Gabriel looked up from his papers.

"None of us have heard of them," he remarked. "Horbury could not have put them in this strong room without my knowledge. They are certainly not there. The safes my nephew mentioned just now are used only for books and papers. Your lordship's casket is not in either."

The Earl rose slowly from his chair. It was evident to Neale that he was more surprised than angry: he looked around him as a man looks whose understanding is suddenly brought up against something unexplainable.

"All I know is that I handed that casket to Mr. Horbury in his own dining-room one evening some weeks ago," he said. "That's certain! So I naturally expect to find it--here."

"And it is not here--that is equally certain," observed Gabriel. "What is also certain is that our manager--trusted in more than he should have been!--is missing, and many of our valuable securities with him.

Therefore----"

He spread his hands again with an expressive gesture and once more bent over his papers. Once more there was silence. Then the Earl started--as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him.

"I say!" he exclaimed, "don't you think Horbury may have put those jewels away in his own house?"

Joseph Chestermarke smiled a little derisively.

"A hundred thousand pounds' worth!" he said softly. "Not very likely!"

"But he may have a safe there," urged the Earl. "Most people have a safe in their houses nowadays--they're so handy, you know, and so cheap.

Don't you think that may be it?"

"I am not familiar with Horbury's domestic arrangements," said Gabriel.

"I have not been in his house for some years. But as we are desirous of giving your lordship what a.s.sistance we can, we will go into the house and see if there is anything of the sort. Just tell the housekeeper we are coming in, Neale."

The Earl nodded to Mrs. Carswell as she received him and the two partners in the adjacent hall.

"This lady will remember my calling on Mr. Horbury one evening a few weeks ago," he said. "She saw me with him in that room."

"Certainly!" a.s.sented Mrs. Carswell, readily enough. "I remember your lordship calling on Mr. Horbury very well. One night after dinner--your lordship was here an hour or so."

Gabriel Chestermarke opened the door of the dining-room--an old-fashioned apartment which looked out on a garden and orchard at the rear of the house.

"Mrs. Carswell," he said, as they all went in, "has Mr. Horbury a safe in this room, or in any other room? You know what I mean."

But the housekeeper shook her head. There was no safe in the house.

There was a plate-chest--there it was, standing in a recess by the sideboard; she had the key of it.

"Open that, at any rate," commanded Gabriel. "It's about as unlikely as anything could be, but we'll leave nothing undone."

There was nothing in the plate-chest but what Gabriel expected to find there. He turned again to the housekeeper.

"Is there anything in this house--cupboard, chest, trunk, anything--in which Mr. Horbury kept valuables?" he asked. "Any place in which he was in the habit of locking up papers, for instance?"

Mrs. Carswell again shook her head. No, she knew of no such place or receptacle. There was Mr. Horbury's desk, but she believed all its drawers were open. Her belief proved to be correct: Gabriel himself opened drawer after drawer, and revealed nothing of consequence. He turned to the Earl with another expressive spreading out of his hands.

"I don't see what more we can do to a.s.sist your lordship," he said. "I don't know what more can be done."

"The question is--so it seems to me--what is to be done," replied the Earl, whose face had been gradually growing graver. "What, for instance, are you going to do, Mr. Chestermarke? Let us be plain with each other.

You disclaim all liability in connection with my affair?"

"Most certainly!" exclaimed Gabriel. "We know nothing of that transaction. As I have already said, if Horbury took charge of your lordship's property, he did so as a private individual, not on our behalf, not in his capacity as our manager. If your lordship had been a customer of ours----"

"That would have been a very different matter," said Joseph. "But as we have never had any dealings with your lordship----"

"We have, of course, no liability to you," concluded Gabriel. "The true position of the case is that your lordship handed your property to Horbury as a friend, not as manager of Chestermarke's Bank."

"Then let me ask you, what are you going to do?" said the Earl. "I mean, not about my affair, but about finding your manager?"

Gabriel looked at his nephew: Joseph shook his head.

"So far," said Joseph, "we have not quite considered that. We are not yet fully aware of how things stand. We have a pretty good idea, but it will take another day."

"You don't mean to tell me that you're going to let another day elapse before doing something?" exclaimed the Earl. "Bless my soul!--I'd have had the hue and cry out before noon today, if I'd been you!"

"If you'd been Chestermarke's Bank, my lord," remarked Joseph, in his softest manner, "that's precisely what you would not have done. We don't want it noised all over the town and neighbourhood that our trusted manager has suddenly run away with our money--and your jewels--in his pocket."

There was a curious note--half-sneering, half-sinister--in the junior partner's quiet voice which made the Earl turn and look at him with a sudden new interest. Before either could speak, Neale ventured to say what he had been wanting to say for half an hour.

"May I suggest something, sir?" he said, turning to Gabriel.

"Speak--speak!" a.s.sented Gabriel hastily. "Anything you like!"

"Mr. Horbury may have met with an accident," said Neale. "He was fond of taking his walks in lonely places--there are plenty outside the town. He may be lying somewhere even now--helpless."

"Capital suggestion!--much obliged to you," exclaimed the Earl. "Gad! I wonder we never thought of that before! Much the most likely thing. I can't believe that Horbury----"

Before he could say more, the door of the dining-room was thrown open, a clear, strong voice was heard speaking to some one without, and in walked a handsome young woman, who pulled herself up on the threshold to stare out of a pair of frank grey eyes at the four startled men.

CHAPTER IV

THE MODERN YOUNG WOMAN

Mrs. Carswell, who had left the gentlemen to themselves after opening the plate-chest, followed the new-comer into the room and looked appealingly at the senior partner.

"This is Miss Fosd.y.k.e, sir," she said, as if accounting for the unceremonious entrance. "Mr. Horbury's----"

But Miss Fosd.y.k.e, having looked round her, entered the arena of discussion as abruptly as she had entered the room.

"You're Mr. Chestermarke!" she said, turning to Gabriel. "I remember you. What's all this, Mr. Chestermarke? I come down from London to meet my uncle, and to go on with him to Scotland for a holiday, and I learn that he's disappeared! What is it? What has happened? Why are you all looking so mysterious? Is something wrong? Where is my uncle?"

Gabriel, who had a.s.sumed his stereotyped expression of calm attention under this tornado of questions, motioned Joseph to place a chair for the young lady. But Miss Fosd.y.k.e shook her head and returned to the attack.

"Please don't keep anything back!" she said. "I am not of the fainting-to-order type of young woman. Just say what is the matter, if you please. Mrs. Carswell knows no more----"

"Than we do," interrupted Joseph, with one of his peculiar smiles.