The next morning when Cuthbert came Mary had her things on in readiness to go out with him, and after a short delay to admire and try on the ring, they set out together.

"I did not tell you yesterday, Mary," Cuthbert said, after they had walked a short distance, "that as soon as the arrangements for foreigners to leave the town are settled, I am going to Brussels with c.u.mming. He is going to make an affidavit, and this he cannot do here, as, if I should have occasion to use the doc.u.ment, it would be the means of enabling the police to trace him here and to demand his extradition.

After that I shall go on to England to make some inquiries that are essential. I will give you all particulars if you wish it, but I think it will be very much better that you shall know nothing about the matter; it may turn out to be nothing at all; it may on the other hand be extremely important. It is a painful business anyhow, but in any case I think it will be much the best that you should know nothing about it.

You can trust me, can you not?"

"Altogether," she said, "and certainly I would rather know nothing about it. But mind, Cuthbert, you must do what you think is right and best without any question about me. If you have been wronged you must right yourself, and I am sure that in doing so you will do it as gently and kindly as possible."

"I will try to do so," he said. "At present, as I told you, the suspicions are very vague and rest entirely upon the statement c.u.mming has made. If those suspicions should be verified, a great wrong has been done and that wrong must be righted, but that can no doubt be arranged without publicity or scandal. The reason why I do not wish you to say a word about our engagement is, that were it known it would tie my hands terribly and render it so impossible for me to take any strong ground, that I should be altogether powerless."

"Do entirely as you think best, Cuthbert. Of course, beyond the fact that perhaps something wrong may have been done, I have not an idea what it can be, and I do not want to know, unless it must be told me. How long are you likely to be away and do you think you are fit to travel?"

"There is no great fatigue in travelling," he said. "I can't say how long I shall be, not long I hope. You may be sure that I shall not be longer than I can possibly help."

"I shall miss you dreadfully, but of course if you think it necessary, you must go. Besides," she said, saucily, "if you are in no hurry about me I know you will be anxious to get back to finish your pictures. No, Cuthbert, I really can't have that. There are people in sight."

"I don't care if there are," he laughed.

"I do, very much. Whoever heard of such a thing? What would they think of me?"

"I did not know that you cared what people thought of you, Mary."

"Not about some things, perhaps, but there are limits, you know."

A week later, duly provided with pa.s.ses, Cuthbert and c.u.mming made their way in a carriage to the Belgian frontier, and then went on by train to Brussels, where, on the day after their arrival, c.u.mming drew up and signed a statement with reference to the details of his transference of the shares to Mr. Hartington, and swore to its contents before a Belgian legal official.

"I shall stay here for a few days," he said to Cuthbert, as the latter started the next morning for England. "I am quite safe for the present, and after a long course of horse-flesh I really cannot tear myself away from decent living, until Paris is re-victualled, and one can live there in comfort again. I wish you every success in your search. The more I think of it the more convinced I am that we are not far wrong as to the manner in which Brander has got hold of your estate."

Cuthbert, on arriving in London, took up his quarters at the Charing Cross Hotel. On the morning after his arrival he wrote a letter to Dr.

Edwardes, at Abchester.

"MY DEAR DOCTOR,--I have just returned from Paris, where I have been shut up for the last four months. I do not care about coming down to Abchester at present. I suppose I have not quite got over my soreness over matters in general, but for reasons which I need not enter into, I want to know if Brander's clerks, who were with him when I was last there, are still with him in his office, and, if not, where they are employed. I do not know anyone else to write to on the subject, and I am sure you will not mind taking the trouble in the matter for me."

The answer came back by return of post.

"MY DEAR CUTHBERT--I was very glad to hear of you again. I have asked Brander from time to time about you, and he always says that he has not heard from you for months, and though your letter says nothing beyond the fact that you are alive, I was glad to get it. I hope next time you write you will give me full details about yourself, and that ere long you will make up your mind to come down. I need not say that we shall be delighted to put you up when you do come. I should imagine you would not care to go to Fairclose. Now as to your question. Harford, the elder of the two clerks, left the office here very shortly after you went away.

