There was no more information to be obtained. Sometimes he came to the Inn; sometimes he stayed away for weeks and weeks, and for months and months.

'I might ha' told you more, young gentleman,' murmured the old woman, 'and I might ha' told you less. P'raps you'll come again.'

He went back to Lincoln's Inn, and set down his facts.

First, there was a forgery in the year 1882, in which the name of Edmund Gray was used. Next, in the series of forgeries just discovered, not only was the name of Edmund Gray used throughout, but the handwriting of the letters and cheques was exactly the same as that of the first cheque, with the same peculiarities in the signature. This could hardly be a coincidence. The same man must have written the whole.

Then, who was Edmund Gray?

He was a real personage--a living man--not a Firm--one known to the landlord of the Chambers, and to the laundress, if to n.o.body else. He did not live in the Chambers, but he used them for some business purposes; he sometimes called there and wrote. What did he write? Where was he, and what was he doing, when he was not at the Chambers? He might be one--leader or follower--of some secret gang. One has read of such gangs, especially in French novels, where the leaders are n.o.ble Dukes of the first rank, and Princesses--young, lovely, of the highest fashion.

Why should there not be such a gang in London? Clever conspirators could go a very long way before they were even suspected. In this civilisation of cheques and registered shares and official transfers, property is so much defended that it is difficult to break through the armour. But there must be weak places in that armour. It must be possible for the wit of man to devise some plan by means of which property can be attacked successfully. Had he struck such a conspiracy?

Thus. A man calling himself Edmund Gray gets a lease of Chambers by means of a forged letter in answer to a reference. It is convenient for certain conspirators, hereinafter called the company, to have an address, though it may never be used. The conspiracy begins by forging a cheque to his order for 720_l_. That was at the outset, when the conspirators were young. It was found dangerous, and the notes were therefore replaced in the safe. Note, that the company, through one or other of its members, has access to that safe. This might perhaps be by means of a key--in the evening, after office hours: or by some one who was about the place all day.

Very good. The continued connection of some member of the Firm with Dering and Son is proved by the subsequent proceedings. After eight years, the company having matured their machinery, and perhaps worked out with success other enterprises, return to their first quarry, where they have the advantage of access to the letters, and can look over their disposition. They are thus enabled to conduct their successive _coups_, each bigger than the one before. And for four months the thing remains undiscovered. Having the certificates in their hands, what was to prevent them from selling the whole and dividing the proceeds?

Nothing. Yet, in such a case they would disappear, and here was Edmund Gray still fearlessly at large. Why had he not got clear away long before?

Again--all the correspondence concerning Edmund Gray was carried on between the office and the brokers. There were no letters from Edmund Gray at all. Suppose it should be found impossible to connect Edmund Gray with the transactions carried on in his name. Suppose the real Edmund Gray were to deny any knowledge at all of the transactions.

Suppose he were to say that ten years before he had brought a letter of introduction to Mr. Dering, and knew nothing more about him. Well--but the certificates themselves--what about them? Their possession would have to be accounted for. So he turned the matter over and over and arrived at nothing, not even the next step to take.

He went back to the Chief and reported what he had discovered: the existence of an Edmund Gray--the letter of recommendation to the landlord. 'Another forgery,' groaned Mr. Dering.

'It is done in the office,' said George. 'It is all done in the office--letters--cheques--everything.'

'The office,' Checkley repeated. 'No doubt about it.'

'Give up everything else, George,' said Mr. Dering eagerly 'everything else. Find out--find out. Employ detectives. Spend money as much as you please. I am on a volcano--I know not what may be taken from me next.

Only find out, my partner, my dear partner--find out.'

When George was gone, Checkley went after him and opened the door mysteriously, to a.s.sure himself that no one was listening.

'What are you going on like that for, Checkley?' asked his master irritably. 'Is it another forgery? It rains forgeries.'

'No--no. Look here. Don't trouble too much about it. Don't try to think how it was done. Don't talk about the other man. Look here. You've sent that young gentleman to find out this business. Well--mark my words: he won't. He won't, I say. He'll make a splash, but he won't find anything.

Who found out the last job?'

'You said you did. But nothing was proved.'

'I found that out. Plenty of proof there was. Look here'--his small eyes twinkled under his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows--'I'll find out this job as well, see if I don't. Why----' He rubbed his hands. 'Ho! ho! I _have found out_.

Don't ask me--don't put a single question. But--I've got 'em--oh! I've got 'em. I've got 'em for you--as they say--on toast.'

CHAPTER XIII

THINGS MORE REMARKABLE

After such a prodigious event as the discovery of these unparalleled forgeries, anything might happen without being regarded. People's minds are open at such times to see, hear, and accept everything. After the earthquake, ghosts walk, solid things fly away of their own accord, good men commit murder, rich men go empty away, and n.o.body is in the least surprised.

See what happened, the very next day, at the office in New Square. When George arrived in the morning he found that the senior Partner had not yet appeared. He was late. For the first time for fifty years and more, he was late. He went to his place, and the empty chair gave an air of bereavement to the room. Checkley was laying out the table; that is, he had done so a quarter of an hour before, but he could not leave off doing it: he was loth to leave the table before the master came: he took up the blotting pad and laid it down again: he arranged the pens: he lingered over the job.

