The Channings Part 16

CHAPTER XVIII.

MR. JENKINS ALIVE AGAIN.

The quiet of Sunday was over, and Helstonleigh awoke on the Monday morning to the bustle of every-day life. Mr. Jenkins awoke, with others, and got up--not Jenkins the old bedesman, but his son Joseph, who had the grey mare for his wife. It was Mr. Jenkins's intention to resume his occupation that day, with Mr. Hurst's and Mrs. Jenkins's permission: the former he might have defied; the latter he dared not. However, he was on the safe side, for both had accorded it.

Mrs. Jenkins was making breakfast in the small parlour behind her hosiery shop, when her husband appeared. He looked all the worse for his accident. Poor Joe was one whom a little illness told upon. Thin, pale, and lantern-jawed at the best of times--indeed he was not infrequently honoured with the nickname of "scare-crow"--he now looked thinner and paler than ever. His tall, shadowy form seemed bent with the weakness induced by lying a few days in bed; while his hair had been cut off in three places at the top of his head, to give way to as many patches of white plaster.

"A nice figure you'll cut in the office, to-day, with those ornaments on your crown!" was Mrs. Jenkins's salutation.

"I am thinking to fold this broadly upon my head, and tie it under my chin," said he, meekly, holding out a square, black silk handkerchief which he had brought down in his hand.

"That would not hide the patch upon your forehead, stupid!" responded Mrs. Jenkins. "I believe you must have b.u.mped upon the edge of every stair in the organ-loft, as you came down, to get so many wounds!" she continued crossly. "If you ever do such a senseless trick again, you shan't stir abroad without me or the maid at your back, to take care of you; I promise you that!"

"I have combed my hair over the place on my forehead!" civilly replied Mr. Jenkins. "I don't think it shows much."

"And made yourself look like an owl! I thought it was nothing less than a stuffed owl coming in. Why can't you wear your hat? That would hide your crown and your forehead too."

"I did think of that; and I dare say Mr. Galloway would allow me to do it, and overlook the disrespect in consideration of the circ.u.mstances," answered Jenkins. "But then, I thought again, suppose the dean should chance to come into the office to-day?--or any of the canons? There's no telling but they may. I could not keep my hat on in their presence; and I should not like to take it off, and expose the plasters."

"You'd frighten them away, if you did," said Mrs. Jenkins, das.h.i.+ng some water into the teapot.

"Therefore," he added, when she had finished speaking, "I think it will be better to put on this handkerchief. People do wear them, when suffering from neuralgia, or from toothache."

"Law! wear it, if you like! what a fuss you make about nothing! If you chose to go with your head wrapped up in a blanket, n.o.body would look at you."

"Very true," meekly coughed Mr. Jenkins.

"What are you doing?" irascibly demanded Mrs. Jenkins, perceiving that of two slices of bacon which she had put upon his plate, one had been surrept.i.tiously conveyed back to the dish.

"I am not hungry this morning. I cannot eat it."

"I say you shall eat it. What next? Do you think you are going to starve yourself?"

"My appet.i.te will come back to me in a morning or two," he deprecatingly observed.

"It is back quite enough for that bacon," was the answer. "Come! I'll have it eaten."

She ruled him in everything as she would a child; and, appet.i.te or no appet.i.te, Mr. Jenkins had to obey. Then he prepared for his departure. The black silk square was tied on, so as to cover the damages; the hat was well drawn over the brows, and Mr. Jenkins started. When Mr. Galloway entered his office that morning, which he did earlier than usual, there sat Mr. Jenkins in his usual place, copying a lease.

He looked glad to see his old clerk. It is pleasant to welcome a familiar face after an absence. "Are you sure you are equal to work, Jenkins?"

"Quite so, sir, thank you. I had a little fever at first, and Mr. Hurst was afraid of that; but it has quite subsided. Beyond being a trifle sore on the head, and stiff at the elbows and one hip, I am quite myself again."

"I was sorry to hear of the accident, Jenkins," Mr. Galloway resumed.

"I was as vexed at it as I could be, sir. When I first came to myself, I hardly knew what damage was done; and the uncertainty of getting to business, perhaps for weeks, did worry me much. I don't deny, too, that I have been in a little pain. But oh, sir! it was worth happening! it was indeed; only to experience the kindness and good fellows.h.i.+p that have been shown me. I am sure half the town has been to see me, or to ask after me."

