Johnny Ludlow Sixth Series Part 32

"Four," corrected the lawyer. "Well, that's all, Dale, for the present.

The letter is lost, and we must consider what to do in the matter."

Yes, it was all very well to say that to Dale, but what _could_ they do?

How set about it? To begin with, Preen did not know the number of the note, but supposed he might get it from Mr. Todhetley. He stayed so long in discussion with the lawyer, that his son, waiting in the gig outside, grew tired and the horse impatient.

Oliver was almost ready to die of weariness, when an acquaintance of his came out of the Bell. Fred Scott; a das.h.i.+ng young fellow, who had more money than brains.

"Get up," said Oliver. And Scott got into the gig.

They were driving slowly about and talking fast, when two young ladies came into view at the end of the street. Oliver threw the reins to his friend, got out in a trice and met them. No need to say that one of them was Emma Paul.

"I beg your pardon," said Oliver to her, lifting his hat from his suddenly flushed face, as he shook hands with both of them. "I left two books at your house yesterday: did you get them? The servant said you were out."

"Oh, yes, I had them; and I thank you very much," answered Emma, with a charming smile: whilst Mary MacEveril went away to feast her eyes at the milliner's window. "I have begun one of them already."

"Jane said you would like to read them; and so--I--I left them,"

returned Oliver, with the hesitating shyness of true love.

"It is very kind of you, Sir. Oliver, to bring them over, and I am sorry I was not at home," said Emma. "When are you and Jane coming to see me?"

With her dimpled face all smiles, her blue eyes beaming upon him, her ready handshake still tingling in his pulses, her cordial tones telling of pleasure, how could that fascinated young man do otherwise than believe in her? The world might talk of her love for Tom Chandler: he did not and would not believe it held a grain of truth. Oh, if he could but know that she loved _him_! Mary MacEveril turned.

"Emma, are you not coming? We have that silk to match, you know."

With another handshake, another sweet smile, she went away with Mary.

Oliver said adieu, his heart on his lips. All his weariness was gone, lost in a flood of suns.h.i.+ne.

Mr. Preen was seen, coming along. Scott got out of the gig, and Oliver got into it. Preen took his seat and the reins, and drove off.

Mr. Paul went home to dinner at the usual hour that evening, but the clerks remained beyond the time for closing. Work had been hindered, and had to be done. Batley was the first to leave; the other two lingered behind, talking of the loss.

"It is the most surprising thing that has happened for a long while,"

remarked Hanborough. He had locked his desk and had his hat and gloves at his elbow. "That letter has been stolen, Mr. Chandler; it has not been accidentally lost."

"Ay," a.s.sented Tom. "Stolen--I fear--from here. From this very room that you and I are standing in, Hanborough."

"My suspicions, sir, were directed to the Islip post-office."

"I wish mine were," said Tom. "I don't think--think, mind, for we cannot be sure--that the post-office is the right quarter to look to. You see the letters were left here on your desk, while we were occupied with Mr. Paul in his room. About two minutes, I suppose, we stayed with him; perhaps three. Did anyone come in during that time, Hanborough, and take the letter?"

Mr. Hanborough drew off his spectacles, which he wore out of doors as well as in; he was sure to take them off when anything disturbed him.

"But who would do such a thing?" he asked.

Tom laughed a little. "You wouldn't, old friend, and I wouldn't; but there may be people in the neighbourhood who would."

Doubts were presenting themselves to Michael Hanborough's mind: he did not "see" this, as the saying runs. "Why should anyone single out that one particular letter to take, and leave the rest?" he resumed.

"That point puzzles me," remarked Tom. "If the letter was singled out, as you put it, from the rest, I should say the thief must have known it contained money: and who could, or did, know that? I wish I had carried the letters in with me when Mr. Paul called to me!"

"If the letters had been left alone for a whole day in our office, I should never have supposed they were not safe," said the clerk, impulsively. "But, now that my attention has been drawn to this, I must mention something, Mr. Chandler."

"Yes. Go on."

