Johnny Ludlow Sixth Series Part 33

"And what if it was?" retorted Preen, enraged that everybody should bring up that pic-nic in conjunction with his loss. "The pic-nic had nothing to do with my bank-note and letter."

"Clearly not," agreed Tod, laughing at his ire.

"I should advertise, Preen," said the Squire, "and I should call in the detectives. They----"

"I don't like detectives," growled Preen, interrupting him, "and I think advertising might do more harm than good. I must get my money back somehow; I can't afford to lose it. But as to those detectives---- Mercy upon us!"

In the ardour of declamation, Mr. Preen had bent a little too forward.

The chair backed from under him, and he came down upon the gra.s.s, hands and knees. Tod choked with laughter, and dashed off to get rid of it.

The man gathered himself up.

"Nasty tilting things, those chairs are!" he exclaimed. "Please don't trouble, ma'am," for Mrs. Todhetley had sprung forward; "there's no harm done. And if you don't mind giving me the number of the note to-day, Squire, I shall be much obliged."

He declined to stay for tea, saying he wanted to get back home. When he and the Squire went indoors, we talked of the loss; Mrs. Todhetley thought it strangely unaccountable.

As the days went on, and the bank-note did not turn up, Mr. Preen fell into the depths of gloom. He had lost no time in proceeding to the Old Bank, at Worcester--from whence Mr. Todhetley had drawn the note, in conjunction with other notes--recounting to its princ.i.p.als the history of its loss, and giving in its number, together with the information that Mr. Todhetley's name was written on it. The bank promised to make inquiries of other banks, and to detain the note should it be paid in.

"As if _that_ were likely!" groaned Preen. "A rogue filching a note would not go and pay it into the place it came from."

Thomas Chandler was gazetted the partner of Mr. Paul, the firm to be known henceforth as Paul and Chandler. In the first private conference that the young man held with his partner, he imparted to him the suspicions which he and Hanborough held of d.i.c.k MacEveril. For as that erratic gentleman continued to absent himself, and the time was going on without bringing a shadow of doubt upon anyone else, the new partner felt that in duty he must speak to his chief and elder. Old Paul was overwhelmed.

"What a dreadful thing!" he exclaimed testily. "And why couldn't you or Hanborough mention this before?"

"Well," said Tom, "for one thing I was always expecting something might crop up to decide it one way or another; and, to tell the truth, sir, I cannot bring myself to believe that MacEveril did it."

"He is a villainous young dog for impudence, but--to do such a thing as that? No, I can hardly think it, either," concluded the lawyer.

That same evening, after his dinner, Mr. Paul betook himself to Oak Mansion, to an interview with his old friend, Captain MacEveril. Not to accuse that scapegrace nephew of the Captain's to his face, but to gather a hint or two about him, if any might be gathered.

The very first mention of d.i.c.k's name set the old sailor off. His right foot was showing symptoms of gout just then; between that and d.i.c.k he had no temper at all. Calming down presently, he called his man to produce tobacco and grog. They sat at the open window, smoking a pipe apiece, the gla.s.ses on a stand between them, and the lame foot upon a stool. For the expost-captain made a boast that he did not give in to that enemy of his any more than he had ever given in to an enemy at a sea-fight. The welcome evening breeze blew in upon them through the open bow window, with the sweet-scent of the July roses; and the sky was gorgeous with the red sunset.

"Where is d.i.c.k, you ask," exploded the Captain. "How should I know where he is? Hang him! When he has taken his fill of London shows with that Australian companion of his, he'll make his way back again here, I reckon. Write? Not he. He knows he'd get a letter back from me, Paul, if he did."

Leading up to it by degrees, talking of this and that, and especially of the mysterious loss of Preen's note, the lawyer spoke doubtingly of whether it could have been lost out of his own office, and, if so, who had taken it. "That young rascal would not do such a thing, you know, MacEveril," he carelessly remarked.

"What, d.i.c.k? No, no, he'd not do that," said the Captain, promptly.

"Though I've known young fellows venture upon queer things when they were hard up for money. d.i.c.k's honest to the backbone. Had he wanted money to travel with, he'd have wormed it out of my wife by teasing, but he wouldn't steal it."

"About that time, a day or so before it, he drew out the linings of his pockets as he sat at his desk, and laughingly a.s.sured Hanborough, that he had not a coin of ready money in the world," remarked Mr. Paul.

"Like enough," a.s.sented the Captain. "Coin never stays in _his_ pockets."

"I wonder where he found the money to travel with?"

"Pledged his watch and chain maybe," returned the Captain with composure. "He would be quite equal to _that_. Stockleigh, the fellow he is with in London, had brought home heaps of gold, 'twas said; he no doubt stands treat for d.i.c.k."

John Paul did not, could not, say anything more definite. He thought of nothing else as he walked home; now saying to himself that d.i.c.k had stolen the money, now veering over to the Captain's opinion that d.i.c.k was incapable of doing so. The uncertainty bothered him, and he hated to be bothered.

