the summer sun, scorching the walls of houses and the street pavements with its heat and its glare, threw itself in great might into the offices of greatorex and greatorex. josiah hurst and roland yorke were at their desk, writing side by side. jenner was at his, similarly occupied; mr. brown was holding a conversation in an undertone with some stranger, who had entered with him as he came in from an errand: a man of respectable, staid appearance. something in the cut of his clothes spoke of the provinces; and roland yorke, who never failed to look after other people's affairs, however pressing his own might be, decided that the stranger was a countryman, come up to see the sights of london.
"which i can't, except from the outside," grumbled roland to himself. "it's an awful sell to have to go about with empty pockets. i wonder who the fellow is?--he has been whispering there twenty minutes if he's been one. he looks as if he had plenty in his."
mr. bede greatorex came in and took his place at his desk. the head-clerk drew his head away from close proximity with his friend's, and commenced work; a hint to the stranger that their gossip must be at an end.
the latter asked for a pen and ink, wrote a few words on a leaf he tore from his pocketbook, folded it in two, and gave it to mr. brown.
"that is my address in town," he said. "let me see you tonight. i leave tomorrow at midday."
"good," replied mr. brown, glancing at the writing on the paper.
the stranger went out, lifting his hat to the room generally, and mr. brown put the paper away in his pocket.
"who was that?" asked mr. bede greatorex.
"a gentleman i used to know, sir, a farmer," was the reply. "i met him outside just now, and he came in with me. we got talking of old times."
"oh, i thought it was someone on business for the office" said mr. bede greatorex, half in apology for inquiring. his face looked worn as usual, his eyes bright and restless. some of the family could remember that when the late mrs. greatorex had first shown symptoms of the malady that killed her, her eyes had been unnaturally bright.
the work went on. the clocks drew near to twelve, and the sun in the heavens grew fiercer. roland began to look white and flustered. what with the work and what with the heat, he thought he might as well be roughing it at port natal. he was doing pretty well on the whole--for him--and did not get lectures above four times a week. to help liking roland was impossible; with his frank manners, his free good-nature, his unsophisticated mind, and his candid revelations in regard to himself, that would now and again plunge the office into private convulsions. it was also within the range of possibility that his good connections, and the fact of his being free of the house, running up at will to pay unexpected visits to mrs. greatorex, had their due weight in mr. brown's mind; for breaches of office etiquette were tolerated in roland that certainly would not have been in any other clerk, whether he was a gentleman or not. roland had chosen to constitute himself a kind of enfant de la maison; he and his brothers and sisters had been intimate with the joliffe girls; he could remember once having nearly got up a fight with louisa, now mrs. bede greatorex; and, to make roland understand that in running upstairs when he chose, darting in upon mrs. greatorex as she sat in her boudoir or drawing-room, darting in upon miss channing as she gave lessons to jane greatorex, he was intruding where he ought not, would have been a hopeless task. once or twice mr. bede greatorex had voluntarily invited him up to luncheon or dinner; and so roland made himself free of the house, and in a degree swayed the office.
they were very busy today. the work which he and hurst and jenner had in hand was being waited for, so that roland had to stick to it, in spite of the relaxing heat, and fully decided he could not be worse off at port natal. the scratching of the pens was going on pretty equally, when frank greatorex came in.
"i want a cheque from you, bede."
"where's mr. greatorex?" returned bede in answer; for it was to him such applications were made in general.
"gone out."
bede put aside the deed he had been sedulously examining, went into his private room, and came back with his chequebook.
"how much?" he asked of his brother, as he sat down.
"forty-four pounds. make it out to sir richard yorke."
with a simultaneous movement, as it seemed, two of those present raised their heads to look at frank greatorex: roland yorke and mr. brown. the former was no doubt attracted by the sound of his kinsman's name; what aroused mr. brown's attention did not appear, but he stared for a moment in a kind of amazement.