"I hear you have had your share of visitors."

"The bishop himself came," said poor Jenkins, tears of grat.i.tude rising to his eyes in the intensity of his emotion. "He did, indeed, sir. He came on the Friday, and groped his way up our dark stairs (for very dark they are when Mr. Harper's sitting-room door is shut), and sat down by my bedside, and chatted, just as plainly and familiarly as if he had been no better than one of my own acquaintances. Mr. Arthur Channing found him there when he came with your kind message, sir."

"So I heard," said Mr. Galloway. "You and the bishop were both in the same boat. I cannot, for my part, get at the mystery of that locking-up business."

"The bishop as good as said so, sir--that we had both been in it. I was trying to express my acknowledgments to his lords.h.i.+p for his condescension, apologizing for my plain bedroom, and the dark stairs, and all that, and saying, as well as I knew how, that the like of me was not worthy of a visit from him, when he laughed, in his affable way, and said, 'We were both caught in the same trap, Jenkins. Had I been the one to receive personal injury, I make no doubt that you would have come the next day to inquire after me.' What a great thing it is, to be blessed with a benevolent heart, like the Bishop of Helstonleigh's!"

Arthur Channing came in and interrupted the conversation. He was settling to his occupation, when Mr. Galloway drew his attention; in an abrupt and angry manner, as it struck Arthur.

"Channing, you told me, yesterday, that you posted that letter for Ventnor on Friday"

"So I did, sir."

"It has been robbed."

"Robbed!" returned Arthur, in surprise, scarcely realizing immediately the meaning of the word.

"You know that it contained money--a twenty-pound note. You saw me put it in."

"Yes--I--know--that," hesitated Arthur.

"What are you stammering at?"

In good truth, Arthur could not have told, except that he hesitated in surprise. He had cast his thoughts into the past, and was lost in them.

"The fact is, you did not post the letters yourself," resumed Mr. Galloway. "You gave them to somebody else to post, in a fit of idleness, and the result is, that the letter was rifled, and I have lost twenty pounds."

"Sir, I a.s.sure you, that I did post them myself," replied Arthur, with firmness. "I went straight from this door to the post-office. In coming back, I called on Jenkins"--turning to him--"as you bade me, and afterwards I returned here. I mentioned to you, then, sir, that the bishop was with Jenkins."

Mr. Jenkins glanced up from his desk, a streak of colour illumining his thin cheek, half hidden by the black handkerchief. "I was just saying, sir, to Mr. Galloway, that you found his lords.h.i.+p at my bedside," he said to Arthur.

"Has the note been taken out of the letter, sir?" demanded Arthur. "Did the letter reach its destination without it?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Galloway, in answer to both questions. "I had a few lines from Mr. Robert Galloway yesterday morning, stating that the letter had arrived, but no bank-note was enclosed in it. Now, where is the note?"

"Where can it be?" reiterated Arthur. "The letter must have been opened on the road. I declare to you, sir, that I put it myself into the post-office."

"It is a crying shame for this civilized country, that one cannot send a bank-note across the kingdom in a letter, but it must get taken out of it!" exclaimed Mr. Galloway, in his vexation. "The puzzle to me is, how those letter-carriers happen just to pitch upon the right letters to open--those letters that contain money!"

He went into his private room as he spoke, banging the door after him, a sure symptom that his temper was not in a state of serenity, and not hearing or seeing Roland Yorke, who had entered, and was wis.h.i.+ng him good morning.

"What's amiss? he seems in a tantrum," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Roland, with his usual want of ceremony. "Hallo, Jenkins; is it really you? By the accounts brought here, I thought you were not going to have a head on your shoulders for six months to come. Glad to see you."

"Thank you, sir. I am thankful to say I have got pretty well over the hurt."

"Roland," said Arthur, in a half-whisper, bringing his head close to his friend's, as they leaned together over the desk, "you remember that Ventnor letter, sent on Friday, with the money in it--"

"Ventnor letter!" interrupted Roland. "What Ventnor letter?"

"The one for Robert Galloway. Hamish was looking at it. It had a twenty-pound note in it."

"For Ventnor, was it? I did not notice what place it was bound for. That fellow, the cousin Galloway, changes his place of abode like the Wandering Jew. What of the letter?"

"It has been robbed of the note."

"No!" uttered Roland.