'Not come yet?' George cried, astonished. 'Do you think that yesterday's shock has been too much for him?'

'I believe it's killed him,' said the old clerk--'killed him. That's what it has done;' and he went on muttering and mumbling. 'Don't,'he cried, when George took up the letters. 'P'r'aps he isn't dead yet--you haven't stepped into his shoes just yet. Let them letters alone.'

'Not dead yet. I hope not.' George began to open the letters, regardless of the surly and disrespectful words. One may forgive a good deal to fidelity. 'He will go on for a good many years after we have got the money back for him.'

'After some of us'--Checkley corrected him--'have got his money back for him.' He turned to go back to his own office, then turned again and came back to the table. He laid both hands upon it, leaned forward, shaking his head, and said with trembling voice: 'Did you never think, Mr.

Austin, of the black ingrat.i.tood of the thing? Him that done it you know--him that eat his bread and took his money.' When Checkley was greatly moved, his grammar went back to the early days before he was confidential clerk.

'I daresay it was ungrateful. I have been thinking, hitherto, of stronger adjectives.'

'Well--we've agreed--all of us--haven't we?--that it was done in this office--some one in the office done it with the help of some one out: some one who knows his ways'--he pointed to the empty chair--'some one who'd known all his ways for a long time, ten years at least.'

'Things certainly seem to point that way'--'and they point to you,' he would have added, but refrained.

The old man shook his head again and went on. 'They've eaten his bread and done his work; and--and--don't you call it, Mr. Austin--I ask you plain--don't you call it black ingrat.i.tood?'

'I am sure it is. I have no doubt whatever about the ingrat.i.tude. But, you see, Checkley, that vice is not one which the Courts recognise. It is not one denounced in the Decalogue.--There is a good deal to consider, in fact, before we get to the ingrat.i.tude. It is probably a criminal conspiracy; it is a felony; it is a thing to be punished by a long term of penal servitude. When we have worried through all this and got our conspirators under lock and key, we will proceed to consider their ingrat.i.tude. There is also the bad form of it and the absence of proper feeling of it; and the want of consideration of the trouble they give. Patience! We shall have to consider the business from your point of view presently.'

'I wouldn't scoff and sn.i.g.g.e.r at it, Mr. Austin, if I were you. Scoffin'

and sn.i.g.g.e.rin' might bring bad luck. Because, you know, there's others besides yourself determined to bring this thing to a right issue.'

George put down his papers and looked at this importunate person. What did he mean? The old man shrunk and shrivelled and grew small. He trembled all over. But he remained standing with his hands on the table--leaning forward. 'Eight years ago,' he went on, 'when that other business happened--when Mr. Arundel cut his lucky----'

'I will have nothing said against Mr. Arundel. Go to your own room.'

'One word--I will speak it. If _he's_ dead I shall not stay long here.

But I shall stay so long as he's alive, though you are his partner. Only one word, sir. If Mr. Arundel hadn't--run away--he'd 'a been a partner instead of you.'

'Well?'

'Well, sir--s'pose he'd been found out _after_ he was made a partner, instead of before?'

George pointed to the door. The old man seemed off his head--was it with terror? Checkley obeyed. But at the door he turned his head and grinned.

Quite a theatrical grin. It expressed malignity and the pleasure of antic.i.p.ation. What was the matter with the old man? Surely, terror. Who, in the office, except himself, had the control of the letters? Who drew that quarterly cheque? Surely, terror.

It was not until half-past eleven that Mr. Dering arrived at the office.

He usually pa.s.sed through the clerk's office outside his own; this morning he entered by his own private door, which opened on the stairs.

No one had the key except himself. He generally proceeded in an orderly and methodical manner to hang up his hat and coat, take off his gloves, place his umbrella in the stand, throw open the safe, sit down in his chair, adjusted at a certain distance of three inches or so, to put on his gla.s.ses, and then, without either haste or dawdling, to begin the work of the day. It is very certain that to approach work always in exactly the same way saves the nerves. The unmethodical workman gets to his office at a varying hour, travels by different routes--now on an omnibus, now on foot; does nothing to-day in the same way that he did it yesterday. He breaks up early. At sixty he talks of retiring, at seventy he is past his work.

This morning, Mr. Dering did nothing in its proper order. First, he was nearly two hours late. Next, he came in by his private door. George rose to greet him, but stopped because--a most wonderful thing--his Partner made as if he did not observe his presence. His eyes went through George in creepy and ghostly fashion. The junior partner stood still, silent, in bewilderment. Saw one ever the like, that a man should at noontide walk in his sleep! His appearance, too, was strange; his hat, pushed a little back, gave a touch of recklessness--actually recklessness--to the austere old lawyer: his eyes glowed pleasantly; and on his face--that grave and sober face--there was a pleased and satisfied smile: he looked happy, interested, benevolent, but not--no--not Mr. Edward Dering.

Again, his coat, always tightly b.u.t.toned, was now hanging loose; outside, it had been swinging in the breeze, to the wonder of Lincoln's Inn: and he wore no gloves, a thing most remarkable. He looked about the room, nodded his head, and shut the door behind him.

'He's somnambulating,' George murmured, 'or else I am invisible: I must have eaten fern-seed without knowing it.'