He approached his office on that second day in a sober mood, prepared to scan the document which he awaited, and, if necessary, to visit his lawyer. No document was there; but Mr. Clutterbuck had had experience of the leisure of a solicitor's office, and, in youth, too many reminders of the results of interference to hasten its operation. What did surprise him, however, and that most legitimately, was the absence of any word of acknowledgment from his friend, in spite of the fact that the cheque had been cashed, as he discovered, the day before at a few minutes past twelve. Of all courses precipitation is the worst. Mr. Clutterbuck occupied himself with other matters; worked hard at the Warra-Mugga report, mastered it; sold Perterssens for Warra-Muggas (a very wise transaction); and returned home in a thoughtful mood by a late train.
The first news with which Mrs. Clutterbuck greeted him was the sudden and serious illness of Mr. Boyle, who was lying between life and death at 15 John Bright Gardens. As she announced this fact to her husband, she looked at him in a manner suggestive neither of conciliation, nor of violence, nor of weakness, but, as it were, of calm control; and Mr. Clutterbuck, acting upon mixed emotions, among which anxiety was not the least, went out at once to have news of his friend. All that he could hear from the servant at the door was that the doctor would admit no visitor; that her master was extremely ill, but that he was expected to survive the night.
Mr. Clutterbuck hurried back home in a considerable confusion of mind, and was glad to find, as he approached his house, that everything was dark.
Next morning he postponed his journey to the City to call again as early as he decently could at 15 John Bright Gardens. Alas! the blinds were drawn at every window. The Dread Reaper had passed.
The effect produced by this calamity upon Mr. Clutterbuck was such as would have thrown a more emotional man quite off his balance. The loss of so near a neighbour, the death of a man with whom but fifty hours ago he had been in intimate conversation, was in itself a shock of dangerous violence. When there was added to this shock his natural doubts upon the status of the Million Eggs, it is not to be wondered that a sort of distraction followed. He ran, quite forgetful of his dignity, to the nearest telephone cabin, rang up his office in the City, was given the wrong number, in his agony actually forgot to repeat the right number again, dashed out without paying, returned to fulfil this formality, pelted away toward the station, missed the 11.28, and, such was his bewildered mood, leapt upon a tram as though this were the quickest means of reaching information.
In a quarter of an hour a little calm was restored to him, though by this time the rapid electric service of the Electric Traction Syndicate had carried him far beyond the limits of Croydon. He got out at a roadside office, wrote out and tore up again half a dozen telegrams, seized a time-table, determined that after all the train was his best refuge, and catching the 12.17 at Norwood Junction, found himself in the heart of the City before half-past one. A hansom took him to his office after several intolerable but unavoidable delays in the half-mile it had to traverse. His visible perturbation was a matter of comment to his subordinates, who were not slow to inform him before he opened his mouth that the documents had not yet arrived.
Exhaustion followed so much feverish activity, an anxiety, deeper if possible than any he had yet shown, settled upon Mr. Clutterbuck's features. He forgot to lunch, he walked deliberately to the warehouse, only to be asked what his business might be, and to be told that the particular section of eggs which he named were the property of Messrs. Czernwitz and Boyle, and could be visited by no one without their written order.
The tone in which this astonishing message was delivered would have stung a man of less sensitiveness and breeding than Mr. Clutterbuck; he turned upon his heel in a mood to which anger was now added, and immediately sought the office of that firm. But he was doomed to yet further delay. No one was in who could give him any useful information, nor even any one of so much responsibility as to be able to explain to him the extraordinary occurrences of the last few days.
He was at the point of a very grave decision—I mean of going on to his lawyers and perhaps disturbing to no sort of purpose the most delicate of commercial relations—when there moved past him into the office the ponderous and well-clad form of a gentleman past middle age, with such magnificent white whiskers as adorn the faces of too many Continental bankers, and wearing a simple bowler hat of exquisite shape and workmanship. He was smoking a cigar of considerable size and of delicious flavour, and by the deference immediately paid to him upon his entry, Mr. Clutterbuck, as he stood in nervous anxiety by the door, could distinguish the head of the firm.
It was characteristic of the Baron de Czernwitz, and in some sort an explanation of his future success in our business world, ever so suspicious of the foreigner, that the moment he had heard Mr. Clutterbuck's name and business, he turned to him, in spite of his many preoccupations, with the utmost courtesy and said: