The Channings Part 19

Mr. Galloway recited the circ.u.mstances of his loss. The detective sat near him, his hands on his knees, his head bent, his eyes cast upon the floor. He did not interrupt the story by a single word. When it was ended, he took up the envelope, and examined it in equal silence; examined it with ridiculous minuteness, Mr. Galloway thought, for he poked, and peered, and touched it everywhere. He held it up to the light, he studied the postmarks, he gazed at the seal through an odd-looking little gla.s.s that he took from his waistcoat pocket, he particularly criticised the folds, he drew his fingers along its edges, he actually sniffed it--all in silence, and with an impa.s.sive countenance.

"Have you the number of the note?" was his first question.

"No," said Mr. Galloway.

He looked up at this. The thought may have struck him, that, not to take the number of a bank-note, sent by post, betrayed some carelessness for a man of business. Mr. Galloway, at least, inferred this, and answered the look.

"Of course I am in the habit of taking their numbers; I don't know that I ever did such a thing before, as send a bank-note away without it. I had an appointment, as I tell you, at the other end of the town for a quarter to three; it was of importance; and, when I heard the college strike out the three-quarters--the very hour I ought to have been there--I hurriedly put the note into the folds of the letter, without waiting to take its number. It was not that I forgot to do so, but that I could not spare the time."

"Have you any means of ascertaining the number, by tracing the note back to whence it may have come into your possession?" was the next question.

Mr. Galloway was obliged to confess that he had none. "Bank-notes are so frequently paid me from different quarters," he remarked. "Yesterday, for instance, a farmer, renting under the Dean and Chapter, came in, and paid me his half-year's rent. Another, holding the lease of a public-house in the town, renewed two lives which had dropped in. It was Beard, of the Barley Mow. Now, both these men paid in notes, tens and fives, and they now lie together in my cash drawer; but I could not tell you which particular notes came from each man--no, not if you paid me the worth of the whole to do it. Neither could I tell whence I had the note which I put into the letter."

"In this way, if a note should turn out to be bad, you could not return it to its owner."

"I never took a bad note in my life," said Mr. Galloway, speaking impulsively. "There's not a better judge of notes than myself in the kingdom; and Jenkins is as good as I am."

Another silence. Mr. b.u.t.terby remained in the same att.i.tude, his head and eyes bent. "Have you given me all the particulars?" he presently asked.

"I think so. All I remember."

"Then allow me to go over them aloud," returned the detective; "and, if I make any mistake or omission, have the goodness to correct me:--On Friday last, you took a twenty-pound note out of your cash drawer, not taking or knowing its number. This note you put within the folds of a letter, and placed both in an envelope, and fastened the envelope down, your two clerks, Channing and Yorke, being present. You then went out, leaving the letter upon one of the desks. As you left, Hamish Channing came in. Immediately following upon that, Yorke went out, leaving the brothers alone. Arthur departed to attend college, Hamish remaining in the office. Arthur Channing soon returned, finding there was no necessity for him to stay in the cathedral; upon which Hamish left. Arthur Channing remained alone for more than an hour, no one calling or entering the office during that period. You then returned yourself; found the letter in the same state, apparently, in which you had left it, and you sealed it, and sent Arthur Channing with it to the post-office. These are the brief facts, so far as you are cognizant of them, and as they have been related to you?"

"They are," replied Mr. Galloway. "I should have mentioned that Arthur Channing carried the letter into my private room before he left the office for college."

"Locking the door?"

"Oh dear, no! Closing the door, no doubt, but not locking it. It would have been unusual to do so."

"Jenkins was away," observed the detective in a tone of abstraction, which told he was soliloquizing, rather than addressing his companion. Mr. Galloway rather fired up at the remark, taking it in a different light from that in which it was spoken.

"Jenkins was at home at the time, confined to his bed; and, had he not been, I would answer for Jenkins's honesty as I would for my own. Can you see any possible solution to the mystery?"

"A very possible one," was the dry answer. "There is no doubt whatever upon my mind, that the theft was committed by Arthur Channing."

