‘I’ve noticed, sir,’ said Hornett, with marked humility, as if he apologised for having said anything, ‘that young Mr. Barter is a gentleman who goes about in rather a large way, and noisy way, sir. He’s a biggish man, as it is, and to look at him at first you’d fancy that he was bigger than he is. He talks very loud and cheery, sir, and he bangs things about a good deal.’
‘Well?’ said Bommaney, irritated by these slow preliminaries, ‘what about it all?’
He could see that his late clerk was leading to a point of some sort, and listened with a growing impatience.
‘He was leaving his rooms that night, sir,’ said Hornett, ‘as sly as a cat. I was just on the ground-floor of Number One as he was locking the door behind him. Locking it, don’t you see, sir,’ said Hornett, beginning to be fired by his imagination, and speaking eagerly, ‘so as not to make a noise in pulling it to behind him. I suppose I made some sort of a noise in going behind him, but any way, he looked up at me—I can see him now!’ he cried, with a swift conviction, ‘as if he was here at this very minute, white and cowardly. That’s what he was, sir. White and cowardly, I can see him now.’
Bommaney grasped him by the wrist.
‘Do you remember the time?’ he asked, passing one hand confusedly through the tumbled and disgraceful old locks of his hair. ‘Do you remember when I left the office? Do you remember when you left it?’
‘Almost directly, sir, after you. But you drove, sir, and I walked. I stopped, and had a little conversation with a friend, and just a social glass that might have kept me back five minutes, sir. I was going to dine with Mr. Marshall (White and Fielding’s Mr. Marshall, sir) before the theatre.’
Bommaney released his wrist, and dropping on his knees before the fire again, warmed his hands absently and stared into the blaze.
‘The notes were all hundreds, James,’ he said, after a pause. ‘They were stopped at the Bank, I know, because I saw the advertisement. It wouldn’t be easy to get rid of them.’
‘There are ways and means, sir,’ said Hornett. ‘They’d have to be disposed of at a loss, of course—a heavy loss—and kept quiet for a considerable time.’