"upon consideration, i don't think i'll take the cheque with me now; i will call for it later in the day, when i've been into the city," spoke a voice at the door; and sir richard yorke appeared. bede, who was just then signing the cheque, "greatorex and greatorex," finished the signature, and came forward to shake hands.
"how d'ye do, sir," spoke up roland.
sir richard's little eyes peered out over his fat face, and he condescended to recognise his nephew by a nod. bede greatorex spoke a few words to the baronet, touching the matter in hand, and turned back to his desk, leaving frank to escort the old gentleman out. bede, about to cross the cheque, hesitated.
"did mr. frank say a crossed cheque?" he asked, looking up.
"no, sir; he said simply a cheque," said jenner, finding nobody else answered.
"yes," broke out roland, "it's fine to be that branch of the family. getting their cheques for forty-four pounds! i wish i could get one for forty-four shillings."
"have the goodness to attend to your own business, mr. yorke."
bede greatorex left the cheque uncrossed. in a few minutes, after putting things to rights on his desk, he gathered up his papers, including the cheque and chequebook, and went into his room. putting the things altogether in his desk there,--for he had an engagement at twelve and the hour was within a minute or two of striking,--he locked it and went out by the other door, not coming into the front room again.
now it happened that bede greatorex, who had expected to be absent half an hour at the longest, was unavoidably detained, so that when sir richard yorke returned for his cheque it could not be given to him. mr. greatorex, however, was at home then, and drew out another. and the day went on.
"you must cancel that cheque, bede," mr. greatorex casually observed to his son that same evening, after office-hours. "it was very unbusiness-like to leave it locked up, when you were not sure of coming back in time to give it to sir richard."
"but i thought i was sure. it does not matter."
"if you will bring me those title-deeds of cardwell's, i'll go over them myself quietly, and see what i can make out," said mr. greatorex.
bede crossed the passage to his private room, and unlocked his desk. the deeds mr. greatorex asked for were the same that he had been examining in the front office in the morning.
some flaw had been discovered in them, or was suspected, and it was likely to give the office some trouble, which would fall on bede's head. there they lay inside the desk, just as bede had placed them in the morning, with the paper-weight upon them; detained at westminster until a late hour, he had not been to his desk since. reminded by his father to destroy the cheque--useless now--bede thought he would do it at once.
but he could not find it. other papers, besides the title-deeds, cheque, and chequebook, he had placed within, and he went carefully over them all, one by one. nothing was missing, nothing had apparently been touched, but the cheque certainly was not there. he searched his desk in the front office, quite for form's sake, for he knew that he had carried the cheque with him to his private room.
"one would think you had been drawing out the deeds," remarked mr. greatorex when he returned.
"i can't find that cheque," answered bede.
"not find the cheque!" repeated mr. greatorex. "what do you mean, bede?"
bede gave a short history of the affair. he had been in a hurry: and, instead of staying to put the cheque and chequebook into his cash-box, had left them loose in his table-desk with the title-deeds and sundry other papers.
"but you locked your desk?" cried mr. greatorex.
"assuredly. i have only unlocked it now. the cheque would be as safe there as in the cash-box."
"you could not have put it in, bede; it must be somewhere about."
"i am just as certain that i put it in, as i am that it is not there now."
mr. greatorex did not believe it. bede had been for some time showing himself less the keen, exact man of business be used to be. trifling mistakes, inaccuracies, negligences, would come to light now and again; vexing mr. greatorex beyond measure.
"i don't know what to make of you of late, bede," he said after a pause. "you know the complaints we have been obliged to hear. these very title-deeds"--putting his hand on those just brought in--"it was you who examined and passed them. one negligence or another comes cropping up continually, and they may all be traced to you. is your state of health the cause?"
"i suppose so," replied bede, who felt conscious the reproach was merited.
"you had better take some rest for a time. if----."
"no," came the hasty interruption, as though the proposal were unpalatable. "work is better for me than idleness. put me out of harness, and i should knock up."
