Part 39 (1/2)

Elsie looked at the clock. It was only just after nine. She ran to her room, put on her jacket and hat, and called a cab.

She arrived at half-past nine. Checkley was already in his master's room, laying out the table for the day's work as usual. The girl was touched at the sight of this old servant of sixty years' service doing these offices zealously and jealously. She stood in the outer office watching him through the open door. When he had finished, he came out and saw her.

'Oh!' he grumbled. 'It's you, is it? Well--he hasn't come. If you want to see Mr. Dering, it's full early. If you want to see the new partner, he isn't come. He don't hurry himself. Perhaps you'll sit down a bit and look at the paper. Here's the _Times_. He'll be here at a quarter to ten.'

Checkley sat down at his desk and took up a pen. But he laid it down again and began to talk. 'We're in trouble, Miss. No fault of yours-- I don't say it is. We're in trouble. The trouble is going to be worse before it's better. They're not content with robbing the master, but they mock at him and jeer him. They jeer him. They put on his table letters addressed to the man they call Edmund Gray. They open his safe and put things in it belonging to Edmund Gray. We're not so young as we was, and it tells upon us. We're not so regular as we should be.

Sometimes we're late--and sometimes we seem, just for a bit, not to know exactly who we are nor what we are. Oh! it's nothing--nothing, but what will pa.s.s away when the trouble's over. But think of the black ingrat.i.tood, Miss--Oh! black--black. I'm not blamin' you; but I think you ought to know the trouble we're in--considering who's done it and all.'

Elsie made no reply. She had nothing to say. Certainly she could not enter into a discussion with this man as to the part, if any, taken in the business by the new partner. Then Checkley made a show of beginning to write with zeal. The morning was hot: the place was quiet: the old man's hand gradually slackened: the pen stopped: the eyes closed: his head dropped back upon his chair: he was asleep. It is not uncommon for an old man to drop off in this way.

Elsie sat perfectly still. At eleven o'clock she heard a step upon the stairs. It mounted: it stopped: the private door was opened, and Mr.

Dering entered. He stood for a moment in the doorway, looking about the room. Now, as the girl looked at him, she perceived that he was again in the condition described by George--as a matter of fact, it was in this condition that Mr. Dering generally arrived in the morning. His coat was unb.u.t.toned: his face wore the genial and benevolent look which we do not generally a.s.sociate with lawyers of fifty years' standing: the eyes were Mr. Dering's eyes, but they were changed--not in colour or in form, but in expression. Elsie was reminded of her portrait. That imaginary sketch was no other than the Mr. Dering who now stood before her.

He closed the door behind him and walked across the room to the window.

Then Elsie, lightly, so as not to awaken the drowsy old clerk, stepped into Mr. Dering's office and shut the door softly behind her.

The sleep-walker stood at the window, looking out. Elsie crept up and stood beside him. Then she touched him on the arm. He started and turned. 'Young lady,' he said, 'what can I do for you?' He showed no sign of recognition at all in his eyes: he did not know her. 'Can I do anything for you?' he repeated.

'I am afraid--nothing,' she replied.

He looked at her doubtfully. Then apparently remembering some duty as yet unfulfilled, he left the window and unlocked the safe. He then drew out of his pocket a ma.n.u.script tied up with red tape. Elsie looked into the safe and read the t.i.tle--'_The New Humanity_, by Edmund Gray,' which was written in large letters on the outer page. Then he shut and locked the safe and dropped the key in his own pocket. This done, he returned to the window and sat down, taking no manner of notice of his visitor.

All this exactly as he had done before in presence of George and his old clerk.

For ten minutes he sat there. Then he s.h.i.+vered, straightened himself, stood up, and looked about the room, Mr. Dering again.

'Elsie!' he cried. 'I did not know you were here. How long have you been here?'

'Not very long. A few minutes, perhaps.'

'I must have fallen asleep. It is a hot morning. You must forgive the weakness of an old man, child. I had a bad night too. I was awake a long time, thinking of all these troubles and worries. They can't find out, Elsie, who has robbed me.' He spoke querulously and helplessly. 'They accuse each other, instead of laying their heads together. Nonsense!

Checkley couldn't do it. George couldn't do it. The thing was done by somebody else. My brother came here with a c.o.c.k-and-bull case, all built up of presumptions and conclusions. If they would only find out!'

'The trouble is mine as much as yours, Mr. Dering. I have had to leave my mother's house, where I had to listen to agreeable prophecies about my lover and my brother. I wish, with you, that they would find out!'

He took off his hat and hung it on its peg. He b.u.t.toned his frock-coat and took his place at the table, upright and precise. Yet his eyes were anxious.

'They tease me too. They mock me. Yesterday, they laid two letters addressed to this man, Edmund Gray, on my letters. What for? To laugh at me, to defy me to find them out. Checkley swears he didn't put them there. I arrived at the moment when he was leaving the room. Are we haunted? And the day before--and the day before that--there were things put in the safe----'

'In the safe? Oh! but n.o.body has the key except yourself. How can anything be put in the safe?'

'I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't know what may be taken next. My houses--my mortgages, my lands, my very practice----'

'Nay,--they could not. Is there anything this morning?'

He turned over his letters. 'Apparently not. Stay; I have not looked in the safe. He got up and threw open the safe. Then he took up a packet.

'Again!' he cried almost with a scream. 'Again! See this!' He tossed on the table the packet which he had himself, only ten minutes before, placed in the safe with his own hands. 'See this! Thus they laugh at me--thus they torment me!' He hurled the packet to the other side of the room, returned to his chair, and laid his head upon his hands, sighing deeply.