"If the cottage suits me," he said, "I don't mind a thousand for it.

To-day's Sat.u.r.day;--I shall run up to town to-morrow, or Monday morning, to settle a bit of business I've got on hand, and come back here in time to attend the sale."

"My wife and me was thinkin' of goin' sir," the landlord answered, with, unwonted reverence in his voice; and, if it was agreeable, we could drive you over in a four-wheel shay. Woodbine Cottage is about a mile and a half from here, and little better than a mile from Maudesley Abbey. There's a copper coal-scuttle of the old admiral's as my wife has got rather a fancy for. But p'raps if you was to make a hoffer previous to the sale, the property might be disposed of as it stands by private contrack."

"I'll see about that," answered Major Vernon. "I'll stroll over to Shorncliffe, this, morning, and look in upon Mr. Grogson--Grogson, I think you said was the auctioneer's name?"

"Yes, sir; Peter Grogson, and very much looked up to be is, and a warm man, folks do say. His offices is in Shorncliffe High Street, sir; next door but two from Mr. Lovell's, the solicitor's, and not more than half-a-dozen yards from St. Gwendoline's Church."

Major Vernon, as he now chose to call himself, walked from Lisford to Shorncliffe. He was a very good walker, and, indeed, had become pretty well used to pedestrian exercise in the course of long weary trampings from one racecourse to another, when he was so far down on his luck as to be unable to pay his railway fare. The frost had set in for the first time this year; so the roads were dry and hard once more, and the sound of horses' hoofs and rolling wheels, the jingling of bells, the occasional barking of a noisy sheep-dog, and st.u.r.dy labourers' voices calling to each other on the high-road, travelled far in the thin frosty air.

The town of Shorncliffe was very quiet to-day, for it was only on market-days that there was much life or bustle in the queer old streets, and Major Vernon found no hindrance to the business that had brought him from Lisford.

He went straight to Mr. Grogson, the auctioneer, and from that gentleman heard all particulars respecting the pending sale at Woodbine Cottage.

The Major offered to take the lease at a fair price, and the furniture, as it stood, by valuation.

"All I want is a comfortable little place that I can jump into without any trouble to myself," Major Vernon said, with the air of a man of the world. "I like to take life easily. If you can honestly recommend the place as worth seven or eight hundred pounds, I'm willing to pay that money for it down on the nail. I'll take it at your valuation, if the present owners are agreeable to sell it on those terms, and I'll pay a deposit of a couple of hundred or so on Tuesday afternoon, to show that my proposition is a _bona fide_ one."

A little more was said, and then Mr. Grogson pledged himself to act for the best in the interests of Major Vernon, consistently with his allegiance to the present owners of the property.

The auctioneer had been at first a little doubtful of this tall, shabby stranger in the napless dirty-white beaver and the mangy poodle collar; but the offer of a deposit of two hundred pounds or so gave a different aspect to the case. There are always eccentric people in the world, and appearances are very apt to be deceptive. There was a confident air about the Major which seemed like that of a man with a balance at his banker's.

The Major went back to the Rose and Crown, ate a comfortable little dinner, which he had ordered before setting out for Shorncliffe, paid his bill, and made all arrangements for starting by the first train for London on the following morning. It was nearly ten o'clock by the time he had done this: but late as it was, Major Vernon put on his hat, turned his poodle collar up about his ears, and went out into Lisford High Street.

There was scarcely one glimmer of light in the street as the Major walked along it. He took the road leading to Maudesley Abbey, and walked at a brisk pace, heedless of the snow, which was still falling thick and fast.

He was covered from head to foot with snow when he stopped before the stone porch, and rang a bell, that made a clanging noise in the stillness of the night. He looked like some grim white statue that had descended from its pedestal to stalk hither and thither in the darkness.

The servant who opened the door yawned undisguisedly in the face of his master's friend.

"Tell Mr. Dunbar that I shall be glad to speak to him for a few minutes," the Major said, making as if he would have pa.s.sed into the hall.

"Mr. Dunbar left the habbey uppards of a hour ago," the footman answered, with supreme hauteur; "but he left a message for you, in case you was to come. The period of his habsence is huncertain, and if you wants to kermoonicate with him, you was to please to wait till he come back."

Major Vernon pushed aside the servant, and strode into the hall. The doors were open, and through two or three intermediate rooms the Major saw the tapestried chamber, dark and empty.

There was no doubt that Henry Dunbar had given him the slip--for the time, at least; but did the banker mean mischief? was there any deep design in this sudden departure?--that was the question.

"I'll write to your master," the Major said, after a pause; "what's his London address?"

"Mr. Dunbar left no address."

"Humph! That's no matter. I can write to him at the bank. Good night."

Major Vernon stalked away through the snow. The footman made no response to his parting civility, but stood watching him for a few moments, and then closed the door with a bang.