"bede," said mr. greatorex, in a tone of considerate kindness, but with some hesitation, "it appears to me that you get more of a changed man day by day. you have not been the same since your marriage. i fear the cause, or a great portion of it, lies in her; i fear she gives you trouble. as you know, i have never spoken to you before of this; i have abstained from doing so."
a flush, that had shown itself in the clear olive face when mr. greatorex began to speak, faded to whiteness; the hand, that accidentally touched his father's, felt fevered in all its veins.
"at least, my wife is not the cause of my illness," he answered in a low tone.
"i don't know that, bede. that a great worry lies on your heart continually, that a kind of restless, nervous anxiety never leaves you by night or by day, is sufficiently plain to me; i know that it can only arise from matters connected with your wife: and i also know that this, and this alone, tells upon your bodily health. your wife's extravagance is bringing you care: ruin will surely supervene if you do not check it."
bede greatorex opened his lips to speak, but seemed to think better of it, and closed them again. his brow was knitted in two upright lines.
"unless you can do so, bede, i shall be compelled to make an alteration in our arrangements. in justice to myself and to my other children, your name must be withdrawn from the firm. not yourself and your profits: only the name, as a matter of safety."
bede greatorex bit his lips. his father's heart ached for him. for a long while mr. greatorex had seen that his son's unhappy state of mind (and that it was unhappy no keen observer, much with him, could mistake) arose through his wife. and he thought bede a fool for putting up with her.
"you need not be afraid," said bede. "i will take care the firm's interests are not affected."
"how can you take care?" retorted mr. greatorex, in rather a stern tone. "when debts are being made daily in the most reckless manner: debts that you know nothing of, until the bills come trooping in and you are called upon to pay, can you answer for what it will go on to? can i? many a richer man than either of us, bede, has been brought to the bankruptcy court through less than this. ay, and i will tell you what else, bede--it has brought husbands to the grave. when people remark to me, 'your son bede looks ill,' i quietly answer 'do you think so?' when all the while i am secretly wondering that you can look even as well as you do."
"who remarks on it?" asked bede.
"who! many people. only the other night, when henry ollivera was here, he spoke of it."
"let henry ollivera concern himself with his own affairs," was the fierce answer. "does he want to be a----"
bede's voice dropped to an inaudible whisper. but the concluding words had sounded like--"curse amongst us."
"bede! did you say curse?"
"i said king," answered bede. his nostrils were working, his lips were quivering, his chest was heaving; all with a passion he was trying to suppress. mr. greatorex looked at him, and waited. he had seen bede in these intemperate fits of anger before: sometimes for no apparent cause.
"we will go book to the starting-point, this cheque, bede," he quietly said. "you must have overlooked it. go and search your desk again."
bede was leaving the room when he met a servant coming to it with a message. mr. yorke had called, and wished to see mr. greatorex for a couple of minutes: his business was important.
the notion of roland yorke and important business being in connexion, brought a smile to the face of mr. greatorex. he told the servant to send him in.
but instead of roland, it was the son of sir richard yorke who advanced. a very fashionable gentleman in evening dress, small and slight, with white hands, a lisp, and a silky moustache. he had come about the cheque.
sir richard, fatigued with his visit to the city, had gone straight home to portland place, after receiving the cheque from mr. greatorex, and sent his son to the bankers' to get it cashed: a branch office of the london and westminster. the clerk, before he cashed it, looked at it rather attentively, and then went away for a minute.
"we have cashed one cheque before today, sir, precisely similar to this," he said on his return. "would sir richard be likely to have two cheques from greatorex and greatorex in one day, each drawn for the same amount--forty-four pounds?"