"When the master called me in after you, I followed you in through that door," he began, pointing to the door of communication between the two rooms. "But I left it by the other, the pa.s.sage door, chancing to be nearest to it at the moment. As I went out, I saw the green baize door swinging, and supposed that someone had come in; MacEveril, perhaps, from his tea. But he had not done so. I found neither him nor anyone else; the room here was vacant as when I left it."

The green baize door stood in the pa.s.sage, between the street door, always open in the daytime, and the door that led into the front office.

"Seeing no one here, I concluded I was mistaken; and I have never thought of it from that hour to this," continued the clerk. "No, not even when it came out that a letter had been lost with a bank-note in it."

Tom nodded his head several times, as much as to say that was when the thief must have come in. "And now, Hanborough, I'll tell you something in turn," he went on. "Dale put the letters into my hand that afternoon, as you know; and I laid them on your desk here while showing you that clause in the mortgage deed. Later, when I took up the letters to carry them to Mr. Paul, an idea struck me that the packet felt thinner. It did indeed. I of course supposed it to be only fancy, and let it slip from my mind. I have never thought of it since--as you say by the green door--until this afternoon."

Michael Hanborough, who had put his spectacles on again, turned them upon his young master, and dropped his voice to a whisper.

"Who is it that--that we may suspect, sir?"

"Say yourself, Hanborough."

"I'm afraid to say. Is it--MacEveril?"

"It looks like it," replied Tom, in the same low tone. "But while there are reasons for suspecting him, there are also reasons against it," he added, after a pause. "MacEveril was in debt, petty little odds and ends of things which he owes about the place and elsewhere; that's one reason why money would be useful to him. Then his running away looks suspicious; and another reason is that there's positively no one else to suspect. All that seems to tell against him; but on the other hand, MacEveril, though random and heedless, is a gentleman and has a gentleman's instincts, and I do _not_ think he would be guilty of such a thing."

"Well, and I can't think it, either," said Michael Hanborough; "despite his faults and his saucy tongue, I liked him. He did not come in again that afternoon till half-past five, I remember. I told him he was late; he answered, laughing, that he had dropped asleep over his tea--though I didn't believe a word of it."

"If MacEveril really took the letter, how had he ascertained that it contained money?" mused Tom Chandler. "Hanborough, at present I think this suspicion had better lie entirely between ourselves."

"Yes, Mr. Chandler, and so do I. Perhaps a few days may bring forth something to confirm or dispel it."

II

Preen was a great deal too anxious and restless to let the following day pa.s.s over quietly; and on that Sunday afternoon when we were all sitting in the garden at Crabb Cot, under the scent and shade of the large syringa trees, he walked in. His little dark face looked darker than ever, the scowl of pain on his brow deeper.

"No, I can't take anything," he said, in answer to the Squire's hospitable offers of having wine, or ale, or lemonade brought out.

"Thirsty? Yes, I am thirsty, Squire, but it is with worry, not with the walk. Wine and lemonade won't relieve that."

And, sitting down to face us, in a swinging American chair, which Tod had brought out for his own benefit, Gervais Preen surprised us with the history of his mysterious loss, and inquired whether the Squire could give him the number of the note.

"Yes, I can," replied the Squire; "my name is on the note also; you made me write it, you know. How on earth has it got lost?"

"It is just one of those things there's no accounting for," said Preen, bending forward in his earnestness. "The letter left Duck Brook in safety; I posted it myself, and Mrs. Sym took notice of it when she shut it up in the bag. That is as far as it can be traced. The Islip post-office, though not remembering it in particular, have no doubt it reached them, as it could not have been lost from the bag, or that they sent it out for delivery to Mr. Paul by Dale, who is cautious and trustworthy. Paul declares it never reached him; and of course _he_ is trustworthy. Dale says, and it is a fact, that he delivered the letters that afternoon into Mr. Chandler's own hands. One cannot see where to look for a weak point, you perceive, Todhetley."

The Squire was rubbing his face, the account having put it into a white heat. "Bless my heart!" cried he. "It reminds me of that five-pound note of mine which was changed in the post for a stolen one! You remember _that_, Johnny."

"Yes, sir, that I do."

"Wednesday, the sixteenth, was the day it ought to have reached old Paul!" exclaimed Tod, who was balancing himself on the branch of a tree.

"Why, that was the day before the pic-nic!"