"It has. The cousin says the letter reached him, but the note did not. Mr. Galloway seems uncommonly put out. He accused me, at first, of not taking it myself to the post. As if I should confide letters of value to any one not worthy of trust!"

"Did you post it yourself?" asked Roland.

"Of course I did. When you were coming in, after playing truant on Friday afternoon, I was then going. You might have seen the letters in my hand."

Roland shook his head. "I was in too great a stew to notice letters, or anything else. This will cure Galloway of sending bank-notes in letters. Have the post-office people had news of the loss sent to them? They must hunt up the thief."

"Mr. Galloway is sure to do all that's necessary," remarked Arthur.

"For my part, if I sent bank-notes across the country in letters, I should expect them to be taken. I wonder at Galloway. He is cautious in other things."

Others had wondered at Mr. Galloway, besides Roland Yorke. A man of caution, generally, he yet persisted in the practice of enclosing bank-notes in letters. Persons cognizant of this habit had remonstrated with him; not his clerks--of course they had not presumed to do so. Mr. Galloway, who liked his own way, had become somewhat testy upon the point, and, not a week before the present time, had answered in a sort of contradictory spirit that his money-letters had always gone safely hitherto, and he made no doubt they always would go safely. The present loss, therefore, coming as it were, to check his obstinacy, vexed him more than it would otherwise have done. He did not care for the loss of the money half so much as he did for the tacit reproof to himself.

"I wonder if Galloway took the number of the note?" cried Roland. "Whether or not, though, it would not serve him much: bank-notes lost in transit never come to light."

"Don't they, though!" retorted Arthur. "Look at the many convictions for post-office robbery!"

"I do not suppose that one case in ten is tracked home," disputed Roland. "They are regular thieves, those letter-carriers. But, then, the fellows are paid so badly."

"Do not be so sweeping in your a.s.sertions, Roland Yorke," interposed Mr. Galloway, coming forward from his own room. "How dare you so asperse the letter-carriers? They are a hard-working, quiet, honest body of men. Yes, sir; honest--I repeat it. Where one has yielded to temptation, fingering what was not his own, hundreds rise superior to it, retaining their integrity. I would advise you not to be so free with your tongue."

Not to be free with his tongue would have been hard to Roland.

"Lady Augusta was sending a box of camomile pills to some friend in Ireland, the other day, sir, but it was never heard of again, after she put it into the post-office, here," cried he to Mr. Galloway. "The fellow who appropriated it no doubt thought he had a prize of jewels. I should like to have seen his mortification when he opened the parcel and found it contained pills! Lady Augusta said she hoped he had liver complaint, and then they might be of service to him."

Mr. Galloway made no response. He had caught up a lease that was lying on Jenkins's desk, and stood looking at it with no pleasant expression of countenance. On went that undaunted Roland: "The next thing Lady Augusta had occasion to send by post was a gold cameo pin. It was enclosed in a pasteboard box, and, when packed, looked just like the parcel of pills. I wrote PILLS on it, in great round text-hand. That reached its destination safely enough, sir."

"More safely than you would, if it depended upon your pursuing your business steadily," retorted Mr. Galloway to Roland. "Fill in that t.i.the paper."

As Roland, with a suppressed yawn, and in his usual lazy manner, set himself to work, there came a clatter at the office-door, and a man entered in the uniform of a telegraphic official, bearing a despatch in his hand. Mr. Galloway had then turned to his room, and Roland, ever ready for anything but work, started up and received the packet from the man.

"Where's it from?" asked he, in his curiosity.

"Southampton," replied the messenger.

"A telegram from Southampton, sir," announced Roland to Mr. Galloway.

The latter took the despatch, and opened it, directing Jenkins to sign the paper. This done, the messenger departed. The words of the message were few, but Mr. Galloway's eye was bending upon them sternly, and his brow had knitted, as if in perplexity.

"Young gentlemen, you must look to this," he said, coming forward, and standing before Roland and Arthur. "I find that the post-office is not to blame for this loss; it must have occurred in this room, before the letter went to the post-office."

They both looked up, both coloured, as if with inward consternation. Thoughts, we all know, are quick as lightning: what was each thinking of, that it should give rise to emotion? Arthur was the first to speak.

"Do you allude to the loss of the bank-note, sir?"

"What else should I allude to?" sharply answered Mr. Galloway.

"But the post-office must be cheeky to deny it off-hand!" flashed Roland. "How is it possible that they can answer for the honesty of every man whose hands that letter pa.s.sed through?"

