“Who do you suppose took the note?” inquired Hamish of Roland Yorke, speaking for the first time.
“Bother the note!” was the rejoinder of Mr. Roland. “It’s nothing to us who took it. Arthur didn’t. Go and ask the post-office.”
“But the seal?” Hamish was beginning in a friendly tone of argument. Roland bore him down.
“Who cares for the seal? I don’t. If Galloway had stuck himself upon the letter, instead of his seal, and never got off till it reached the cousin Galloway’s hand, I wouldn’t care. It tells nothing. Do you want to find your brother guilty?” he continued, in a tone of scorn. “You did not half stand up for him, Hamish Channing, as I’d expect a brother to stand up for me. Now then, you people! Are you thinking we are live kangaroos escaped from a menagerie? Be off about your own business! Don’t come after us.”
The last was addressed to a crowd, who had followed upon their heels from the court, staring, with that innate delicacy for which the English are remarkable. They had seen Arthur Channing a thousand times before, every one of them, but, as he had been arrested, they must look at him again. Yorke’s scornful reproach and fierce face somewhat scattered them.
“If it had been Galloway’s doings, I’d never have put my foot inside his confounded old office again!” went on Roland. “No! and my lady might have tried her best to force me. Lugging a fellow up for a pitiful, paltry sum of twenty pounds!—who is as much a gentleman as himself!—who, as his own senses might tell him, wouldn’t touch it with the end of his finger! But it was that Butterby’s handiwork, not Galloway’s.”
“Galloway must have given Butterby his instructions,” observed Hamish.
“He didn’t, then,” snapped Roland. “Jenkins says he knows he did not, by the remarks Galloway made to him this morning. And Galloway has been away ever since eleven o’clock, we can’t tell where. It is nobody but that evil, mischief-making Butterby, and I’d give a crown out of my pocket to have a good duck at him in the river!”
With regard to Mr. Galloway’s knowing nothing of the active proceedings taken against Arthur, Roland was right. Mr. Butterby had despatched a note to Mr. Galloway’s office at one o’clock, stating what he had done, and requesting him to be at the office at two, for the examination—and the note had been lying there ever since.
It was being opened now. Now—at the exact moment that Mr. Roland Yorke was giving vent to that friendly little wish, about the river and Mr. Butterby. Mr. Galloway had met a friend in the town, and had gone with him a few miles by rail into the country, on unexpected business. He had just returned to find the note, and to hear Jenkins’ account of Arthur’s arrest.