“That also is my view,” agreed Mr. Chark. “I can endorse Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones’s opinion as regards the character of my client, Mr. Gimblet; I can endorse it thoroughly. Mrs. Vanderstein is a level-headed, shrewd woman, far from being driven by every impulse.”
“There is something decidedly womanly about the way she considers it her sacred duty to ignore her husband’s wishes,” commented Gimblet, and then, as he saw the wrathful light flashing in Sir Gregory’s eyes, he added quickly, “I hope that Mrs. Vanderstein herself will be able to make everything clear in a few hours’ time at the most. Sir Gregory and I, Mr. Chark, were on our way to see if she had been heard of at the hospitals, at the moment of your arrival. We fear she may have met with some misadventure.”
Mr. Chark was disappointed. Beneath his stiff, outer shell there lurked a tiny spark of romantic fire, which had never been entirely extinguished by the stifling routine of the legal casuistries with which D’Allby and Chark principally occupied themselves. Mortgages, settlements of property, the continual framing in a maze of words of those deeds which should mystify any but creatures like himself, to whom their lack of intelligibility meant profitable business; all this systematic dullness had failed to choke that imperceptible glimmer, and at the mere knowledge of Gimblet’s presence in the house it had leapt on a sudden to a hot and burning flame. All his life he had cherished a secret regret that his way had not lain along the precipitous bypaths of criminal law, and now his excited imagination saw murder and violence beckoning from all sides, with fingers redly fascinating. He gave a stiff bow at the detective’s words, and spoke with a feeling of irritation and a sensation of being played with, which he was careful to conceal beneath his usual precise and colourless tones.
“Indeed,” he drawled, his hands revolving as ever in their stroking movement. “I may venture to say that my impression is a different one. Though no detective, I am still, in my capacity of lawyer, able to put two and two together. This letter”—he tapped Mrs. Vanderstein’s note—“and the evidence of the butler that a quarrel between my client and her nephew did occur yesterday afternoon in this house, and immediately preceded the writing of this letter; the knowledge that the lady left her home intending to return in two or three hours, but has actually failed to do so in twenty—these facts, gentlemen, if they convey nothing to you, appear to me to be eminently suggestive.”
Gimblet made no reply; but Sir Gregory, whose face had been getting pinker and pinker till it resembled a full-blown peony, burst out with a truculent snort:
“And what do they suggest to you, sir?”
“They suggest,” Mr. Chark resumed with apparent calm, “that Mr. Joseph Sidney could very probably inform us of his aunt’s whereabouts.”
“I have the pleasure of Mr. Sidney’s acquaintance,” exclaimed Sir Gregory, “and let me inform you, Mr. Chark, if that is your name, that he is a gentleman holding a commission in His Majesty’s army. I hope it is unnecessary to say more. Your insinuations are absurd.”
“You cannot deny in the face of the facts that matters look very black against this young gentleman,” drawled the lawyer.
“Black!” Sir Gregory seemed about to choke. “I consider it black behaviour, sir, to come here and make these libellous and scandalous assertions about an officer and a gentleman. One who, moreover, is, as I gather, entirely unknown to you. Do you know him, sir, or do you not?” demanded Sir Gregory, leaning forward and rapping out an accompaniment to the words with the palm of his hand on a small table which stood near him, so that the flower glasses on it danced and jingled.