"Pray who told you they had denied it, Mr. Roland Yorke?" demanded his master.

Roland felt a little checked. "I inferred it, sir."

"I dare say. Then allow me to tell you that they have not denied it. And one very cogent reason why they have not, is, that they are not yet cognizant of the loss. I do not jump at conclusions as you do, Roland Yorke, and I thought it necessary to make a little private inquiry before accusing the post-office, lest the post-office might not be in fault, you know."

"Quite right, I have no doubt, sir," replied Roland, in a chafed accent, for Mr. Galloway was speaking satirically, and Roland never liked to have ridicule cast upon him. Like old Ketch, it affected his temper.

"By this communication," touching the telegraphic despatch, "I learn that the letter was not opened after it left this office," resumed Mr. Galloway. "Consequently, the note must have been abstracted from it while the letter lay here. Who has been guilty of it?"

Neither Arthur nor Roland spoke. It was not a pleasant accusation--if you can call it an accusation--and their faces deepened to scarlet; while Mr. Jenkins looked up half terrified, and began to think, what a mercy it was that he had broken his head, just that last particular Thursday night, on the marble flags of the cathedral.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE LOSS.

When money is lost out of an office, suspicion very frequently falls upon one or more of that office's _employes_. Mr. Galloway's doubts, however, had not yet extended to those employed in his. The letter containing the bank-note had been despatched to Mr. Robert Galloway, at Ventnor, on the Friday. On the Sunday morning, while Mr. Galloway was at breakfast, a short answer was delivered to him from his cousin:--"Your letter has reached me, but not the note; you must have omitted to enclose it," was the news it contained relative to that particular point. Mr. Galloway knew that he had enclosed the note; there was little doubt that both his clerks could testify that he had done so, for it was done in their presence. How could it have been taken out again? Had it been abstracted while the letter was still in his office?--or on its way to the post?--or in its transmission to Ventnor? "If in the office," argued Mr. Galloway, "it must have been done before I sealed it; if afterwards, that seal must have been tampered with, probably broken. I'll drop a note to Robert, and ask the question." He rose from his breakfast and penned a line to Southampton, where, as he had reason to believe, Mr. Robert Galloway would be on the Monday. It was not Mr. Galloway's habit to write letters on a Sunday, but he considered that the present occasion justified the act. "I certainly enclosed the note in my letter," he wrote. "Send me word instantly whether the seal had been tampered with. I stamped it with my private seal." Mr. Robert Galloway received this on the Monday morning. He did not wait for the post, but forwarded the reply by telegraph--"The seal had not been broken. Will send you back the envelope by first post." This was the despatch which you saw Mr. Galloway receive in his office.

He went back into his private room, carrying the despatch with him, and there he sat down to think. From the very first, he had not believed the fraud to lie with the post-office--for this reason: had the note been taken out by one of its servants, the letter would almost certainly not have reached its destination; it would have disappeared with the note. He had cast a doubt upon whether Arthur Channing had posted the letters himself. Arthur a.s.sured him that he had done so, and Mr. Galloway believed him; the information that the seal of the letter was unbroken was now a further confirmation, had he needed it. At least, it confirmed that the letter had not been opened after it left the office. Mr. Galloway perfectly remembered fastening down the letter. He probably would have sealed it then, but for the commotion that arose at the same moment in the street caused by Mad Nance. There could be no shadow of doubt, so far as Mr. Galloway could see, and so far as he believed, that the abstraction had taken place between the time of his fastening down the envelope and of his sealing it. Who had done it?

"I'll lay a guinea I know how it happened!" he exclaimed to himself. "Channing was at college--I must have given him permission in a soft moment to take that organ, or I should never have done it, quitting the office daily!--and, Yorke, in his indolent carelessness, must have got gossiping outside, leaving, it is hard to say who, in the office! This comes of poor Jenkins's fall!"

Mr. Galloway rang his bell. It was answered by Jenkins. "Send Mr. Arthur Channing in," said Mr. Galloway.

Arthur entered, in obedience. Mr. Galloway signed to him to close the door, and then spoke.

"This is an awkward business, Channing."

"Very awkward, indeed, sir," replied Arthur, at no loss to understand what Mr. Galloway alluded to. "I do not see that it was possible for the note to have been taken from the letter, except in its transmission through the post."