The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 78

"And has Mr. G.o.dolphin not moved them, sir?" demanded the clerk.

"It appears not. He dropped me a line last night, saying I should find the bonds in their place in the box. I suppose Lord Averil was up at Ashlydyat and mentioned it. But I can't find them in the box."

"Sir, you know you are not a very good searcher," observed Mr. Hurde, after some consideration. "Once or twice that you have searched for deeds, Mr. G.o.dolphin has found them afterwards, overlooked by you. Shall I go carefully over the box, sir? I think they must be in it."

"I tell you, Hurde, they are not."

He spoke somewhat fractiously. Fully aware that he had occasionally overlooked deeds, in his haste or carelessness, perhaps the contrast between those times and these, gave a sting to his manner. _Then_, whether the deeds had been found or not, he was innocent: now----

"But, if they are not in the box, where can they be?" resumed Mr. Hurde.

"There it is," said George. "Where can they be? I say, Hurde, that some light fingers must have been at work."

Mr. Hurde considered the point in his mind. It seemed that he could not adopt the conclusion readily. "I should think not, sir. If nothing else is missing, I should say certainly not."

"_They_ are missing, at any rate," returned George. "It will put Mr.

G.o.dolphin out terribly. I wish there had been any means of keeping it from him: but, now that Lord Averil has mentioned the bonds to him, there are none. I shall get the blame. He will think I have not kept the keys securely."

"But you have, sir, have you not?"

"For all I know I have," replied George, a.s.suming a carelessness as to the point, of which he had not been guilty. "Allowing that I had not, for argument's sake, what dishonest person can we have about us, Hurde, who would use the advantage to his own profit?"

Mr. Hurde began calling over the list of clerks, preparatory to considering whether any one of them could be considered in the least degree doubtful. He was engaged in this mental process, when a clerk interrupted them, to say that a gentleman was asking to see Mr. George G.o.dolphin.

George looked up sharply. The applicant, however, was not Lord Averil, and any one else would be more tolerable to him on that day than his lords.h.i.+p; Mr. G.o.dolphin, perhaps, excepted. As the old clerk was withdrawing to give place to the visitor, George caught sight, through the open door, of Mr. G.o.dolphin entering the office. An impulse to throw the disclosure off his own shoulders, prompted him to hasten after Mr.

Hurde.

"Hurde," he whispered, catching his arm, "you may as well make the communication to Mr. G.o.dolphin. He ought to know it at once, and I may be engaged some time."

So George remained shut up, and the old clerk followed Thomas G.o.dolphin to his private room. Mr. G.o.dolphin felt well that morning, and had come unusually early: possibly lest there should be any further blundering over Lord Averil's bonds. He looked somewhat surprised to see the old clerk approaching him with a long face and mysterious look.

"Do you want me, Hurde?"

"Mr. George has desired me to speak to you, sir, about those bonds of Lord Averil's. To make an unpleasant communication, in fact. He is engaged himself, just now. He says he can't find them."

"They are in the strong-room, in Lord Averil's case," replied Mr.

G.o.dolphin.

"He says they are not there, sir: that he can't find them."

"But they are there," returned Thomas. "They have not been moved out of the box since they were first placed in it."

He spoke quietly as he ever did, but very firmly, almost as if he were disputing the point, or had been prepared to dispute it. Mr. Hurde resumed after some deliberation: he was a deliberate man always, both in temperament and in speech.

"What Mr. George says, is this, sir: That when you were in London Lord Averil asked for his bonds. Mr. George looked for them, and found they were not in the box; and he came to the conclusion that you had moved them. The affair escaped his memory, he says, until last night, when he was asked for them again. He has been searching the box this morning, but cannot find the bonds in it."

"They must be there," observed Thomas G.o.dolphin. "If George has not moved them, I have not. He has a knack of overlooking things."

"I said so to him, sir, just now. He----"

"Do you say he is engaged?" interrupted Thomas G.o.dolphin.

"The secretary of the railway company is with him, sir. I suppose he has come about that loan. I think the bonds can't be anywhere but in the box, sir. I told Mr. George so."

"Let me know when he is disengaged," said Thomas G.o.dolphin. And Mr.

Hurde went out.

George G.o.dolphin was disengaged then. Mr. Hurde saw the gentleman, whom he had called the railway company's secretary, departing. The next minute George G.o.dolphin came out of his room.

"Have you mentioned that to my brother?" he asked of Hurde.

"I have, sir. Mr. G.o.dolphin thinks that you must be mistaken."

George went in to his brother, shook hands, and said he was glad to see him so early. "It is a strange thing about these bonds," he continued, without giving Thomas time to speak.

"You have overlooked them," said Thomas. "Bring me the keys, and I will go and get them."

"I a.s.sure you they are not there."

"They must be there, George. Bring me the keys."

George G.o.dolphin produced the key of the strong-room, and of the safe, and Lord Averil's box was examined by Thomas G.o.dolphin. The bonds in question were _not_ in it: and Thomas, had he missed himself, could scarcely have been more completely astonished.

"George, you must have moved them," were the first words he spoke.

"Not I," said George, lightly. "Where should I move them to?"

"But no one has power to get into that room, or to penetrate to the safe and the box after it, except you and myself," urged Mr. G.o.dolphin.

"Unless, indeed, you have allowed the keys to stray from your keeping."

"I have not done that," answered George. "This seems to be perfectly unaccountable."

"How came you to tell Averil last night that the bonds had gone to London?"

"Well, the fact is, I did not know what to tell him," replied George.

"When I first missed the bonds, when you were in London----"

"Why did you not let me know then that they were missing?" was the interruption.

"I forgot it when you returned home."

"But you should not have allowed yourself the possibility of forgetting a thing like that," remonstrated Thomas. "Upon missing deeds of that value, or in fact of any value however slight, you should have communicated with me the very same hour. George," he added, after a pause, which George did not break: "I cannot understand how it was that you did not see the necessity of it yourself."

George G.o.dolphin was running his hand through his hair--in an absent manner, lost in thought; in--as might be conjectured--contemplation of the past time referred to. "How was I to think anything but that you had moved the deeds?" he said.

"At all events, you should have ascertained. Why, George, were I to miss deeds that I believed to be in a given place, I could not rest a night without inquiring after them. I might a.s.sume--and there might be every probability for it--that you had moved them; but my sleep would be ruined until I ascertained the fact."

George made no reply. I wonder where he was wis.h.i.+ng himself? Mr.

G.o.dolphin resumed.