Neale went out and set his fellow-clerks to the usual routine. Patten went for the letters. Neale carried them into the partners' room. At ten o'clock the street door was opened. A customer or two began to drop in. The business of the day had begun. It went on just as it would have gone on if Mr. Horbury had been away on holiday. And at half-past ten in walked the junior partner, Mr. Joseph Chestermarke.
Mr. Joseph was the exact opposite of his uncle. He was so much his opposite that it was difficult to believe, seeing them together, that they were related to each other. Mr. Joseph Chestermarke, a man of apparently thirty years of age, was tall and loose of figure, easy of demeanour, and a little untidy in his dress. He wore a not over well-fitting tweed suit, a slouch hat, a flannel shirt. His brown beard usually needed trimming; he affected loose, flowing neckties, more suited to an artist than to a banker. His face was amiable in expression, a little weak, a little speculative. All these characteristics came out most strongly when he and his uncle were seen in company: nothing could be more in contrast to the precise severity of Gabriel than the somewhat slovenly carelessness of Joseph. Joseph, indeed, was the last man in the world that any one would ever have expected to see in charge and direction of a bank, and there were people in Scarnham who said that he was no more than a lay-figure, and that Gabriel Chestermarke did all the business.
The junior partner passed through the outer room, nodding affably to the clerks and went into the private parlour. Several minutes elapsed: then a bell rang. Neale answered it, and Shirley and Patten glanced at each other and shook their heads: already they scented an odour of suspicion and uncertainty.
"What's up?" whispered Patten, leaning forward over his desk to Shirley, who stood between it and the counter. "Something wrong?"
"Something that Gabriel doesn't like, anyhow," muttered Shirley. "Did you see his eyes when Neale said that Horbury wasn't here? If Horbury doesn't turn up by this next train—ah!"
"Think he's sloped?" asked Patten, already seething with boyish desire of excitement. "Done a bunk with the money?"
But Shirley shook his head at the closed door through which Neale had vanished.
"They're carpeting Neale about it, anyhow," he answered. "Gabriel'll want to know the whys and wherefores, you bet. But Neale won't tell us anything—he's too thick with Horbury."
Neale, entering the partners' room, found them in characteristic attitudes. The senior partner sat at his desk, stern, upright, his eyes burning a little more fiercely than usual: the junior, his slouch hat still on his head, his hands thrust in his pockets, lounged against the mantelpiece, staring at his uncle.
"Now, Neale," said Gabriel Chestermarke. "What do you know about this? Have you any idea where Mr. Horbury is?"