When he reached the harbour, instead of turning down to the left, by the estuary, he made his way at once on to the shore, and after a little hesitation, picked out the spot where on the previous night he had thrown himself down, half mad with the course he had been called upon to take.
The engraved gold locket, with which his nervous fingers had often played, would be lying somewhere among the stones; perhaps caught and wedged in a crevice. It was so easy when lying prone to catch such an ornament and snap it off without knowing. He looked carefully over the heap of stones, and then around in every direction; but the locket was not there.
“It must be somewhere about,” he said angrily, as if he willed that it should; but there was no sign of the glittering piece of well-polished gold, and a suspicion that had for a long time been growing, increased rapidly in force, till he could bear it no longer, and once more something seemed to urge him to fly.
He had clung so to that hope, shutting his eyes to the truth, and going down to the beach to search for the locket. Even when he had not found it, he said that perhaps some child had picked it up; but there was the truth now refusing to be smothered longer, and he walked on hastily to reach Van Heldre’s office, so as to search for the locket there. For it was the truth he had felt that sudden snatch, that tug when the old merchant dashed at him, and then fell. The locket was torn off then. He might not be too late. In the hurry and confusion it might not have been seen.
The ordinary door of entrance to the offices was closed, and at the house the blinds were half drawn down. He felt that he could not go to the front door. So after a little hesitation, he went round into the back lane, and with a strange sensation of dread, passed through the gateway and down the steps into the neatly-kept garden yard.
Everything was very still; and Harry Vine, with an attempt to look as if entirely bent upon his ordinary task, went up to the door, entered the glass corridor, as he had entered it the night before, and by a tremendous effort of will walked quickly into the outer office.
The inner door was open, and after a hasty glance round, he was in the act of crossing to it when he found himself face to face with the old clerk. For some moments neither spoke—the old man gazing straight at Harry with a peculiar, stony glare, and the latter, so thrown off his balance that no words would come.
“Good morning,” he said at last.
The old man continued to stare as if looking him through and through.
“What do you want?” he said at last.