Johnny Ludlow Sixth Series Part 31

"Is MacEveril back yet?" asked Preen.

"No," replied Paul. "The captain does not know where he is; no one does know, that I'm aware of. Look here, Preen; as this letter appears to be really lost, and very unaccountably, since Mrs. Sym is sure she sent it off, and I am sure it was never delivered to me, I shall go to our office here now, and inquire about it. Will you come with me?"

Mr. Preen was only too glad to go to any earthly place that was likely to afford news of his ten-pound note, for the loss would be his, and he knew not where he should find another ten pounds to satisfy the insatiable Derrick.

They proceeded along the pavement together, pa.s.sing Oliver, who was slowly parading the gig up and down the street. His sad face--unusually sad it looked--had a sort of expectancy on it as he turned his gaze from side to side, lest by some happy chance it might catch the form of Emma Paul. Emma might be going to marry another; but, all the same, Oliver could not drop her out of his heart.

They disclaimed all recollection of the letter at the post-office. Had it been for a private individual it might have been remembered, but Mr.

Paul had too many letters to allow of that, unless something special called attention to any one of them. Whether the letter in question had reached them by the Islip bag, or whether it had not, they could not say; but they could positively affirm that, if it had, it had been sent out to Mr. Paul.

In returning they overtook the postman on his round, with the afternoon delivery: a young, active man, who seemed to skim over the ground, and was honest as the day.

"Dale," said Lawyer Paul, "there has been a letter lost, addressed to me. I wonder whether you chanced to notice such a letter?" And he mentioned the details of the case.

"One day is like another to me in its round of duties, you see, sir,"

observed the man. "Sealed with a big red seal, you say, sir? Well, it might be, but that's nothing for me to go by; so many of your letters are sealed, sir."

The lawyer returned to his office with Mr. Preen, and entered his own room. Tom Chandler heard them and came swiftly through the door which opened from the clerks' department, a smile of satisfaction on his face.

"I remember all about the letters that were brought in on Wednesday week," said he. "I can recall the whole of the circ.u.mstances; they were rather unusual."

A TRAGEDY

III.--MYSTERY

I

Thomas Chandler possessed a clear, retentive memory by nature, and he had done nothing to cloud it. After his master, Lawyer Paul--soon to be no longer his master, but his partner--had gone out with Mr. Preen to make inquiries at the post-office for the missing letter, he sat down to bring his memory into exercise.

Carrying his thoughts back to the Wednesday afternoon, some ten days ago, when the letter ought to have been delivered at Mr. Paul's office, and was not--at least, so far as could be traced at present--he had little difficulty in recalling its chief events, one remembered incident leading up to another.

Then he pa.s.sed into the front room, and spoke for some minutes with Michael Hanborough, a steady little man of middle age, who had been with Mr. Paul over twenty years. There was one clerk under him, t.i.te Batley (full name t.i.tus), and there had been young Richard MacEveril. The disappearance of the latter had caused the office to be busy just now, Michael Hanborough especially so. He was in the room alone when Mr.

Chandler entered.

"You have not gone to tea yet, Mr. Hanborough!"

"No, sir. I wanted to finish this deed, first. Batley's gone to his."

"Look here, Hanborough, I want to ask you a question or two. That deed's in no particular hurry, for I am sure Mr. Paul will not be ready to send it off to-day," continued Mr. Chandler. "There's going to be a fuss over that letter of Preen's, which appears to have been unaccountably lost. I have been carrying my thoughts back to the Wednesday afternoon when it ought to have been delivered here, and I want you to do the same. Try and recollect anything and everything you can, connected with that afternoon."

"But, Mr. Chandler, the letter could not have been delivered here; Mr.

Paul says so," reasoned Michael Hanborough, turning from his desk while he spoke and leaning his elbow upon it.

His desk stood between the window and the door which opened from the pa.s.sage; the window being at his right hand as he sat. Opposite, beside the other window, was Mr. Chandler's desk. A larger desk, used by MacEveril and young Batley, crossed the lower end of the room, facing the window; and near it was the narrow door that opened to Mr. Paul's room.

Thomas Chandler remained talking with Hanborough until he saw the lawyer and Mr. Preen return, when he joined them in the other room. They mentioned their failure at the post-office, and he then related to them what he had been able to recall.