"greatorex and greatorex are my father's men of business: he went to get some money for them today, i know; i suppose he chose to receive it in two cheques instead of one," replied mr. yorke haughtily, for he deemed the question an impertinence. "sir richard may have wished to pay the half of it away."
the clerk counted out the money and said no more. the cheques were undoubtedly genuine, the first made out in the well-known hand of bede greatorex, the last in that of his father, and the clerk supposed it was all right. mr. yorke sent the money up to sir richard when he got home, and went out again. at dinner-time, he mentioned what the clerk had said--"insolent fellah!" and the old baronet, who knew of the fact of two cheques having been drawn, took alarm.
"he'd not let me wait an instant; sent me off here before i'd well tasted my soup," grumbled mr. yorke. "one of you had better come and see him if the cheque has been lost and cashed; or he'll ask me five hundred questions which i can't answer, and fret himself into a fit. he has had one fit, you know. as to the cheque, it must have got into the hands of some clever thief, who made haste to reap the benefit of it."
"and your desk must have been picked, bede, if you are sure you put it in," observed mr. greatorex.
"i'm sure of that," answered bede. "but i don't see how the desk can have been picked. not a thing in it was displaced, and the lock is uninjured."
bede had a frightful headache--which was the cause of his looking somewhat worse than usual that evening, so mr. greatorex went to sir richard yorke's. and in coming home he passed round by scotland yard.
on the following morning, sitting in his room, he held a conference with his two sons, whom he had not seen on his return the previous night.
"they think at scotland yard it must inevitably have been one of the clerks in your room, bede," said mr. greatorex.
"one would think it, but that it seems so very unlikely," answered bede. "brown and jenner have been with us quite long enough for their honesty to be proved; and the other two are gentlemen."
"their theory is this; that someone, possessing easy access to your private room, opened the desk with a false key."
"for the matter of that, the clerks on our side the house could obtain nearly if not quite as easy access to bede's room through its other door," observed frank greatorex.
"yes. but you forget, frank, that none of them on our side the house knew of the cheque having been drawn out and left there. jelf will be in by-and-by."
the morning's letters, recently delivered, lay before mr. greatorex in a stack, and he began to look at them one by one before opening; his common custom. he came to one addressed to bede, marked "private" on both sides, and tossed it to his son!
bede opened it. there was an inner envelope, sealed, and, addressed and marked just like the outer one, which bede opened in turn. frank greatorex, standing near his brother, was enabled to see that but a few lines formed its contents. almost in a moment, before bede could have read the whole, he crushed the letter together and thrust it into his pocket. frank laughed.
"your correspondent takes his precautions, bede. was he afraid that mrs. bede----"
the words were but meant in jest, but frank did not finish them. bede turned from the room with a kind of staggering movement, his face blanched, his whole countenance livid with some awful terror. frank simply stared after him, unable to say another word.
"what was that?" cried mr. greatorex, looking up at the abrupt silence.
"i don't know," said frank. "bede seems moonstruck with that letter he has had. it must contain tidings of some bother or other."
"then rely upon it, it is connected with his wife," severely spoke mr. greatorex.
the news relating to the cheque fell upon the office like a clap of thunder. every clerk in it felt uncomfortable especially those attached to mr. bede's department. the clerk at the bank, who had cashed the cheque, was questioned. it had been presented at the bank early in the afternoon, about half-past one o'clock he said, or between that and two. he had not taken notice of the presenter, but seemed to remember that he was a tall dark man, with black whiskers. had taken it and cashed it quite as a matter of course; making no delay or query; it was a common thing for strangers, that is strangers to the bank, to present the cheques of greatorex and greatorex. no; he had not taken the number of the notes, for the best of all possible reasons--that he had paid it in gold, as requested. this clerk happened also to be the one to whom sir richard yorke's son had presented the second cheque; he spoke to that gentleman of the fact of having cashed one an hour or two before, exactly similar; but mr. yorke seemed to intimate that it was all right; in short appeared offended at the subject being named to him.
at present that comprised all the information they possessed.
