"Put it on to the table by the window, just as it might be there," said Mrs. Jobson, taking an exact aim, and marking a particular spot on the table with her finger.
"It's no good looking there," said Gilbert testily--for Mrs. Jobson still kept peering on the table, as though she expected to see the letter swim up to the surface through the wood--"it's not there. What can have become of it?"
"Well, now I recollect," said Mrs. Jobson slowly, "that I thought you would be all the better for a puff of fresh air, so I opened the window, and the paper might have blowed out."
"Good God, woman, what have you done!" cried Gilbert, starting up and rushing towards the street, pushing past Mrs. Jobson, who this time began to be seriously alarmed, thinking her lodger was going out of his mind.
The street was tolerably empty when Gilbert Lloyd reached it. There is not much doing in Duke-street, St. James's, in the month of September--a slack season, when even the livery-stable-keepers' helpers are probably out of town, and there were but few people about to express surprise at seeing a gentleman fly out of a house, and begin searching the pavement and the kennel with intense anxiety and perseverance. In the season, a dozen young gutter-bloods, street-boys, would have been round him in a moment, all aiding in the search for an unknown something, the probable finding of which, if seen, would bring them a few coppers, the possible stealing of which, unseen, might fill their pockets. But on this calm September morning a Jew clothesman going his rounds, the servant of a lodging-house opposite, and an elderly-gentleman lodger, who never went out of town, and who in the winter never got out of bed, and who at the then moment was calmly looking on at Lloyd's proceedings as at a show, were all the spectators of the hunt for the missing paper, in which none of them evinced anything but the most cursory interest.
Not so the seeker. He hunted up and down, poked in wind-swept corners, peered down rusty gratings, seemed to have at one time a vague idea of following the chase up the livery-stableman's yard, and glared at the barrel swinging in mid-air from the crane outside the oilman's warehouse-door, as though it might have sucked up the precious document. He must have it, Gilbert Lloyd kept repeating to himself; he must have it. But he could not find it, and at the end of an hour's search he returned to the house, worn out with fatigue, and in a state of feverish anxiety.
If it had blown out of the window, as the woman had suggested, into the street--and the probabilities were that it had done so--somebody must have picked it up. There was no wet or mud to discolour the paper or efface the writing; it was a peculiar and striking-looking letter, and anyone finding it would doubtless read it through. If such had been the case it was lost--irretrievably, for ever. Great beads of perspiration stood upon his pallid forehead as this notion flashed across him. His name headed the letter, the name of his accuser was signed at its foot, and its contents plainly set forth one attempted crime and hinted at the knowledge of another, which had been more than attempted, which had been carried into effect. Anyone reading this would see the whole state of affairs at a glance, would feel it incumbent on them to give information to the police, and--he was a dead man! What was that Lord Sandilands had said about further inquiries relative to Harvey Gore? Foxey had been doing his best to find out something definite in that quarter, and had failed; but then Lord Sandilands was a man of influence, with plenty of money, which he would not scruple to spend freely in any matter such as this. That made all the difference; they might succeed in tampering with that wretched doctor fellow, who plainly had had his suspicions--Gilbert had often recalled his expression about the rigor mortis--and there would be an end of it. Pshaw! what a fool he was! He passed his hand across his damp brow, sprang from the chair on which he had been sitting, and commenced pacing the room. An end of it? No, not yet. He had always had his own notion of how that end should be brought about, if the pressure upon him became unbearable. Most men leading such precarious shifty lives have thus thought occasionally, and made odd resolves in regard to them. But there was hope yet. He was seedy, weak, and unhinged; a glass of brandy would set him all right, and then he would go off to Hill-street, look through the accounts, draw on the bankers to the uttermost farthing, and start for America. It was hard lines to leave town, where he had played the game so long and so successfully. However, that was all over, he should never play it any more, and so he might as well--better, much better--begin his new life in a fresh place.
He dressed himself, got into a cab, and drove to Hill-street. The house had been left in charge of some of those wonderful people who occupy houses during the temporary absence of their legitimate owners; but when Gilbert rang the bell the door was opened, to his intense surprise, by Martin, Lord Ticehurst's valet, whom he had left behind with his lordship at Baden.
"You here, Martin!" said Lloyd with an astonishment mingled with an uncomfortable sensation which he could not conceal. "Why, when did you arrive, and what has brought you?"
"Arrived last night, sir," said Martin with a jaunty air, very different from his usual respectful bearing. "Came by his lordship's orders."