyard. Stop singing that
song of joy; try the Lamentation of a Sinner instead. So will the Gods
be deceived. Above all, never allow yourself to believe that the Devil
is dead. He is not even asleep. By carefully observing these
precautions, a great many misfortunes may be averted. If, for instance,
George had gone home soberly on Sunday night instead of carrying on like
a schoolboy in playtime, obviously happy, and so inviting calamity,
perhaps he would never have been connected--as he afterwards
became--with this disaster.
You have heard that Mr. Dering was a man of method. Every morning he
arrived at his office at a quarter before ten: he hung up his coat and
hat in a recess behind the door: he then opened his safe with his own
hand. Checkley had already laid out the table with a clean blotting-pad,
pens, and letter-paper: he had also placed the letters of the day upon
the pad. The reading of the letters began the day's work. The lawyer
read them, made notes upon them, rang for his shorthand clerk, and
dictated answers. These dispatched, he turned to the standing business.
This morning, with the usual routine, he was plodding through the
letters of the day, taking up one after the other, and reading half
mechanically. Presently he opened one, and looked at the heading. 'Ellis
& Northcote,' he said. 'What do they want?' Then he suddenly stopped
short and started. Then he began the letter again, and again he stopped
short. It was from his brokers in the City, and it recommended a certain
advantageous investment. That was not in itself very extraordinary. But
it contained the following remarkable passage: 'You have made such great
transfers and so many sales during the last few months that you have
probably more profitable uses for money in your own business. But if you
should have a few thousands available at the present moment, it is a
most favourable opportunity----'
'Great transfers and many sales?' asked Mr. Dering, bewildered. 'What
transfers? What sales does he mean?'
He turned over the pages of his Diary. He could find no transactions of
the kind at all. Then he reflected again. 'I can remember no transfers,'
he murmured. 'Is this another trick of memory?'
Finally, he touched the bell upon his table.
'Checkley,' said Mr. Dering, on the appearance of the ancient clerk, 'I
have got a letter that I don't understand at all. I told you that my
memory was going. Now you see. Here is a letter about transfers and
sales of stock. What transfers? I don't understand one word of it. My
memory is not only going--it is gone.'
'Memory going? Nonsense,' the old man shook his head. 'No--no; your
memory is all right. Mine is as clear as a bell. So's yours. You eat
hearty. So do I. You sleep well. So do I. We're both as hale and hearty
as ever.'
'No--no. My memory is not what it was. I've told you so a dozen times. I
lose myself sometimes. Yesterday, when the clock struck twelve, I
thought it was only ten. I had lost two hours. And sometimes when I walk
home, I lose recollection of the walk afterwards.'
'Tut, tut; nobody of your age is such a young man as you. Why, you walk
like five-and-twenty. And you eat hearty--you eat very hearty.' His
words were encouraging, but he looked anxiously at his master. Truly,
there was no apparent decay in Mr. Dering. He sat as upright: he looked
as keen: he spoke as clearly, as ever.
'Well--about this letter. My friend Ellis, of Ellis & Northcote, writes
to me about something or other, and speaks of my effecting great
transfers and sales of stock lately. What does he mean?'
'You haven't bought or sold any stock lately, that I know of.'
'Well, you would have known.--Have we had to make any investments for
clients of late? There was the Dalton-Smith estate.'
'That was eleven months ago.'
'I suppose he must mean that--he can't mean anything else. Yes, that is
it. Well--I've got a Partner now, so that it matters less than it would
have done--had my memory played me tricks with no other responsible man
in the place.'
'You didn't want a partner,' said Checkley jealously. 'You had ME.'
'He must mean that,' Mr. Dering repeated. 'He can't mean anything else.
However--has my Bank book been made up lately?'
'Here it is. Made up last Friday. Nothing been in or out since.'
Mr. Dering had not looked at his book for three or four months. He was
well served: his people took care of his Bank book. Now he opened it,
and began to run his finger up and down the pages.
'Checkley,' he said, 'what has happened to Newcastle Corporation Stock?
The dividends were due some weeks ago. They are not paid yet. Is the
town gone bankrupt? And--eh? Where is Wolverhampton? And--and----' He
turned over the paper quickly. 'Checkley, there is something wrong with
the book. Not a single dividend of anything entered for the last four
months. There ought to have been about six hundred pounds in that time.'
'Queer mistake,' said Checkley. 'I'll take the book round to the Bank,
and have it corrected.'
'A very gross and careless mistake, I call it. Tell the manager I said
so. Let it be set right at once, Checkley--at once--and while you wait.
And bring it back to me.'
The Bank was in Chancery Lane, close to the office. The old clerk went
off on his errand.
'A very careless mistake,' the lawyer repeated; 'any clerk of mine who
committed such a mistake should be dismissed at once.' In fact, the
certainty of full and speedy justice kept Mr. Dering's clerks always at
a high level of efficiency.
