Roland Yorke / A Sequel to "The Channings"

by Mrs. Henry Wood

He spoke in a cool calm kind of way. It produced no effect on Roland. The fresh theory had been started, and that was enough. So many conjectures had been hazarded and rejected in their hopelessness during the past few days that to catch hold of another was to Roland something like a spring of water would have been, had he come upon one during his travels in the arid deserts of Africa. Ordering Spitchcock to propound this view to the first of his superiors that should look in, Roland went speeding on his course again to seek an interview with Hamish Channing.

Making a detour first of all down Wellington Street: for, to go by Waterloo Bridge without inquiring whether anything had "turned up," was beyond Roland. Perhaps it was because Arthur seemed to have disappeared within the radius of what might be called its vicinity, taken in conjunction with its assumed ill-reputation--as a convenient medium over which dead cats and the like might be pitched into the safe, all-concealing river--that induced Roland Yorke to suspect the spot. It haunted his thoughts awake, his dreams asleep. One whole night he had sat on its parapet, watching the water below, watching the solitary passengers above. The police had got to know him now and what he wanted; and if they laughed at him behind his back, were civil to him before his face.

Onward pressed Roland, his head first in eagerness, his long legs skimming after. How many wayfarers and apple-stalls he had knocked over (so to say, walked through) since the search began, he would have had some difficulty to reckon up. As to bringing him to account for damages, that was simply impracticable. Before the capsized individual could understand what had happened to him, or the bewildered apple-woman so much as looked at her fallen wares, Roland was out of sight and hearing. A young shoe-black at the corner had got to think the gentleman, pressing onwards everlastingly up and down the street, never turning aside from his course, might be the Wandering Jew; and would cease brushing to gaze up at Roland whenever he passed.

Look at him now, reader. The tall, fine, well-dressed young fellow, his pale face anxious with not-attempted-to-be-concealed care, his arms swaying, the silk-lined breasts of his frock-coat thrown back, as he strides on resolutely down Wellington Street! Neither to the right nor the left looks he: his eyes are cast forth over the people's heads, towards the bridge and the river that it spans, as if staring for the information he is going to seek. One great feature in Roland was his hopefulness. Each time he started for Waterloo Bridge, or Scotland Yard, or Hamish Channing's, or Mr. Greatorex's, or any other place where news might possibly be awaiting him, renewed hope was to the full as buoyant in his heart as it had been that memorable day when he had anchored in the beautiful harbour of Port Natal, and gazed on the fair shore with all its charming scenery that seemed to Roland as a very paradise. Bright with hope as his heart had been then, so was it now in the intermittent intervals. So was it at this moment as he bore on, down Wellington Street.

"Well," said he to the toll-keeper. "Anything turned up?"

"Not a bit on't," responded the man. "Nor likely to." Roland went through, perched himself on the parapet, and took his fill of gazing at the river. Now on this side the bridge, now leaping over to that. A steamer passed, a rowing-boat or two; but Arthur Channing was not in them. Roland looked to the mud on the sides, he threw his gaze forwards and backwards, up and down, round and about. In vain. All features were very much the same that they had been from the day of his first search: certainly returning to him no signs of Arthur. And down went hope again, as completely as the pears had gone, earlier in the day, at a corner stall. Despair had possession of him now.

"You say that no suspicious character went on to the bridge that night, so far as you can recollect," resumed Roland in the gloomiest tone, when he had walked lingeringly back to the man at the gate. Lingeringly, because some kind of clue seemed to lie with that bridge and he was always loth to quit it. If he did not suspect Arthur might be lying buried underneath the stone pavement, it seemed something like it.

"I didn't say so," interrupted the gate-keeper, in rather a surly tone. "What I said was, as there warn't nothing suspicious chucked over that night."

"You can't tell. You might not hear."

"Well, I haven't got no time to jabber with you today."