Levison, the younger, is still here. I put myself in the way of meeting him as he went to the office this morning. I stopped and chatted with him for a minute or two, and asked him carelessly how Mr. Harford was and whether he ever heard from him. He said he heard occasionally and that he was well. 'By the way, where is he working now?' I asked, 'I know he went up to a firm in town.' 'Oh, yes, he is with Barrington and Smiles, of Ess.e.x Street. He is getting on very well there, I believe. He is head of their conveyancing branch. I wish I could drop into as good a billet, Doctor. I should be very glad of a change.' So much for that business. Things are getting on pretty much the same up at the old place. Brander still comes up to his office for an hour or so every day. I don't think he cares much for the county gentleman's life. I fancy Mrs. B. is rather a disappointed woman. The fact is there was a good deal of feeling in the county as to Brander's connection with the bank. Almost everyone was let in more or less, you know, for the depositors have only got eight shillings in the pound so far, and I don't suppose they will ever get much more. There is an idea that Brander ought to have found out what was going on, and indeed that he must have known a good deal about it, and that at any rate what he did know should have been ample to have rendered it his duty to warn your father against taking shares so short a time before the smash. His purchase of Fairclose did not improve matters, and so far from their taking your father's place in the county, I may say without being absolutely cut they are much more out of it than they were before. However, when you come down I will give you all the local gossip."

It was late in the afternoon when Cuthbert received the letter and he at once went to Ess.e.x Street. Several clerks were writing in the office. A lad came forward to ask him his business.

"I want to speak for a moment to Mr. Harford."

The lad went up to one of the desks and the clerk came forward.

"I don't know whether you remember me," Cuthbert said, "my name is Hartington."

"I remember you very well, Mr. Hartington, though you are changed a good deal."

"I have had a sharp illness, but I am getting over it now. I particularly wished to speak to you about a matter in connection with my father's affairs. I am staying at the Charing Cross Hotel and should feel very much obliged if, when you leave here, you would come round for a few minutes."

"With pleasure, sir, but I shall not get away till seven."

"That will do very well," Cuthbert said. "I would not have troubled you had it not been important."

A few minutes past seven the clerk was shown into Cuthbert's room. After asking him to take a chair Cuthbert said--

"As you are aware, Mr. Harford, my loss of the Fairclose estates arose from the unfortunate circ.u.mstances of my father having taken a few shares in the Abchester and County Bank. The matter has always been a puzzle to me. I have been abroad for the last eighteen months, and now, having returned, am anxious to get to the bottom of the matter if I can.

The transfer of the shares from c.u.mming, the manager of the bank, to my father, was signed at Mr. Brander's office, I fancy. At any rate, you and Mr. Levison were the attesting witnesses to my father's signature.

Have you any memory of the transaction, and would you object to tell what took place?"

"I remember about the transfer, Mr. Hartington, because, when the crash came, everything connected with it was talked over. In point of fact, we did not see Mr. Hartington's signature actually attached. He called at the office one day, and just after he had left Mr. Brander called us in and said, 'Please witness Mr. Hartington's signature.' Of course, we both knew it very well and witnessed it. I did not notice the names on the body of the transfer, though, of course, I knew from the appearance of the doc.u.ment what it was, but Mr. Brander just pointed out where we were to sign and we signed. The only thing I noticed was that as I wrote my eye fell on the top line, and I saw that it was dated ten days earlier."

"Was that unusual?"

"No, doc.u.ments are often dated at the time they are drawn up, although they may not be signed for some days later. Of course it is not exactly regular, but it often happens. A form is filled up and one or other of the parties may be away or unable to sign. I happened to notice it, but it did not strike me in any way."

"And were you often called upon to attest signatures in this way without seeing them written?"

"There was nothing unusual in it. As a general rule we were called into the room when a signature had to be witnessed, but it occasionally happened, in the case where it was a well-known client and we were perfectly acquainted with the signature, that we did not sign until he had left the office."

"Do you remember if such a thing ever happened any other time in the case of my father!"

"Only once, I think, and that was afterwards. We signed then as witnesses to his signature to a legal doc.u.ment. I don't know what its nature was. It was done in the same manner directly Mr. Hartington had driven away."