The man to whom the money was owing, Robert Derrick, was becoming very troublesome. Hardly a day pa.s.sed but he marched into Mr. Paul's office, to press for payment, threatening to take steps if he did not get it shortly. The morning following the lawyer's visit to Captain MacEveril, he went in again, vowing it was for the last time, for that he should cite Mr. Preen before the County Court.

"And mark you this," he added to Hanborough, with whom the colloquy was taking place, "some past matters will come out that Preen wants kept in.

He'll wish he had paid me, then."

Now, old Paul overheard this, for the door was partly open. Rugged in look, and in manner too when he chose to be, he was not rugged at heart.

He was saying to himself that if this money had really been lost out of his office, stolen possibly by one of his clerks, he might replace it from his own pocket, to ward off further damage to Preen. Preen had not at present a second ten-pound note to give, could not find one anyway; Preen wished he could. Ten pounds would not affect the lawyer's pocket at all: and his resolution was taken. Ringing his bell, which was answered by Batley, he bade him show Derrick to his room.

The man came in with a subdued face. He supposed he had been overheard, and he did not care to offend Mr. Paul.

"I cannot have you coming here to disturb my clerks, Derrick," said the lawyer, with authority. "If you write out a receipt, I will pay you."

"And sure enough that's all I want, sir," returned Derrick, who was Irish. "But I can't let the thing go on longer--and it's Preen I'd like to disturb, Lawyer Paul, not you."

"Sit down yonder and write the receipt," said the lawyer, shortly. "You know how to word it."

So Derrick wrote the receipt and went off with the ten pounds. And Gervais Preen said a few words of real thanks to Mr. Paul in a low tone, when he heard of it.

On Tuesday morning, the thirteenth of July, exactly four weeks to the day since the bank-note left Mr. Preen's hands, he had news of it. The Old Bank at Worcester wrote to him to say that the missing note had been paid in the previous day, Monday, by a well-known firm of linen-drapers in High Street. Upon which the bank made inquiry of this firm as to whence they received the note, and the answer, readily given, was that they had had it from a neighbour opposite--the silversmith. The silversmith, questioned in his turn, replied with equal readiness that it had been given him in payment of a purchase by young Mr. Todhetley.

Preen, hardly believing his eyes, went off with all speed to Islip, and laid the letter before Lawyer Paul.

"What does it all mean?" he asked. "How can young Todhetley have had the note in his possession? I am going on to Crabb Cot to show the Squire the letter."

"Stop, stop," said the far-seeing lawyer, "it won't do to take this letter to Todhetley. Let us consider, first of all, how we stand. There must be some mistake. The bank and the silversmith have muddled matters between them; they may have put young Todhetley's name into it through seeing his father's on the bank-note. I will write at once to Worcester and get it privately inquired into. You had better leave it altogether in my hands, Preen, for the present." A proposal Preen was glad to agree to.

Lawyer Paul wrote to another lawyer in Worcester with whom he was on friendly terms, Mr. Corles; stating the particulars of the case. That gentleman lost no time in the matter; he made the inquiries himself, and speedily wrote back to Islip.

There had been no mistake, as Mr. Paul had surmised. The linen-drapers, a long-established and respectable firm, as Paul knew, had paid the note into the Old Bank, with other monies, in the ordinary course of business; and the firm repeated to Mr. Corles that they had received it from their neighbour, the silversmith.

The silversmith himself was from home at this time; he was staying at Malvern for his health, going to Worcester on the market days only, Sat.u.r.days and Wednesdays, when the shop expected to be busy. He had one shopman only, a Mr. Stephenson, who took charge in his master's absence.

Stephenson a.s.sured Mr. Corles that he had most positively taken the note from Squire Todhetley's son. Young Mr. Todhetley had gone into the shop, purchased some trifling article, giving the note in payment, and received the change in gold. Upon referring to his day-book, Stephenson found that the purchase was made and the note paid to him during the morning of Thursday, the seventeenth of June.

When this communication from Mr. Corles reached Islip, it very much astonished old Paul. "Absurd!" he exclaimed, flinging it upon his table when he had read it; then he took it up and read it again.

"Here, Chandler," said he, calling his new partner to him, "what do you make of this?"

Tom Chandler read it twice over in his turn. "If Joseph Todhetley did change the note," he observed, "he must have done it as a practical joke, and be keeping up the joke."

"It is hardly likely," returned Mr. Paul. "If he has, he will have a bad quarter of an hour when the Squire hears of it."

On this same morning, Thursday, we were preparing for Worcester; the Squire was going to drive us in--that is, myself and Tod. The phaeton was actually being brought round to the gate and we were getting our hats, when Tom Chandler walked in, saying he had come upon a little matter of business.

"No time to attend to it now, Tom," said the Squire, all in a bustle; "just starting for Worcester. You look hot."

"I am hot, for I came along at a trotting pace," said Tom; "the matter I have come upon makes me hot also. Mr. Todhetley, I must explain it, short as your time may be; it is very important, and--and peculiar. Mr.

Paul charged me to say that he would have come himself, but he is obliged to stay at home to keep an appointment."