Mr. Galloway started up with an exclamation of surprise, mingled with anger. Standing within the room was his nephew Mark. The time had gone on to nine, the hour of release from school; and, on running past Mr. Galloway's with the rest of the boys, Mark had dutifully called in. Mark and his brothers were particularly fond of calling in, for their uncle was not stingy with his sixpences, and they were always on the look-out. Mr. Mark did not get a sixpence this time.

"How dare you intrude upon me in this sly way, sir? Don't you see I am engaged? I will have you knock at my room door before you enter. Take yourself off again, if you please!"

Mark, with a word of deprecation, went off, his ears p.r.i.c.king with the sentence he had heard from the detective--Arthur Channing the thief!

Mr. Galloway turned again to the officer. He resented the imputation. "The Channings are altogether above suspicion, from the father downwards," he remonstrated. "Were Arthur Channing dishonestly inclined, he has had the opportunity to rob me long before this."

"Persons of hitherto honourable conduct, honest by nature and by habit, have succ.u.mbed under sudden temptation or pressing need," was the answer.

"Arthur Channing is in no pressing need. He is not hard up for money."

A smile actually curled the detective's lip. "A great many more young men are harder up for money than they allow to appear. The Channings are in what may be called difficulties, through the failure of their Chancery suit, and the lad must have yielded to temptation."

Mr. Galloway could not be brought to see it. "You may as well set on and suspect Hamish," he resentfully said. "He was equally alone with the letter."

"No," was the answer of the keen officer. "Hamish Channing is in a responsible position; he would not be likely to emperil it for a twenty-pound note; and he could not know that the letter contained money." Mr. b.u.t.terby was not cognizant of quite the facts of the case, you see.

"It is absurd to suspect Arthur Channing."

"Which is the more absurd--to suspect him, or to a.s.sume that the bank-note vanished without hands? forced its own way through the envelope, and disappeared up the chimney in a whirlwind?" asked the officer, bringing sarcasm to his aid. "If the facts are as you have stated, that only the two Channings had access to the letter, the guilt must lie with one of them. Facts are facts, Mr. Galloway."

Mr. Galloway admitted that facts were facts, but he could not be brought to allow the guilt of Arthur Channing. The detective rose.

"You have confided the management of this affair to me," he observed, "and I have no doubt I shall be able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. One more question I must ask you. Is it known to your clerks that you have not the number of the note?"

"Yes, it is."

"Then I fear you stand little chance of ever seeing it again. That fact known, no time would be lost in parting with it; they'd make haste to get it safe off."

Not an instant did Mr. b.u.t.terby take for consideration upon quitting Mr. Galloway. With a sharp, unhesitating step, as though his mind had been made up for a month past as to what his course must be, he took his way to the house of Mr. Joe Jenkins. That gentleman, his head still tied up, was just leaving for the office, and Mr. b.u.t.terby encountered him coming through the shop.

"Good morning, Jenkins. I want a word with you alone."

Jenkins bowed, in his civil, humble fas.h.i.+on; but "a word alone" was more easily asked than had, Mrs. Jenkins being all-powerful, and burning with curiosity. The officer had to exert some authority before he could get rid of her, and be left at peace with Jenkins.

"What sources of expense has Arthur Channing?" demanded he, so abruptly as to startle and confuse Jenkins.

"Sources of expense, sir?" he repeated.

"What are his habits? Does he squander money? Does he go out in an evening into expensive company?"

"I'm sure, sir, I cannot tell you anything about it," Jenkins was mildly beginning. He was imperatively interrupted by the detective.

"I ask to know. You are aware that I possess authority to compel you to speak; therefore, answer me without excuse or circ.u.mlocution; it will save trouble."

"But indeed, sir, I really do not know," persisted Jenkins. "I should judge Mr. Arthur Channing to be a steady, well-conducted young gentleman, who has no extravagant habits at all. As to his evenings, I think he spends them mostly at home."

"Do you know whether he has any pressing debts?"

"I heard him say to Mr. Yorke one day, that a twenty-pound note would pay all he owed, and leave him something out of it," spoke Jenkins in his unconscious simplicity.

"Ah!" said Mr. b.u.t.terby, drawing in his lips, though his face remained impa.s.sive as before. "When was this?"

