Chapter Thirty Eight.
How I ended the Day more comfortably than I had expected.
My misfortunes had now fairly reached a climax, and it seemed useless to struggle against circumstances any more.
Of course, I could see, as soon as my stunned senses recovered sufficiently to enable me to perceive anything, that the same false hand which had pointed me out as a thief had also placed that key in my desk as part of his wicked plot. I remembered that when I was conveyed up to the sample-room that morning my desk had been open. Nothing, therefore, could have been more simple than to secrete the key there during my absence, and so lay up against me a silent accuser which it would be far harder to gainsay than a talking one.
But what was the use of explaining all this when evidently fortune had decreed that I should become a victim? After all, was it not better to give in at once, and let fate do its worst?
“This is my key of the safe,” said Mr Merrett, and all eyes turned on me.
Nothing I could say, it was clear, could do any good. I therefore gaped stupidly at the key and said nothing.
“How came it in your desk, Batchelor?” asked Mr Barnacle.
I didn’t know, and therefore I couldn’t say, and consequently said nothing.
“Have you any explanation to offer?” repeated Mr Barnacle.
“No,” I replied.
“Then, officer,” said Mr Merrett, “we must give him in charge.”
The bare idea of being walked off to a police-station was enough to drive all my sullenness and reserve to the four winds.
Suddenly finding my tongue, I cried—
“Oh, please don’t, please don’t! I can explain it all. For mercy sake don’t be cruel—don’t send me to prison! I am innocent, Mr Merrett, Mr Barnacle; I can explain it all. Please don’t have me locked up.”
In my confusion and panic I turned round and addressed these last words to Hawkesbury, who received them with a smile in which there was more of triumph than pity.
“You false coward!” I exclaimed, suddenly seeing who it was, “you did this. You put the key in my desk while I was locked up stairs.”
“Really, Batchelor,” replied he, in his sweetest tones, “I’m afraid you hardly know what you’re saying. I don’t understand you.”
“You do,” said I, “and you understand how helpless I am to defend myself. You and Masham did your work well this morning.”
“At any rate,” retorted he, firing up, “we gave you a lesson for your impudence.”
Mr Merrett had been speaking with the detective, and did not hear this dialogue; but Mr Barnacle did, happily for me.
“Then,” he said, turning short round to Hawkesbury, “Masham was here this morning?”
Hawkesbury, thus suddenly cornered, turned first red, then white, and tried to mumble out some evasion. But Mr Barnacle was not the man to be put off in that way.
“Then he was here this morning?” he demanded again.
Hawkesbury had no retreat, and he saw it.
“He just called in for a moment,” he said, sullenly; “that’s all.”
“Oh,” said Mr Barnacle, “you can go to your desk, Hawkesbury, for the present.”
Hawkesbury, looking anything but triumphant, obeyed, and Mr Barnacle, who evidently suspected the real truth more than his partner did, turned to me.
“Batchelor, do you still decline to offer any explanation of the discovery of this key in your desk?”
“I can only say,” I replied, “that it must have been put there, for I never touched it.”
“Who would put it there?”
“Hawkesbury, I suppose. When he and his friend dragged me up stairs my desk was left open.”
“Can you describe this Masham?”
I could, and did.
“The description,” said the detective, “tallies exactly with that given at the bank of the person who presented the cheque.”
“Do you know his writing?”
“I know what I believe to be his writing,” said I.
“Is that it?” inquired Mr Barnacle, showing me an envelope addressed to Hawkesbury.
“No, that is not the handwriting I believe to be his.”
“Is that?” showing another.
“No.”
“Is that?” This time it was the envelope I had already recognised.
“Yes, that is it.”
“How are you able to recognise it?”
“By this,” said I, producing the letter to Mary Smith from my pocket. The handwriting on the two envelopes was compared and found to be alike, and further to correspond with a signature at the back of the cheque. The clerk, it seemed, being a little doubtful of the person who presented the cheque, had required him to write his name on the back; and the fictitious signature “A. Robinson” was accordingly given in Masham’s hand.
“That seems clear,” said the detective.
“I see,” said Mr Barnacle, looking again at the envelope I had given him, “this letter is addressed to the place where Smith lives. Is Masham a friend of Smith or his family?”
“Would you mind reading the letter, sir?” I said; “that will answer the question better than I can.”
Mr Barnacle did so, and Mr Merrett also.
In the midst of my trouble it was at least a satisfaction to see the look of disgust which came into both their faces as they perused its contents.
“A dastardly letter!” said Mr Merrett. “How came Masham to know of Smith’s private affairs?”
“Hawkesbury overheard Smith and me talking of them on the first occasion that we found him here, and must have told Masham, who had a grudge against Smith.”
“You heard, of course, that Hawkesbury included Smith as well as yourself in his accusation?”
“Yes, I did. And I wish he was here to confirm my denial of it. What happened was—”
“Yes,” said Mr Barnacle, “you need not go into that again. But answer one more question, Batchelor. Are you acquainted with Masham?”
“Slightly. I once was introduced to him by Hawkesbury and spent a day with him.”
“Have you any reason to believe he is a swindler?”
“I know of nothing which would warrant me in saying so,” replied I.
“Do you know whether Hawkesbury owes him money?”
“Yes—at least I have been told so.”
“By whom?”