"It might have been a mortgage deed."

"It might have been, sir, but as I saw only the last page of it, and as there were but three or four lines of writing at the top of the page, followed by the signatures, I have no idea even of the nature of the doc.u.ment."

"May I ask if you have left the office at Abchester on pleasant terms with Mr. Brander and his partner, for, of course, you know that he still takes an interest in the firm."

"Oh, yes, it is still carried on as Brander and Jackson, and Brander still goes down there for an hour or two every day. Yes, I left on pleasant terms enough, that is to say, I left of my own free will. I had for some time wished to come up to London, and hearing through a friend in this office of a vacancy at Barrington and Smiles, I applied and was fortunate enough to get it."

Cuthbert sat silent for a time. So far the answers he had received tallied precisely with c.u.mming's theory. He did not see how he could carry the inquiry farther here at present. The clerk, who was watching him closely, was the first to speak.

"I own, Mr. Hartington, that I do not in the slightest degree understand the gist of your questions, but I can well imagine that at the present moment you are wondering whether it would be safe to ask farther. I will, therefore, tell you at once that one of my reasons for leaving Mr.

Brander's employment was that I did not like his way of doing business, nor did I like the man himself. The general opinion of him was that he was a public-spirited and kind-hearted man. I can only say that our opinion of him in the office was a very different one. He was a hard man, and frequently when pretending to be most lenient to tenants on the estates to which he was agent, or to men on whose lands he held mortgages, he strained the law to its utmost limits. I will not say more than that, but I could quote cases in which he put on the screw in a way that was to my mind most absolutely unjustifiable, and I had been for a very long time trying to get out of his office before the opportunity came. I may also say, Mr. Hartington, that I had the highest respect for your father. He always had a kind word when he came into the office, and regularly at Christmas he handed Levison and myself a check for ten pounds each, for, as he said, the trouble his business gave us. I tell you this in order that you may feel you can safely repose any confidence in me, and that my advice will be wholly at your service if you should think fit to give me your confidence in this matter, whatever it may be. But at the same time I must say it would be still better if you put yourself in the hands of some respectable firm of solicitors. I do not suggest my own princ.i.p.als more than others, although few men stand higher in the profession."

"There are reasons against my laying the matter before any firm of solicitors, and the chief of these is that my hands are tied in a peculiar manner, and that I am unable to carry it through to its natural sequence, but I will very thankfully accept your offer and will frankly tell you the nature of my suspicions, for they are nothing more than suspicions. I may first say that the news that my father was a shareholder in the Abchester Bank astounded me. For a time, I put it down to one of those sudden impulses that are unaccountable, but I may tell you, and here my confidence begins, that I have come across c.u.mming, the bank manager, and from him have obtained some curious particulars of this transaction--particulars that have excited my suspicions.

"You wondered why I asked you those questions. I will tell you. You did not see my father affix his signature to either of those doc.u.ments. The one being certainly the transfer of some of c.u.mming's shares to him. The other being, as I believe, the mortgage that, as you doubtless heard, Mr. Brander held over my father's estate. How could you tell those two signatures were not clever forgeries?"

Mr. Harford gave a start of surprise.

"G.o.d bless me, sir," he exclaimed, "such an idea never entered my mind."

"That I can quite understand," Cuthbert said, quietly, "but you must admit it is possible."

"But in that case," the clerk said, after a pause, "Brander himself must have been the forger, and surely that is not possible. I fancy I know Mr. Brander pretty well, but I should never have dreamt him capable of forgery. Not because I have a high opinion of his honesty, but because I believe him to be a cautious man, and besides I do not see what possible interest he could have had in ruining your father by putting his name on to the register of shareholders. Even if he had an interest in so doing the risk of detection would be frightful, for not only would the matter be known to the directors, but, as you are aware, any shareholder has a right on the payment of a nominal fee to inspect the list of shareholders."

"Precautions were taken against this," Cuthbert said. "Just glance through this paper, which has been signed and sworn to by c.u.mming in proper form at Brussels."