"What was it?" questioned Mr. Grubb, in the same hushed tone, feeling rather at sea, yet afraid of he knew not what.
"It was a cheque that had come up that morning from Netherleigh. Farmer Lee wanted some money invested in some particular security, and he got my master to undertake to do it for him, to save himself the journey up. Mr. Robert had told me all about it—he mostly did tell me things. Ah, sir, his disposition was open and generous as the day."
"And the money came?"
"The cheque came, sir. It was for five hundred pounds. Piggott called that Friday afternoon and scented the cheque; saw it, most likely. He took Mr. Robert out to dinner, and plied him with wine, and between ten and eleven he brought him back again, staying outside while my master came in—come in for the cheque. It was then I tried to pull him up by telling him about his uncle Claude—how the man Haughton had lured Mr. Claude to his destruction, just as he was now luring Mr. Robert. He said he would have no more to do with Haughton after that night; but he went out to Piggott with the cheque in his pocket, and they walked away together arm-in-arm."
Mr. Grubb took out his pocketbook, and made a note in pencil. He would get that cheque back from the gamblers, if possible. At any rate, he would have a good try for it.
Reuben had not much more to tell. Mr. Grubb put on his hat and went with him to see the police inspector who had the case in hand. It was a terrible blow: terrible in all ways: Francis Grubb was feeling it to be so—and what then would it be to his sister Mary?
The inspector pointed out to Mr. Grubb that, in spite of the finding of the hat in the Thames, which hat was, beyond all doubt, Mr. Dalrymple's, it did not follow that Mr. Dalrymple was himself in the Thames; and the splash heard by the men in the barge might have been made by any one else. There was no proof, he urged, that Mr. Dalrymple had been on Westminster Bridge, or near it. And all this seemed so reasonable that Mr. Grubb felt his heart's weight somewhat lightened.
But, ere the Sunday afternoon closed in, testimony on this point was forthcoming, and rather singularly. It chanced that a young man, named Horn, who was an assistant to Robert Dalrymple's tailor, and had often measured Robert for clothes, was spending the Friday with some friends at South Lambeth. Horn, a very respectable and steady man, had stayed late, for it was a wedding feast, beyond the time of omnibuses, and had to walk home to his lodgings near Leicester Square. In passing over Westminster Bridge, it was then close upon two o'clock, he saw some one mounted on the top, leaning right over the parapet, hanging over it, as if he had a mind to fling himself into the water. Horn, startled at the sight, ran up, and pulled the man back; and then, to his unbounded astonishment, he found it was Mr. Dalrymple.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said in apology. "I had no idea it was you."
"Good-night, Horn," replied Robert.