“By a boy—a shoeblack who—”
“A shoeblack!” exclaimed Mr Merrett. “Is that your only authority?”
“I believe he is honest,” I said; “he overheard a conversation between Masham and a friend, in which Masham mentioned that Hawkesbury owed him £15.”
“Really,” said Mr Merrett, “this is almost absurd to take such testimony as that.”
“It wouldn’t be amiss to see the boy, though,” said Mr Barnacle; “a great deal depends on whether or no Hawkesbury owed money to Masham. Where is this boy to be found?”
“Oh, I could fetch him at once. I know where he works,” I said.
“No,” said Mr Barnacle, “you must stay here. Doubleday can go.” And he touched the bell.
“Doubleday,” he said, when that youth entered, “we want you to bring here a shoeblack.”
“Yes, sir,” said Doubleday, artlessly: “will any one do?”
“No, no,” said Mr Barnacle, “the boy we wish to see is—where is he, Batchelor?”
“He works at the top of Style Street,” I said; “you will know the place by the writing all over the flagstones on either side.”
With this lucid direction Doubleday started, and I in the meanwhile was left to go on with my usual work. Most of the fellows were away at dinner, and Hawkesbury as before was invisible, so I had the place pretty much to myself, and was spared, for a time, at any rate, a good deal of unwelcome questioning.
In due time there was a sound of scuffling and protest on the stairs outside, and Doubleday reappeared dragging in Billy. That youthful hero, evidently doubting the import of this strange summons, was in a highly indignant frame of mind at being thus hauled along by the mischievous Doubleday, who, vouchsafing no explanation and heeding no protest, had simply made a grab at his unlucky young victim, and then led him away, box, brushes, and all, to Hawk Street.
“Do you hear? turn it up—do you hear?” he cried, as they entered. “Oh, go on, you let my arm be—let me go, do you hear?”
At this point he recognised me, who thought it well to interpose.
“Don’t alarm yourself, Billy,” said I, “no one’s going to hurt you.”
“This cove do—and he are!”
“Well, he didn’t mean. The gentlemen here want to ask you some questions, that’s all.”
“I ain’t a-goin’ to be arsted no questions. They ain’t my governors, so I let them know. I ain’t a-goin’ to be arsted questions by any one ’sep my governor.”
“But what they want to ask you, Billy,” said I, “has something to do with Mr Smith’s happiness and mine. All you have to do is to tell the truth.”
This explanation mollified the ruffled Billy somewhat.
“Come, young cock-sparrow,” said Doubleday, returning from announcing the distinguished visitor, “you’re wanted inside. They want you, too, Batch.”
We entered. Billy, as usual, was more at his ease than any one else. “What cheer? Well, what do you want to arst me?” he cried, jauntily.
The partners, thus encouraged, looked rather amused, and Mr Barnacle said, “You’re the little shoeblack, are you?”
“In corse I are!”
“And you know this gentleman?”
“Yaas; I knows the animal!”
“And you know Mr Smith?”
“What! my governor? He ain’t no concern of yourn,” retorted the boy, firing up a little at this liberty taken with his “governor’s” name.
Mr Barnacle gazed curiously at the strange urchin through his spectacles, and then resumed, in as coaxing a tone as he could assume, “You know a person called Masham, do you?”
“Yaas; I knows ’im.”
“What sort of person is he?”
“What sort? Why, he are a beauty, so I tell you!”
“Yes; but I mean, what sort of looking man? Is he tall or short? Has he dark hair or light? Would you know him if you saw him?”
“Know him? Oh no—no fear—I know the beauty!”
“Well, what sort of looking man is he?” asked Mr Barnacle.
“He’s a ugly bloke with a mug like yourn, and a ’orseshoe pin in ’is weskit.”
“Yes? And what colour is his hair?”
“Carrots!”
That was quite enough. This unromantic portrait corresponded sufficiently nearly with the description already given.
“Now,” said Mr Barnacle, “will you tell us when you last blacked his boots?”
“A Toosdy.”
“Do you remember whether he was alone?”
“Ain’t you arstin’ me questions, though!” exclaimed Billy. “Of course he ’ad a bloke along of him, and, says he, ‘That there parson’s son,’ says he, ‘is a cuttin’ it fat?’ says he. ‘He do owe me a fifteen pun,’ says ’e, ‘and ef ’e don’t hand it over sharp,’ says he, ‘I’ll wake ’im up!’ And then—”
“Yes,” said Mr Barnacle; “that’s enough, my man, thank you.”
When Billy had gone, Mr Merrett turned to me and said, “Go to your work, Batchelor, and tell Doubleday to send Hawkesbury here.”
I obeyed, feeling that, after all, as far as I was concerned, the storm had blown over.
Doubleday went to Hawkesbury’s glass box and opened the door. “You’re wanted, Hawkes— Hullo!”
This exclamation was caused by the discovery that Hawkesbury was not there!
“Where’s Hawkesbury?” he inquired of the office generally.
“He’s not come back,” said Crow.
“When did he go out?”
“Why, the usual time, to be sure.”
Doubleday gave a low whistle, and exclaimed, “Bolted!” And so it was. That afternoon Hawkesbury did not appear again at Hawk Street, or the next day, or the next week, or the next month. And when inquiry was made at the rectory, all that could be ascertained was that he had left home, and that not even his father knew where he had gone.