Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Then they don’t prosecute?”

  “Not a bit of it And I’m free to confess that, taking in all aspects of affairs — Brown’s good conduct since, and the probability that Sam Teague was the sole offender — the man has shown himself in all ordinary pecuniary interests, just as honest and trustworthy as here and there one.”

  “Did he—” Bede Greatorex hesitated, stopped, and then went on with his sentence— “take my cheque?”

  “That must be left to your judgment, sir. I’ve no cause myself to make sure of it. The letter to Foster was written about the time the cheque was lost, or a few days later; it made an allusion to money, Brown saying he was glad to be out of his debt, but whether the debt was pounds or shillings, I’ve no present means of knowing. Foster wouldn’t answer me a syllable; was uncommonly savage at his own carelessness in letting the letter get amid the other. Living close and working hard, Brown would have money in hand of his own without touching yours, Mr. Bede Greatorex.”

  Bede nodded.

  “On the other hand, a man who has lain under a cloud is more to be doubted than one who has walked about in the open sunshine all his life. The presenter of that cheque at the bank had a quantity of black hair about his face, just as the false Godfrey Pitman had on his at Helstonleigh. But it would be hardly fair to suspect Brown on that score, seeing there’s so many faces in London adorned with it natural.”

  Again Bede nodded in acquiescence.

  “Of course, sir, if you choose to put it to the test, you might have Mr. Brown’s face dressed up for it, and let the bank see him. Anyway, ’twould set the matter at rest.”

  “No,” said Bede, quite sharply. “No, I should not like to do it. I never thought of Brown in the affair; never. I can’t — don’t — think of him now.”

  Did he not now think of him? Butterby, with his keen ears, fancied the last concluding sentence had a false ring in it.

  “Well, sir, that lies at your own option. I’ve done my duty in making you acquainted with this, but I’ve no call to stir in it, unless you choose to put it officially into my hands. But there’s the other and graver matter, Mr. Bede Greatorex.”

  “What other?” questioned Bede, turning to him.

  “That at Helstonleigh,” said the detective. “All sorts of notions and thoughts — fanciful some of ’em — come crowding through my mind at once. I don’t say that he had any hand in Mr. Ollivera’s death; but it might have been so: and this, that has now come out, strengthens the suspicion against him in some points, and weakens it in others. You remember the queer conduct of Alletha Rye at the time, sir — her dream, and her show-off at the grave — which I had the satisfaction of looking on at myself — and her emotion altogether?”

  Bede Greatorex replied that he did remember it; also remembered that he was unable to understand why it should have been so. But he spoke like one whose mind is far away, as if the questions bore little interest.

  “George Winter and Alletha Rye were sweethearts, she used to live in Birmingham before she came to Helstonleigh. But for his getting into trouble, they’d soon have been married.”

  “Oh, sweethearts were they,” carelessly observed Bede. “She is a superior young woman.”

  “Granted, sir. But them superior women are not a bit wiser nor better than others when their lovers is in question. Women have done mad things for men’s sakes afore to-day; and it strikes me now, that Alletha Rye was just screening him, fearing he might have done it. I don’t see how else her madness and mooning is to be accounted for. On the other hand, it seems uncommon droll that George Winter, hiding in that top room until he could get safely away, should set himself out to harm Mr. Ollivera; a man he’d never seen. Which was the view I took at the time.”

  “And highly improbable,” murmured Bede.

  “Well, so I say; and I can’t help thinking he’ll come out of the fiery ordeal unscorched.”

  “What ordeal?”

  “The charge of murder. Mr. Greatorex is safe to give him into custody upon it. I don’t know that the Grand Jury would find a true bill.”

  All in a moment, Bede’s face took a ghastly look of fear. It startled even the detective, as it was turned sharply upon him. And the voice in which he spoke was harsh and commanding.

  “This must not be suffered to come to the knowledge of my father.”

  “Not suffered to come to his knowledge!” echoed Butterby, agape with wonder.

  “No, NO! YOU must not let him know that Brown is Godfrey Pitman. He must never be told that Pitman is found.”

