“By the Lord!” he muttered, under his breath, “the blow has sent him off his head!” But pity is too expensive a commodity in the city. It requires too much time. With a “Well, good-by, old fellow,” the gentleman hurried on and left Bartley Bradstone standing with the paper in his hand, looking like a man completely dazed.
The crowd of passers-by jostled him and pushed him all unheeded; but at last he seemed to awake, and hurrying onward, ran up the steps and into Mr. Mowle’s office.
Mr. Mowle was not there. He had gone, and so had the Gladstone bag! The office, too, was in greater disorder than before; and Bartley Bradstone, sinking into the chair before the table, saw a letter addressed to him lying on the desk. He tore it open with shaking fingers.
Am detained. Shall be back in an hour.
Suspicious and bewildered, Bartley Bradstone paced up and down the office, then he went to a safe which stood in the corner of the room. Unlocking it, he began to examine its contents. Then he uttered a cry of mingled rage and despair.
Like a flash of lightning the truth burst upon him. Ezekiel Mowle, the tool whom he had held under his thumb—the worm upon whom he had trodden so often—had turned at last. Scrip, securities, mortgages had all gone. The South Indian Bank shares had not been sold.
He remembered now the cashier’s manner when he presented the check, and he knew, as well as if Mowle had confessed, that he had embezzled every penny of the vast sum which Bartley Bradstone had, with contemptuous confidence, left at his disposal.
Quite faint, sick, feeling more driven and helpless than he had ever felt before, he struggled to the table and drank a glass of water. What should he do? Throughout all the terrible time of peril he felt that at least he had one thing to help him—his immense wealth. Now that that had gone, what should he do?
He leaned his head upon his hand, and forced himself to think.
With the exception of the sum which he had obtained at the bank, he had no ready money whatever.