"Not long ago, sir. About a week, it may have been, before I met with that accident--which accident, I begin to see now, sir, happened providentially, for it caused me to be away from the office when that money was lost."

"An unpleasant loss," remarked the officer, with apparent carelessness; "and the young gentlemen must feel it so--Arthur Channing especially. Yorke, I believe, was out?"

"He does feel it very much, sir. He was as agitated about it yesterday as could be, when Mr. Galloway talked of putting it into the hands of the police. It is a disagreeable thing to happen in an office, you know, sir."

A slight pause of silence was made by the detective ere he rejoined. "Agitated, was he? And Mr. Roland Yorke the same, no doubt?"

"No, sir; Mr. Roland does not seem to care much about it. He thinks it must have been taken in its transit through the post-office, and I cannot help being of the same opinion, sir."

Another question or two, and Jenkins attended Mr. b.u.t.terby to the door. He was preparing to follow him from it, but a peremptory female voice arrested his departure.

"Jenkins, I want you."

"It is hard upon half-past nine, my dear. I shall be late."

"If it's hard upon half-past ten, you'll just walk here. I want you, I say."

Meek as any lamb, Mr. Jenkins returned to the back parlour, and was marshalled into a chair. Mrs. Jenkins closed the door and stood before him. "Now, then, what did b.u.t.terby want?"

"I don't know what he wanted," replied Jenkins.

"You will sit there till you tell me," resolutely replied the lady. "I am not going to have police inquisitors making mysterious visits inside my doors, and not know what they do it for. You'll tell me every word that pa.s.sed, and the sooner you begin, the better."

"But I am ignorant myself of what he did want," mildly deprecated Jenkins. "He asked me a question or two about Mr. Arthur Channing, but why I don't know."

Leaving Mrs. Jenkins to ferret out the questions one by one--which, you may depend upon it, she would not fail to do, and to keep Jenkins a prisoner until it was over--and leaving Mr. b.u.t.terby to proceed to the house of the cathedral organist, whither he was now bent, to ascertain whether Mr. Williams did take the organ voluntarily, and (to Arthur) unexpectedly, the past Friday afternoon, we will go on to other matters. Mr. b.u.t.terby best knew what bearing this could have upon the case. Police officers sometimes give to their inquiries a strangely wide range.

CHAPTER XXII.

AN INTERRUPTED DINNER.

Have you ever observed a large lake on the approach of a sudden storm?--its unnatural stillness, death-like and ominous; its undercurrent of anger not yet apparent on the surface; and then the breaking forth of fury when the storm has come?

Not inaptly might the cloisters of Helstonleigh be compared to this, that day, when the college boys were let out of school at one o'clock. A strange rumour had been pa.s.sed about amongst the desks--not reaching that at which sat the seniors--a rumour which shook the equanimity of the school to its centre; and, when one o'clock struck, the boys, instead of clattering out with all the noise of which their legs and lungs were capable, stole down the stairs quietly, and formed into groups of whisperers in the cloisters. It was the calm that precedes a storm.

So unusual a state of affairs was noticed by the senior boy.

"What's up now?" he asked them, in the phraseology in vogue there and elsewhere. "Are you all going to a funeral? I hope it's your sins that you are about to bury!"

A heavy silence answered him. Gaunt could not make it out. The other three seniors, attracted by the scene, came back, and waited with Gaunt. By that time the calm was being ruffled by low murmurings, and certain distinct words came from more than one of the groups.

"What do you say?" burst forth Tom Channing, darting forward as the words caught his ear. "You, Jackson! speak up; what is it?"

Not Jackson's voice especially, but several other voices arose then; a word from one, a word from another, half sentences, disjointed hints, forming together an unmistakable whole. "The theft of old Galloway's bank-note has been traced to Arthur Channing."

"Who says it? Who dares to say it?" flashed Tom, his face flaming, and his hand clenched.

"The police say it. b.u.t.terby says it."

"I don't care for the police; I don't care for b.u.t.terby," cried Tom, stamping his foot in his terrible indignation. "I ask, who dares to say it here?"