  “Why, Heaven bless you, Mr. Bede Greatorex! my honour has been engaged all along in the tracing out of Pitman. That one man has given me more in ‘ard trouble than any three. We detectives get hold of mortifying things as well as other people, and that’s been one of mine. Now that I have trapped Pitman, I can’t let the matter drop; and I’m sine Mr. Greatorex won’t”

  Bede looked confounded. He opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again.

  “And if us two was foolish enough, there’s another that wouldn’t; that would a’most make us answer for it with our lives,” resumed the detective, in a low, impressive tone— “and that is Parson Ollivera.”

  “I tell you, Butterby, this must be hushed up,” repeated Bede, his agitation unmistakable, his voice strangely hollow. “It must be hushed up at any cost. Do nothing.”

  “And if the parson finds Pitman out for himself?” asked Butterby, his deep green eyes, shaded by their overhanging eyebrows, looking out steadily at Bede.

  “That is a contingency we have nothing to do with yet. Time enough to talk of it when it comes.”

  “But, Mr. Bede Greatorex, if Pitman really was the—”

  “Hush! Stay!” interrupted Bede, glancing round involuntarily, as if afraid of the very walls. “For Heaven’s sake, Butterby, let the whole thing drop; now and for ever. There are interests involved in it that I cannot speak of — that must at all risks be kept from my father. I wish I could unburthen myself of the whole complication, and lay the matter bare before you; but I may not bring trouble on other people. To accuse Pitman would — would re-open wounds partially healed; it might bring worse than death amidst us.”

  It truly seemed, bending over the table in his imperative, realistic earnestness, that Bede was longing to pour out the confidence he dared not give. Butterby, revolving sundry speculations in his mind, never took his eyes for an instant from the eager face.

  “Answer me one question, Mr. Bede Greatorex — an’ you don’t mind doing it. If you knew that Pitman was the slayer of your cousin, would you still screen him?”

  “If I knew — if I thought that Pitman had done that evil deed, I would be the first to hand him over to justice,” spoke Bede, breathing quickly. “I feel sure he did not.”

  Butterby paused. “Sir, as you have said so much, I think you should say a little more. It will be safe. You’ve got, I see, some other suspicion.”

  “I have always believed that it was one person did that,” said Bede, scarcely able to speak for agitation. “If — understand me — if it was not an accident, or as the jury brought it in, why then I think I suspect who and what it really was. Not Pitman.”

  “Can the person be got at?” inquired Butterby. “Not for any practical use; not for accusation.”

  “Is it any one of them I’ve heard mentioned in connection with the death?”

  “No; neither you nor the world. Let that pass. On my word of honour, I say to you, Mr. Butterby, that I feel sure Pitman had no hand in the matter; for that reason, and for other involved reasons, I wish this information you have given me to remain buried; a secret between you and me. I will take my own time and opportunity for discharging Mr. Brown. Will you promise this? Should you have incurred costs in any way, I will give you my cheque for the amount.”

  “There has not been much cost as yet,” returned the detective, honestly. “We’ll let that be for now. What you ask me is difficult, sir. I might get into trouble
for it later at head-quarters.”

  “Should that turn out to be the case, you can, in self-defence, bring forward my injunctions. Say I stopped proceedings.”

  “Very well,” returned Butterby, after a pause of consideration. “Then for the present, sir, we’ll say it shall stand so. Of course, if the thing is brought to light through other folks, I must be held absolved from my promise.”

  “Thank you; thank you truly, Mr. Butterby.”

  Bede Greatorex the naturally haughty-natured man, condescended to shake hands with the detective. Mr. Butterby attended him down stairs, and opened the door for him. It was after he had gained Fleet Street, that Bede came in contact with the shoulders of Roland Yorke, never noticing him, bearing on in his allpowerful abstraction, his face worn, anxious, white, scared, like that of a man, as Roland took occasion to remark, who has met a ghost.

