The Ivory Gate, a new edition Part 53

When Mr. Dering arrived at his office next morning he observed that his table had not been arranged for him. Imagine the surprise of the housewife should she come down to breakfast and find the ham and the toast and the tea placed upon the table without the decent cloth! With such eyes did Mr. Dering gaze upon the pile of yesterday's letters lying upon his blotting-pad, the pens in disorder, the papers heaped about anyhow, the dust of yesterday everywhere. Such a thing had never happened before in his whole experience of fifty-five years. He touched his bell sharply.

'Why,' he asked, hanging up his coat without turning round, 'why is not my table put in order?' He turned and saw his clerk standing at the open door.--'Good Heavens! Checkley, what is the matter?'

For the ancient servitor stood with drooping head and melancholy face and bent shoulders. His hands hung down in the att.i.tude of one who waits to serve. But he did not serve. He stood still and he made no reply.

He understood now. Since the apparition of South Square he had had time to reflect. He now understood the whole business from the beginning to the end. One hand there was, and only one, concerned with the case. Now he understood the meaning of the frequent fits of abstraction, the long silences, this strange forgetfulness which made his master mix up days and hours, and caused him to wonder what he had done and where he had been on this and that evening. And somebody else knew. The girl knew.

She had told her lover. She had told her brother. That was why the new Partner laughed and defied them. It was on his charge that young Arundel had been forced to leave the country. It was he who declared that he had seen him place the stolen notes in the safe. It was he who had charged young Austin and whispered suspicions into the mind of Sir Samuel. Now the truth would come out, and they would all turn upon him, and his master would have to be told. Who would tell him? How could they tell him? Yet he must be told. And what would be done to the jealous servant?

And how could the old lawyer, with such a knowledge about himself, continue to work at his office? All was finished. He would be sent about his business. His master would go home and stay there--with an attendant. How could he continue to live without his work to do? What would he do all day? With whom would he talk? Everything finished and done with. Everything----

He stood, therefore, stricken dumb, humble, waiting for reproof.

'Are you ill, Checkley? asked Mr. Dering. 'You look ill. What is the matter?

'I am not ill,' he replied in a hollow voice, with a dismal shake of the head. 'I am not exactly ill. Yes, I am ill. I tried to put your table in order for you this morning, but I couldn't, I really couldn't. I feel as if I couldn't never do anything for you--never again. After sixty years'

service, it's hard to feel like that.'

He moved to the table and began mechanically laying the papers straight.

'No one has touched your table but me for sixty years. It's hard to think that another hand will do this for you--and do it quite as well, you'll think. That's what we get for faithful service.' He put the papers all wrong, because his old eyes were dimmed with unaccustomed moisture. Checkley had long since ceased to weep over the sorrows of others, even in the most moving situations, when, for instance, he himself carried off the sticks instead of the rent. But no man is so old that he cannot weep over his own misfortunes. Checkley's eye was therefore dimmed with the tear of Compa.s.sion, which is the sister of Charity.

'I do not understand you this morning, Checkley. Have you had any unpleasantness with Mr. Austin--with any of the people?'

'No--no. Only that I had better go before I am turned out. That's all.

That's all'--he repeated the words in despair. 'Nothing but that.'

'Who is going to turn you out? What do you mean, Checkley? What the devil do you mean by going on like this? Am I not master here? Who can turn you out?'

'You can, sir, and you will--and I'd rather, if you'll excuse the liberty, go out of my own accord. I'm a small man--only a very small man--but, thank G.o.d! I've got enough to give me a crust of bread and cheese to live upon.'

'I tell you what, Checkley: you had better go home and lie down and rest a little. You are upset. Now, at our age we can't afford to be upset. Go home, and be easy. Old friends don't part quite so easily as you think.'

Mr. Dering spoke kindly and gently. One must be patient with so old a servant.

Checkley sobbed and choked. Like a child he sobbed. Like a child of four, Checkley choked and sniffed. 'You don't understand,' he said. 'Oh, no--you can't understand. It's what I saw last night.'

'This is very wonderful. What did you see? A ghost?'

'Worse than a ghost--who cares for a ghost? Ghosts can't turn a man out of his place and bring him to be a laughingstock. No--no. It was a man that I saw, not a ghost.'

'If you can find it possible to talk reasonably'--Mr. Dering took his chair and tore open an envelope--'when you can find it possible to talk reasonably, I will listen. Meantime, I really think that you had better go home and lie down for an hour or two. Your nerves are shaken; you hardly know what you are saying.'

'I was in Gray's Inn yesterday evening. By accident, at eight.' He spoke in gasps, watching his master curiously. 'By accident--not spying.

No--by accident. On my way to my club--at the _Salutation_. Walking through South Square. Not thinking of anything. Looking about me--careless-like.'

'South Square, Gray's Inn. That is the place where the man Edmund Gray lives: the man we want to find and cannot find.'

'Oh! Lord! Lord!' exclaimed the clerk. 'Is it possible?' He lifted his hand and raised his eyes to heaven and groaned. Then he resumed his narrative.

'Coming through the pa.s.sage, I looked up to the windows of No. 22--Mr.

Edmund Gray's Chambers, you know.'

'I believe so.' Mr. Dering's face betrayed no emotion at all. 'Go on; I am told so.'

'In the window I saw Mr. Edmund Gray himself--himself.'

'Curious. You have seen him--but why not?'

'The man we've all been so anxious to find. The man who endorsed the cheque and wrote the letters and got the papers--there he was!'

'Question of ident.i.ty. How did you know him, since you had never seen him before?'

This question Checkley s.h.i.+rked.

'He came down-stairs five minutes afterwards, while I was still looking up at the windows. Came down-stairs, and walked out of the Square--made as if he was going out by way of Raymond's Buildings--much as if he might be going to Bedford Row.'

'These details are unimportant. Again--how did you know him?'

'I asked the Policeman who the gentleman was. He said it was Mr. Edmund Gray. I asked the newspaper boy at the Holborn entrance. He said it was Mr. Edmund Gray, and that everybody knew him.'

'So everybody knows him. Well, Checkley, I see nothing so very remarkable about your seeing a man so well known in the Inn. It adds nothing to our knowledge. That he exists, we know already. What share, if any, he has had in this case of ours remains still a mystery. Unless, that is, you have found out something else.'

Checkley gazed upon his master with a kind of stupor. 'No--no,' he murmured. 'I can't.'

'What did you do, when you found out that it was the man?'

'Nothing.'

'You did nothing. Well--under the circ.u.mstances I don't know what you could have done.'

'And he walked away.'

'Oh! He walked away. Very important indeed.--But, Checkley, this story does not in the least account for your strange agitation this morning.

Have you anything more to tell me? I see that you have, but you seem to experience more than usual difficulty in getting it out.'

The clerk hesitated. 'Do you,' he asked at last--'do you--happen--to know Gray's Inn?'

'I daresay I have been there--years ago. Why?'

'Oh! you haven't been there lately, have you?'

'Not lately--not for forty years, or some such inconsiderable period.

Why?'

'I thought you might yourself have met Mr. Edmund Gray--been to his Chambers, perhaps.'

Mr. Dering sat upright and laid his hand upon his letters. 'Checkley,'

he said, 'I am always willing to make allowance for people in mental distress, but I think I have made allowance enough. Come to the point.

Have you lost any money?'

'No--no; not so bad as that--but bad enough. No, I couldn't afford to lose money. I haven't got enough to spare any. But I got a shock--a kind of stroke--partly because of the man I met, and partly because of the person with him.'