"I do, then! Come, Mr. Channing, though you are a senior, and can put me up to Pye for punishment upon any false plea that you choose," answered a tall fellow, Pierce senior, who was chiefly remarkable for getting into fights, and was just now unusually friendly with Mark Galloway, at whose desk he sat.

Quick as lightning, Tom Channing turned and faced him. "Speak out what you have to say," cried he; "no hints."

"Whew!" retorted Pierce senior, "do you think I am afraid? I say that Arthur Channing stole the note lost by old Galloway."

Tom, in uncontrollable temper, raised his hand and struck him. One half-minute's struggle, nothing more, and Pierce senior was sprawling on the ground, while Tom Channing's cheek and nose were bleeding. Gaunt had stepped in between them.

"I stop this," he said. "Pierce, get up! Don't lie there like a floundering donkey. Channing, what possessed you to forget yourself?"

"You would have done the same, Gaunt, had the insult been offered to you. Let the fellow retract his words, or prove them."

"Very good. That is how you ought to have met it at first," said Gaunt. "Now, Mr. Pierce, can you make good your a.s.sertion?"

Pierce had floundered up, and was rubbing one of his long legs, which had doubled under him in the fall, while his brother, Pierce junior, was collecting an armful of scattered books, and whispering prognostications of parental vengeance in prospective; for, so surely as Pierce senior fell into a fight at school, to the damage of face or clothes, so surely was it followed up by punishment at home.

"If you want proof, go to b.u.t.terby at the police station, and get it from him," sullenly replied Pierce, who owned a sulky temper as well as a pugnacious one.

"Look here," interrupted Mark Galloway, springing to the front: "Pierce was a fool to bring it out in that way, but I'll speak up now it has come to this. I went into my uncle's, this morning, at nine o'clock, and there was he, shut in with b.u.t.terby. b.u.t.terby was saying that there was no doubt the theft had been committed by Arthur Channing. Mind, Channing," Mark added, turning to Tom, "I am not seconding the accusation on my own score; but, that b.u.t.terby said it I'll declare."

"Pshaw! is that all?" cried Tom Channing, lifting his head with a haughty gesture, and not condescending to notice the blood which trickled from his cheek. "You must have misunderstood him, boy."

"No, I did not," replied Mark Galloway. "I heard him as plainly as I hear you now."

"It is hardly likely that b.u.t.terby would say that before you, Galloway," observed Gaunt.

"Ah, but he didn't see I was there, or my uncle either," said Mark. "When he is reading his newspaper of a morning, he can't bear a noise, and I always go into the room as quiet as mischief. He turned me out again pretty quick, I can tell you; but not till I had heard b.u.t.terby say that."

"You must have misunderstood him," returned Gaunt, carelessly taking up Tom Channing's notion; "and you had no right to blurt out such a thing to the school. Arthur Channing is better known and trusted than you, Mr. Mark."

"I didn't accuse Arthur Channing to the school. I only repeated to my desk what b.u.t.terby said."

"It is that 'only repeating' which does three parts of the mischief in this world," said Gaunt, giving the boys a little touch of morality gratis, to their intense edification. "As to you, Pierce senior, you'll get more than you bargain for, some of these days, if you poke your ill-conditioned nose so often into other people's business."

Tom Channing had marched away towards his home, head erect, his step ringing firmly and proudly on the cloister flags. Charley ran by his side. But Charley's face was white, and Tom caught sight of it.

"What are you looking like that for?"

"Tom! you don't think it's true, do you?"

Tom turned his scorn upon the boy. "You little idiot! True! A Channing turn thief! You may, perhaps--it's best known to yourself--but never Arthur."

"I don't mean that. I mean, can it be true that the police suspect him?"

"Oh! that's what your face becomes milky for? You ought to have been born a girl, Miss Charley. If the police do suspect him, what of that?--they'll only have the tables turned upon themselves, b.u.t.terby might come out and say he suspects me of murder! Should I care? No; I'd prove my innocence, and make him eat his words."

They were drawing near home. Charley looked up at his brother. "You must wipe your face, Tom."

Tom took out his handkerchief, and gave his face a rub. In his indignation, his carelessness, he would have done nothing of the sort, had he not been reminded by the boy. "Is it off?"