"If I kept this turnstile, I should make it my business to mark all suspicious night characters that went through; and watch them."
"Oh, would you! And how 'ud you know which was the suspicious ones? Come! They don't always carry their bad marks on their backs, they don't; some on 'em don't look no different from you."
Roland bit his lips to keep down a retort. All in Arthur's interest. Upon giving the man, on a recent visit, what the latter had called "sauce," his migration on and off the bridge had been threatened with a summary stoppage. So he was careful.
"Well, I've just had a clue given me by the police. And I don't hold the smallest doubt now that he was put out of the way. And this is the likeliest place for him to have been brought to. I don't think it would take much skill, after he had been chloroformed to death, to shoot him over, out of a Hansom cab. Brought up upon the pavement, level with the parapet, he'd go as easily over, if propelled, as I should if I jumped it."
The toll-keeper answered by a growl and some sharp words. Truth to say, he felt personally aggrieved at his bridge being subjected to these scandalizing suspicions, and resented them accordingly. Roland did not wait. He went off in search of Hamish, and ere he had left the bridge behind out of sight, hope began again to spring up within him. So buoyant is the human heart in general, and Roland's in particular. Not--let it always be Understood--the hope that Arthur would be found uninjured, only some news of him that might serve to solve the mystery.
Shooting out of a Hansom cab (not dead, after the manner of a picture just drawn, but alive) came a gentleman, just as Roland was passing it. The cab had whirled round the corner of Wellington Street, probably on its way from the station, and pulled up at a shop in the Strand. It was Sir Vincent Yorke. Roland stopped; seized his hand in his impulsive manner, and began entering upon the story of Arthur Channing's disappearance without the smallest preliminary greeting of any kind. Every moment Roland could spare from running, he spent in talking. He talked to Mrs. Jones, he talked to Henry William Ollivera, he talked to Hurst and Jenner, he would have talked to the moon. Mr. Brown had been obliged to forbid him the office, unless he could come to it to work. In his rapid, excited manner, he poured forth the story, circumstance after circumstance, in Sir Vincent's ear, that gentleman feeling slightly bewildered, and not best pleased at the unexpected arrest.
"Oh--ah--I dare say he'll turn up all right," minced Sir Vincent. "A fella's not obliged to acquaint his friends with his movements. Just got up to town?--ah--yes--just for a day or two. Good day. Hope you'll find him."
"You don't understand who it is, Vincent," spoke Roland, resenting the want of interest; which, to say the best of it, was but lukewarm. "It is William Yorke's brother-in-law, Annabel's brother, and the dearest friend I've ever had in life. I've told you of Arthur Channing before. He has the best and bravest heart living; he is the truest man and gentleman the world ever produced."
"An--yes--good day! I'm in a hurry."
Sir Vincent made his escape into the shop. Roland went on to Hamish Channing's office. Hamish could not neglect his work, however Roland might abandon his.