it was mr. bede greatorex who, made the communication to the clerks in his room. he was sitting at his desk in the front office when they arrived,--an unusual circumstance; and when all were assembled and had settled to their several occupations, then he entered upon it. the cheque he had drawn out, as they might remember, on the previous morning for sir richard yorke, and which he had locked up subsequently in his table-desk in the other room, had been abstracted from it, and cashed at the bank. he spoke in a quiet, friendly manner, just in the same tone he might have related it to a friend, not appearing to cast the least thought of possible suspicion upon any one of them. nevertheless, no detective living could have watched their several demeanours, as they heard it, more keenly than did mr. bede greatorex.
the clerks seemed thunderstruck. three of them gazed at him, unable for the moment to shape any reply; the other burst out at once.
"the cheque gone! stolen out of the desk, and cashed al the bank! my goodness! who took it, sir?"
the words came from nobody but roland, you may be sure. mr. bede greatorex went on to give a few explanatory details; and roland's next movement was to rush into the adjoining room without asking permission, and give a few tugs to the lid of the table-desk. back he clattered in a commotion.
and here let it be remarked, en passant, that it is somewhat annoying to have to apply so frequently the word "clatter" to roland's progress, imparting no doubt a good deal of unnecessary sameness. but there is really no other graphic expression that can be found to describe it. his steps were quick, and the soles of his boots made noise enough for ten.
"i say, mr. bede greatorex," he exclaimed, "it is no light hand that could open that desk without a key. i've had experience in lifting weights over at port natal when helping to load the ships with coal----"
"kindly oblige me by making less noise, mr. yorke," came the interrupting reproof.
which roland seemed not to heed in the least. he tilted himself on to a high stool in the middle of the room, his legs dangling, just as though he had been at a free-and-easy meeting; and there he sat, staring in consternation.
"will the bank know the fellow again that cashed it?"
"my opinion is that the desk was opened with a key in the ordinary way," observed mr. bede greatorex, referring to a previous remark of roland's, but passing over his present question.
"perhaps you left your keys about?" suggested roland. "i did not leave them about, mr. yorke. i had them with me."
"well, this is a go! i say!" he resumed, with quite a burst of excitement, his eyes beaming, his face glowing, "who'll be at the loss of the money? old dick yorke?"
"ah, that is a nice question," said bede greatorex.
"i beg your pardon, sir," interposed mr. brown, who had been very thoughtful. "don't you think you must be mistaken in supposing you put the cheque in the desk? i could understand it all so easily if----"
"i know i put it in my desk, and left it there locked up," said mr. bede greatorex, stopping the words. "what were you about to say?"
"if you had carried the cheque out inadvertently, and dropped it in the street," concluded mr. brown, "it would have been quite easy to understand then. some unprincipled man might have picked it up, and made off at once to the bank with it, hazarding the risk."
"but i did nothing of the sort," said bede: and mr. brown shook his head, as if he were hard of conviction.
"of course there's not much difference in the degree of guilt, but many a man who would not for the world touch a locked desk might appropriate a picked-up cheque, sir."
"i tell you, the cheque was taken from my desk," reiterated mr. bede greatorex, slightly irritated at the persistency.
"well, sir, then all i can say is, that it is an exceedingly disagreeable thing for every one of us," said the head-clerk.
"i do not wish to imply that it is," said bede greatorex. "mr. yorke, allow me to suggest that sitting on that stool will not do your work."
"i hope old dick will be the one to lose it!" cried roland, with fervour, as he quitted the stool for his place by mr. hurst. "forty-four pounds! it's stunning. he's the meanest old chap alive, mr. greatorex. i'd almost have taken it myself from him."
"did you take it?" questioned hurst in a whisper. "what's that?" retorted roland.
he faced hurst as he spoke, waiting for a reply. all in a moment the proud countenance and bearing changed. the face fell, the clear eyes looked away, the brow became suffused with crimson. hurst saw the signs, and felt sorry for what he had said; had said in thoughtlessness rather than in any real meaning. for he knew that it had recalled to roland yorke a terrible escapade of his earlier life.
