"He is just one of them shallow-natured, simple-minded chaps that never will be bad," pronounced Butterby, "except in the matter of impudence. He has got enough of that to set up trading on in Cheapside. What he'd have been, but for having got pulled up by a unpleasant check or two, I'm not prepared to say. Well, sir, them three being disposed of--Hurst, Jenner, and Yorke--there remained only Mr. Brown, your manager. And it is about him I've had the honour to solicit an interview with you."
Bede turned his eyes inquiringly from the fire to Mr. Butterby.
"You said from the first you did not suspect Mr. Brown. No more did I. You thought it couldn't be him; he has been some years with you, and his honesty and faithfulness had been sufficiently tested. I'm sure I had no reasons to think otherwise, except one. Which was this: I could not find out anything about Mr. Brown prior to some three or four years back; his appearance on the stage of life, so to say, seemed to date from then. However, sir, by your leave, we'll put Brown aside for a minute, and go on to other people."
Mr. Butterby paused almost as though he expected his hearer to give the leave in words. Bede said nothing, only waited in evident curiosity, and the other resumed.
"There was a long-established firm in Birmingham, Johnson and Teague. Accountants ostensibly, but did a little in bill-broking and what not; honest men, well thought of, very respectable. Johnson (who had succeeded his father) was a man under forty; Teague was old. Old Teague had never married, but he had a great-nephew, in the office, Samuel Teague; had brought him up, and loved him as the apple of his eye. A nice young fellow in public, a wild spendthrift in private; that's what Sam Teague was. His salary was two hundred a year, and he lived free at his uncle's residence, outside Birmingham. His spendings were perhaps four hundred beyond the two. Naturally he came to grief. Do you take me, Mr. Bede Greatorex?"
"Certainly."
"In the office, one of its clerks, was a young man named George Winter. A well-brought-up young fellow too, honest by nature, trusted, and thought much of. He and young Teague were uncommonly intimate. Now, how much blame was due to Winter I'm not prepared to say; but when Samuel Teague, to save himself from some bother, forged a bill on the office, and got it paid by the office, Winter was implicated. He'd no doubt say, if you asked him, that he was drawn into it innocently, did say it in fact; but he had been the one to hand over the money, and the firm and the world looked upon him as the worse of the two. When the fraud was discovered, young Teague decamped. Winter, in self-defence and to avert consequences, went straight the same afternoon, which was a Saturday, to old Teague's private residence, and there made a clean breast of young Teague's long course of misdoings. It killed old Teague."
"Killed him!" repeated Bede, for the detective made a slight pause.
"Yes, sir, killed him. He had looked upon his nephew up to that time as one of the saints of this here middle world; and the shock of finding him more like an angel of the lower one touched old Teague's heart in some vital spot, and killed him. He had a sort of fit, and died that same night. The next day, Sunday, young Winter was missing. It was universally said that he had made his way to Liverpool, in the track of Samuel Teague--for that's where folks thought he had gone--with a view of getting away to America. Both were advertised for; both looked upon as alike criminal. It was for such a paltry sum they had perilled themselves--only a little over one hundred pounds! Time went on, and neither of 'em was ever traced; perhaps Mr. Johnson, when he had cooled down from his first anger, was willing to let Sam Teague be, for the old man's sake, and so did not press the search. Anyway Samuel Teague is now in open business in New York, and doing well."
"And the other--Winter?"