He returned to the letters, apparently with no further uneasiness.
After ten minutes, Checkley taking longer than he expected, Mr. Dering
became aware that his attention was wandering. 'Great transfers and many
sales,' he repeated. 'After all, he must mean the investment of that
Dalton-Smith money. Yet that was only a single transaction. What can he
mean? He must have made a mistake. He must be thinking of another
client. It's his memory, not mine, that is confused. That's it--his
memory.'
The large open safe in the corner was filled with stacks of paper tied
up and endorsed. These papers contained, among other things, the
securities for the whole of Mr. Dering's private fortune, which was now
very considerable. Even the greatest City magnate would feel for Mr.
Dering the respect due to wealth if he knew the amount represented by
the contents of that safe. There they were, the leases, agreements,
mortgages, deeds, bonds, conveyances, shares, all the legal documents by
which the wicked man is prevented from seizing and appropriating the
rich man's savings. Formerly the rich man kept his money in a box with
iron bands. He locked up the box and put it in a recess in the cellar
contrived in the stone wall. If he was only a bourgeois, it was but a
little box, and he put it in a secret place (but everybody knew the
secret) at the head of his bed. If he were a peasant, he tied his money
up in a clout and put it under the hearthstone. In any case, thieves
broke in and stole those riches. Now, grown wiser, he has no box of
treasures at all: he lends it all in various directions and to various
associations and companies. Every rich man is a money-lender: he is
either Shylock the Great or Shylock the Less, according to the amount he
lends. Thieves can steal nothing but paper which is no use to them. As
we grow wiser still, we shall have nothing at all in any house that can
be of any use to any thief, because everything in the least valuable
will have its papers, without the production of which nothing of value
will be bought or sold. And all the gold and silver, whether forks or
mugs, will be lodged in the Bank. Then everybody will become honest, and
the Eighth Commandment will be forgotten.
Among Mr. Dering's papers were share certificates, bonds, and scrip of
various kinds, amounting in all to a great many thousands. Of this money
a sum of nearly thirteen thousand pounds belonged to Elsie, but was
still in her guardian's name. This, of course, was the fortune which had
fallen so unexpectedly into the girl's hands. The rest, amounting to
about twenty-five thousand pounds, was his own money. It represented of
course only a part, only a small part, of his very respectable fortune.
Mr. Dering, whose memory, if it was decaying, was certainly clear on
some points, looked across the room at the open safe, and began to think
of the papers representing their investments. He remembered perfectly
all the different Corporation Stock. All the water, gas, railway shares,
the Indian Stock and the Colonial Stock: the Debenture companies and the
Trading companies. He was foolish, he thought, to be disturbed by a mere
mistake of the broker: his recent lapses of memory had made him nervous:
there could be nothing wrong: but that clerk at the Bank ought to be
dismissed for carelessness. There could be nothing wrong: for the sake
of assurance he would turn out the papers: but there could be nothing
wrong.
He knew very well where they were; everything in his office had its
place: they were all tied up together in a bulky parcel, bestowed upon a
certain shelf or compartment of the safe. He pushed back his chair, got
up, and walked over to the safe.
Strange! The papers were not in their place. Again he felt the former
irritation at having forgotten something. It was always returning: every
day he seemed to be forgetting something. But the certificates must be
in the safe. He stood irresolutely looking at the piles of papers,
trying to think how they could have been displaced. While he was thus
wondering and gazing, Checkley came back, Bank-book in hand.
'There is something wrong,' he said. 'No dividends at all have been paid
to your account for the last three months. There is no mistake at the
Bank. I've seen the manager, and he's looked into it, and says there
can't be any mistake about the entries.'
'No dividends? What is the meaning of it, Checkley? No dividends? Why,
there's thirty-eight thousand pounds worth of stock. The certificates
are kept here in the safe; only, for some reason or other, I can't find
them at the moment. They must be in the safe somewhere. Just help me to
find them, will you?'
He began to search among the papers, at first a little anxiously, then
nervously, then feverishly.
'Where are they?' he cried, tossing over the bundles. 'They must be
here. They must be here. Let us turn out the whole contents of the safe.
We must find them. They have never been kept in any other place. Nobody
has touched them or seen them except myself.'
The old clerk pulled out all the papers in the safe and laid them in a
great pile on the table. When there was nothing left in the safe, they
began systematically to go through the whole. When they had finished,
they looked at each other blankly.
Everything was there except the certificates and scrip representing the
investment of thirty-eight thousand pounds. These alone could not be
found. They examined every packet: they opened every bundle of papers:
they looked into every folded sheet of parchment or foolscap. The
certificates were not in the safe. 'Well,' said the clerk at last,
'they're not here, you see.--Now then!'