  Back up the stairs turned Mr. Butterby, and sat down in front of the fire, leaving the gas-burners to light up his back. There, with a hand on either knee, he recalled all the circumstances of John Ollivera’s death with mental accuracy, and went over them one by one. That done, he revolved surrounding interests in his silent way, especially the words that had just fallen from Bede Greatorex, one single sentence, during the whole reverie, escaping his lips, “Was Louisa Joliffe out that evening, I wonder?” And the clock of St. Clement Danes had moved on an hour and a quarter before he ever lifted his hands or rose from his seat.

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  Disappeared.

  “I AM waiting for that, Mr. Yorke.”

  But for the presence of Bede Greatorex, who sat at his desk in the front office, Roland might have retorted on Mr. Brown that he might wait, for he felt in just as bad a humour as it was well possible for Roland, or anybody else, to feel. Ceasing his covert grumbling to Hurst, who had the convenient gift of listening and writing away by steam at one and the same time, Roland’s pen resumed its task.

  Never, since Roland had joined the house of Greatorex and Greatorex, did he remember it to have been so pressed as now, as far as Bede’s room was concerned. There was a sudden accumulation of work, and hands were short. Little Jenner had been summoned into Yorkshire by the illness of his mother, and Mr. Bede Greatorex had kindly said to him, “Don’t hurry back if you find her in danger.” They could not borrow help from the other side, for it happened that a clerk there was also absent.

  Thus it fell out that not only Mr. Brown had to stay in the office the previous night until a late hour, but he detained Roland in it as well, besides warning that gentleman that he must take twenty minutes for his dinner at present, and no more. This was altogether an intense grievance, considering that Roland had fully purposed to devote a large amount of leisure time to Arthur Channing. One whole day, and this one getting towards its close, and Roland had not set eyes on Arthur. Since the moment when he left him at the door of the hotel in Norfolk Street, the last evening but one, Roland had neither seen nor heard of him. He was resenting this quite as much as the weight of work: for when his heart was really engaged, anything like slight or neglect wounded it to the core. Somewhat of this feeling had set in on the first night. After startling the street and alarming the immates of the house, through the bell and knocker, to find that Arthur Channing had left his hotel and not come to him, was as a very pill to Roland. He had been kept all closely at work since, and Arthur had not chosen to come in search of him.

  Whatever impression might have been made on the mind of Bede Greatorex by the police officer’s communication, now nearly two days old, he could not but estimate at its true value the efficiency of Mr. Brown as a clerk. In an emergency like the present, Mr. Brown did that which Roland was fond of talking of — put his shoulder to the wheel. Whatever the demands of the office, Mr. Brown showed himself equal to them almost in his own person; this, combined with his very excellent administrative qualities, rendered him invaluable to Bede Greatorex. In a silent, undemonstrative kind of way, Mr. Brown had also for some months past been on the alert to watch for those mistakes, inadvertent neglects, forgetfulness in his master, which the reader has heard complained of. So far as he was able to do it, these were at once silently remedied, and nothing said. Bede detected this: and he knew that many a night when Mr. Brown stayed over hours in the office, working diligently, it was to repair some failure of his. Once, and once only, Bede spoke. “Why are you so late to-night, Mr. Brown?” he asked, upon going into the office close upon ten o’clock and finding Mr. Brown up to his elbows in work. “I’m only getting forward for the morning, sir,” was the manager’s quiet answer. But Bede, though he said no more, saw that the clerk had taken some unhappy error of his in hand, and was toiling to remedy it and avert trouble. So that, whatever might be Mr. Brown’s private sins, Bede Greatorex could scarcely afford to lose him.

  Once more, for perhaps the five hundredth time, Bede glanced from his desk at Mr. Brown opposite. No longer need, though, was there to glance with any speculative view; that had been set at rest. The eyes that had so mystified Bede Greatorex, bringing to him an uneasy, puzzling feeling, which wholly refused to elucidate itself, tax his memory as he would, were at length rendered clear eyes to him. He knew where and on what occasion he had seen them: and if he had disliked and dreaded them before, he dreaded them ten times more now.

  “Ah, how do you do, Mr. Channing?”