"Hif that's a spessermin of your Hinjun acquaintances, I don't think much of Hinjur or Hinjun serciety. But what can you expect of a nation as insults the gentleman who waits behind his employer's chair at table by callin' him a kitten-muncher?"

CHAPTER XXVI.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BACK PARLOUR OF THE BANKING-HOUSE.

Henry Dunbar arrived in London a couple of hours after Mr. Vernon left the Abbey. He went straight to the Clarendon Hotel. He had no servant with him, and his luggage consisted only of a portmanteau, a dressing-case, and a despatch-box; the same despatch-box whose contents he had so carefully studied at the Winchester hotel, upon the night of the murder in the grove.

The day after his arrival was Sunday, and all that day the banker occupied himself in reading a morocco-bound ma.n.u.script volume, which he took from the despatch-box.

There was a black fog upon this November day, and the atmosphere out of doors was cold and bleak. But the room in which Henry Dunbar sat looked the very picture of comfort and elegance.

He had drawn his chair close to the fire, and on a table near his elbow were arranged the open despatch-box, a tall crystal jug of Burgundy, with a goblet-shaped gla.s.s, on a salver, and a case of cigars.

Until long after dark that evening, Henry Dunbar sat by the fire, smoking and drinking, and reading the ma.n.u.script volume. He only paused now and then to take pencil-notes of its contents in a little memorandum-book, which he carried in the breast-pocket of his coat.

It was not till seven o'clock, when the liveried servant who waited upon him came to inform him that his dinner was served in an adjoining chamber, that Mr. Dunbar rose from his seat and put away the book in the despatch-box. He laid down the volume on the table while he replaced other papers in the box, and it fell open at the first page. On that first page was written, in Henry Dunbar's bold, legible hand--

"_Journal of my life in India, from my arrival in 1815 until my departure in 1850._"

This was the book the banker had been studying all that winter's day.

At twelve o'clock the next day he ordered a brougham, and was driven to the banking-house in St. Gundolph Lane. This was the first time that Henry Dunbar had visited the house in St. Gundolph Lane since his return from India.

Those who knew the history of the present chief partner of the house of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby, were in nowise astonished by this fact.

They knew that, as a young man, Henry Dunbar had contracted the tastes and habits of an aristocrat, and that, if he had afterwards developed into a clever and successful man of business, it was only by reason of the force of circ.u.mstances, which had thrust him into a position that he hated.

It was by no means wonderful, then, that, after becoming possessor of the united fortunes of his father and his uncle, Henry Dunbar should keep aloof from a place that had always been obnoxious to him. The business had gone on without him very well during his absence, and it went on without him now, for his place in India had been a.s.sumed by a very clever man, who for twenty years had acted as cashier in the Calcutta house.

It may be that the banker had an unpleasant recollection of his last visit to St. Gundolph Lane, upon the day when the existence of the forged bills was discovered by Percival and Hugh Dunbar. All the width of thirty-five years between the present hour and that day might not be wide enough to separate the memory of the past from the thoughts which were busy this morning in the mind of Henry Dunbar.

Be it as it might, Mr. Dunbar's reflections this day were evidently not of a pleasant nature. He was very pale as he rode citywards, in the comfortable brougham, from the Clarendon; and his face had a stern, fixed look, like a man who has nerved himself to meet some crisis, which he knows is near at hand.

There was a stoppage upon Ludgate Hill. Great wooden barricades and mountains of uprooted paving-stones, amidst which st.u.r.dy navigators disported themselves with spades and pickaxes, and wheelbarrows full of rubbish, blocked the way; so the brougham turned into Farringdon Street, and went up Snow Hill, and under the grim black walls of dreadful Newgate.

The vehicle travelled very slowly, for the traffic was concentrated in this quarter by reason of the stoppage on Ludgate Hill, and Mr. Dunbar was able to contemplate at his leisure the black prison-walls, and the men and women selling dogs'-collars under their dismal shadows.

It may be that the banker's face grew a shade paler after that contemplation. The corners of his mouth twitched nervously as he got out of the carriage before the mahogany doors of the banking-house in St.

Gundolph Lane. But he drew a long breath, and held his head proudly erect as he pushed open the doors and went in.

Never since the day of the discovery of the forged bills had that man entered the banking-house. Dark thoughts came back upon his mind, and the shadows deepened on his face as he gave one rapid glance round the familiar office.

He walked straight towards the private parlour in which that well-remembered scene had occurred five-and-thirty years ago. But before he arrived at the door leading from the public offices to the back of the house, he was stopped by a gentlemanly-looking man, who came forward from a desk in some shadowy region, and intercepted the stranger.

This man was Clement Austin, the cashier.

"Do you wish to see Mr. Balderby, sir?" he asked.

"Yes. I have an appointment with him at one o'clock. My name is Dunbar."