In the midst of their perplexity happened a thing almost as surprising
and quite as unexpected as the loss of the certificates. Among the
papers was a small round parcel tied up with red tape. Checkley opened
it. 'Bank-notes,' he said, and laid it aside. They were not at the
moment looking for bank-notes, but for certificates. When he was
satisfied that these were not in the safe, and had thrown, so to speak,
the responsibility of finding out the cause of their absence upon his
master, he took up once more this bundle. It was, as he had said, a
bundle of bank-notes rolled up and tied round. He untied the knot and
laid them flat, turning up the corners and counting. 'Curious,' he said;
'they're all ten-pound notes--all ten-pound notes: there must be more
than fifty of them. And the outside one is covered with dust. What are
they?'
'How should I know?' said Mr. Dering irritably. 'Give them to me.
Bank-notes? There are no bank-notes in my safe.'
'Forgotten!' the clerk murmured. 'Clients' money, perhaps. But the
client would have asked for it. Five or six hundred pounds. How can five
hundred pounds be forgotten? Even a Rothschild would remember five
hundred pounds. Forgotten!' He glanced suspiciously at his master, and
shook his head, fumbling among the papers.
Mr. Dering snatched the bundle from his clerk. Truly, they were
bank-notes--ten-pound bank-notes; and they had been forgotten. The clerk
was right. There is no Firm in the world where a bundle worth five
hundred pounds could be forgotten and no inquiry made after it. Mr.
Dering stared blankly at them. 'Notes!' he cried--'notes! Ten-pound
notes. What notes?--Checkley, how did these notes come here?'
'If you don't know,' the clerk replied, 'nobody knows. You've got the
key of the safe.'
'Good Heavens!' If Mr. Dering had been twenty years younger, he would
have jumped. Men of seventy-five are not allowed to jump. The dignity of
age does not allow of jumping. 'This is most wonderful! Checkley, this
is most mysterious!'
'What is it?'
'These notes--the Devil is in the safe to-day, I do believe. First the
certificates are lost; that is, they can't be found--and next these
notes turn up.'
'What notes are they, then?'
'They are nothing else than the bank-notes paid across the counter for
that forged cheque of eight years ago. Oh! there is no doubt of it--none
whatever. I remember the numbers--the consecutive numbers--seventy-two
of them--seven hundred and twenty pounds. How did they get here? Who put
them in? Checkley, I say, how did these notes get here?'
He held the notes in his hand and asked these questions in pure
bewilderment, and not in the expectation of receiving any reply.
'The notes paid to that young gentleman when he forged the cheque,' said
Checkley, 'must have been put back in the safe by him. There's no other
way to account for it. He was afraid to present them. He heard you say
they were stopped, and he put them back. I think I see him doing it.
While he was flaring out, he done it--I'm sure I see him doing it.'
Mr. Dering received this suggestion without remark. He laid down the
notes and stared at his clerk. The two old men stared blankly at each
other. Perhaps Checkley's countenance, of the two, expressed the greater
astonishment.
'How did those notes get into the safe?' the lawyer repeated. 'This is
even a more wonderful thing than the mislaying of the certificates. You
took them out. Show me exactly where they were lying.'
'They were behind these books. See! the outside note is covered with
dust.'
'They must have been lying there all these years. In my safe! The very
notes paid across the counter to the forger's messenger! In my safe!
What does this mean? I feel as if I was going mad. I say-- What does all
this mean, Checkley?'
The clerk made answer slowly, repeating his former suggestion.
'Since young Arundel forged the cheque, young Arundel got the notes.
Since young Arundel got the notes, young Arundel must have put them
back. No one else could. When young Arundel put them back, he done it
because he was afraid of your finding out. He put them back unseen by
you that day when you charged him with the crime.'
'I did not charge him. I have charged no one.'
'I charged him, then, and you did not contradict. I'd charge him again
if he was here.'
'Any man may charge anything upon any other man. There was no proof
whatever, and none has ever come to light.'
'You're always for proofs that will convict a man. I only said that
nobody else could do the thing. As for putting the notes back again in
the safe, now I come to think of it'--his face became cunning and
malignant--'I do remember--yes--oh! yes--I clearly remember--I quite
clearly remember--I see it as plain as if it was before me. He got
sidling nearer and nearer the safe while we were talking: he got quite
close--so--he chucked a bundle in when he thought I wasn't looking. I
think--I almost think--I could swear to it.'
'Nonsense,' said the lawyer. 'Your memory is too clear. Tie up the
notes, Checkley, and put them back. They may help, perhaps, some time,
to find out the man. Meantime, let us go back to our search. Let us find
these certificates.'
* * * * *
They had now examined every packet in the safe: they had looked at every
paper: they had opened every book and searched through all the leaves.
There was no doubt left: the certificates were not there.
Checkley began to tie up the bundles again. His master sat down trying
to remember something--everything--that could account for their
disappearance.