  Bede, leaving his desk, had been crossing the office to his private room, when Hamish entered. They shook hands, and stood talking for a few minutes, not having met since Bede returned from his continental tour. Just as a change for the worse in Bede struck Mr. Butterby’s keen eye, so, as it appeared, did some change in Hamish Channing strike Bede.

  “Are you well?” he asked.

  “As well as London and its hard work will let me be,” replied Hamish, with one of his charming smiles, which really was gay and light, in spite of its tinge of sadness. “It is of no use to dream of green fields and blue waves when we cannot get to them, you know.”

  “That’s rest — when you can sit down in the one and idly watch the other,” remarked Bede. “But to go scampering about for a month or two at railroad speed, neither body nor eye getting holiday, wears out a man worse than working on in London, Mr. Channing.”

  With a slow, lingering gaze at Hamish’s refined face, which was looking strangely worn, and, so to say, etherealised, Bede passed on to his room. Hamish turned to the desk of Hurst and Roland Yorke.

  “How are you?” he asked of them conjointly.

  “As well as cantankerous circumstances and people will let me be,” was the cross reply of Roland, without looking up from his writing.

  Hamish laughed.

  “Just because I wanted a little leisure just now, I’ve got double work put upon my shoulders,” went on Roland. “You remember that time at old Galloway’s, Hamish, when Jenkins and Arthur were both away together, throwing all the work upon me? Well, we’ve got a second edition of that here.”

  “Who is away?” inquired Hamish.

  “Little Jenner. And he is good for three of us any day, in point of getting through work. The result is, that Mr. Brown” — giving a defiant nod to the gentleman opposite— “keeps me at it like a slave. But for Arthur’s being in London, I’d not mind some extra pressure, I’d be glad to oblige, and do it. Not that Arthur misses me, if one may judge by appearances,” he continued in a deeply-injured tone. “I would not be two days in a strange place without going to see after him,” —

  “Have you not seen Arthur, then?” inquired Hamish.

  “No, I have not seen him,” retorted Roland, with emphasis. “He has been too much taken up with you and other friends, to think of me. Perhaps he has gone over to Gerald’s interests: and his theory is, that I’m nobody worth knowing. Mother Jenkins has had her best gown on for two days, expecting him. Live and learn — and confound it all! I’d have backed Arthur Channing, for faith and truth, against the world.”

  Hamish laughed slightly: any such interlu
de as this in Roland’s generally easy nature, amused him always.

  “You and I and Mrs. Jenkins are in the same box, old fellow, for Arthur has not been to me.”

  “Oh, hasn’t he?” was Roland’s answer, delivered with what he meant to be lofty indifference, and an angry shake of the pen, which blotted his work all over. “It’s a case of Gerald, then. Perhaps he is taking him round to the Tower and the waxwork and the wild beasts — as I thought to do.”

  “I expect it is rather a case of business,” remarked Hamish. “You know what Arthur is: when he has work to do, that supersedes all else. Still I wonder he did not come round last night. We waited dinner until half-past seven.”

  Roland was occupied in trying to repair the damage be had wilfully made, and gave no answer.

  “I came in now to ask you for news of him, Roland. Where is he staying?”

  “He has not called yet to see Annabel,” broke in Roland. “And that I do think shameful.”

  “Where is he staying?”

  “Staying! Why at the place in Norfolk Street. He told you where.”

  “Yes,” assented Hamish, “but he is not staying there. I have just come from the hotel now.”

  “Who says he is-not?”

  “The people at the hotel.”

  “Oh, they say that, do they?” retorted Roland, turning his resentment on the people in question. “They are nice ones to keep an hotel.”

  “They say he is not there, and has not been there.”

  “Then, Hamish, I can tell you that he is there. Didn’t I take him down to it that night from your house, and see him safe in? Didn’t he order his missing portmanteau to be sent to the place as soon as it turned up? They had better tell me that he is not there!”

  “What they say is this, Roland. That Arthur went there, but left again the same night, never occupying his bed at all: and they can give me no information as to where he is staying. I did not put many questions, but came off to you, thinking you would know his movements.”