Wednesday afternoon, the sixteenth of June, had been distinguished in Mr. Paul's office by a little breeze raised by Richard MacEveril.

Suddenly looking up from his writing, he disturbed Mr. Chandler, who was busy at his desk, by saying he expected to have holiday on the morrow for the whole day. Hanborough was just then in Mr. Paul's room; Batley was out. Batley had been sent to execute a commission at a distance, and would not be back till evening.

"Oh, indeed!" responded Tom Chandler, laughing at MacEveril's modest request, so modestly put. "What else would you like, d.i.c.k?"

d.i.c.k laughed too. "That will serve me for the present moment, Mr.

Chandler," said he.

"Well, d.i.c.k, I'm sorry to deny you, but you can't have it. You have a conscience to ask it, young man, when you know the Worcester Sessions are close at hand, and we are so busy here we don't know which way to turn!"

"I mean to take it," said d.i.c.k.

"But I don't mean you to; understand that. See here, d.i.c.k: I won't be harder than I'm obliged; I should like to go to the pic-nic myself, though there's no chance of that for me. Come here in good time in the morning, get through as much work as you can, and I daresay we can let you off at one o'clock. There!"

This concession did not satisfy MacEveril. When Mr. Hanborough came in from the other room he found the young man exercising his saucy tongue upon Tom Chandler, calling him a "Martinet," a "Red Indian Freebooter,"

and other agreeable names, which he may have brought with him from Australia. Tom, ever sweet-tempered, took it all pleasantly, and bade him go on with his work.

That interlude pa.s.sed. At half-past four o'clock MacEveril went out, as usual, to get his tea, leaving Chandler and Hanborough in the office, each writing at his own desk. Presently the former paused; looked fixedly at the mortgage-deed he was engaged upon, and then got up to carry it to the old clerk. As he was crossing the room the postman came in, put a small pile of letters into Mr. Chandler's hand, and went out again. Tom looked down at the letters but did not disturb them; he laid them down upon Mr. Hanborough's desk whilst he showed him the parchment.

"I don't much like this one clause, Hanborough," he said. "Just read it; it's very short. Would it be binding on the other party?"

They were both reading the clause, heads together, when Mr. Paul was heard speaking in haste. "Chandler! Tom Chandler! Come here directly"--and Tom turned and went at once.

"Is Hanborough there?" cried Mr. Paul.

"Yes, sir."

"Tell him to come in also; no time to lose."

Mr. Paul wanted them to witness his signature to a deed which had to go off by the evening post. That done, he detained them for a minute upon some other matter; after which, Hanborough left the room. Chandler turned to follow him.

"Bring the letters in as soon as they come," said Mr. Paul. "There may be one from Burnaby."

"Oh, they have come," replied Tom; and he went into the other room and brought the letters to the lawyer.

It was this which Tom Chandler now related to his master and to Mr.

Preen. By dint of exercising his own memory and referring to his day-book, Mr. Paul was enabled to say that the letters that past afternoon were four in number, and to state from whom they came. There was no letter amongst them from Mr. Preen; none at all from Duck Brook.

So there it was: the letter seemed to have mysteriously vanished; either out of the post bag despatched by Mrs. Sym, or else after its arrival at Islip. The latter was of course the more probable; since, as Dame Sym had herself remarked, once a letter was shut up in the bag, there it must remain; it could not vanish from it.

But, a.s.suming this to be the case, how and where had it vanished? From the Islip post-office? Or from the postman's hands when carrying it out for delivery? Or from Mr. Paul's front room?

They were yet speaking when Dale the postman walked in. He came to say that he had been exercising his mind upon the afternoons of the past week and could now distinguish Wednesday from the others. He recalled it by remembering that it was the afternoon of the accident in the street, when a tax-cart was overturned and the driver had broken his arm; and he could positively say that he had that afternoon delivered the letters to Mr. Chandler himself.

"Yes, yes, we remember all that ourselves, Dale," returned Mr. Paul, somewhat testily. "The thing we want you to remember is, whether you observed amidst the letters one with a large red seal."

Dale shook his head. "No, sir, I did not. The letters lay one upon another, address upwards, and I took no particular notice of them. There were four or five of them, I should think."