Two was his luncheon hour, and at two he went out. He lunched at his club, and then strolled down to the Chamber of Commerce to see the latest Exchange telegrams, and have a chat with some of the merchants and traders and shipowners of Daneford. He got back to the office at a little after three.
Nothing particular had occurred during his absence. He went into his private room and disposed of some routine affairs. Then, having no business to do, he threw up the window, and looking out, began to whistle softly a recitative of his own invention.
After a little while he stopped whistling, and thought: "I shall be here two hours by myself this evening. I don't think I could do anything better than burn that book." In a little while more he made up his mind. "Yes; I will burn it. It would tell against me in any case. Even suppose by any miracle I am able to get that money together again, the dates would betray me. Then it is better to have neither book nor Stock than a tell-tale book only. Dead men and burnt books tell no tales. Yes; up the chimney it shall go. If I am able to replace that money, the making of a new book will be an easy task, a graceful amusement."
Mr. Grey had always kept the Midharst (Consols) account in his own handwriting, and in a book to which none but himself had access. This was a small book bound in rough calf, having a patent lock and key. Before the Bank closed at four o'clock he went down to the strong-room and took up this book to his private office.
By about half-past four all the clerks had left the office, and Mr. Aldridge had gone out to pick up an appetite for dinner. Grey locked the two doors that led into his office, opened the little ledger, and having cut the book out of the cover, he locked up the cover in a safe in the wall of his own office. There were two reasons for doing this: 1. The cover was, with the appliances at his command, indestructible. 2. He could get new paper bound into the old cover; and those of his staff who were familiar with the outside of the book would not be able to detect any difference between the original and the counterfeit.
When the cover of the book had been concealed under lock and key he sat down in front of the grate, and began tearing up the book into single leaves, and burning each one separately in the empty grate.
As the record of the baronet's twenty years of grinding, exaction, and penurious living changed into flame and smoke and ashes, Grey's thoughts were busy with the awful aspects of his position, and now, for the first time, a new element of fear entered into the case.
He suddenly stopped in his work and looked round him with a ghastly smile. Last night he had been calculating that his only way of avoiding exposure lay through the freedom of himself to marry Maud. But suppose anything were to happen to his wife now. Suppose she died that very day; suppose she had died a week ago, a month ago; what would have occurred? He should then be a childless widower, younger in appearance and in manner than in years, and even young enough in years to be the suitor of any girl. Was it likely if he were so circumstanced Sir Alexander might not think of altering the will, of introducing into it another guardian, executor, or trustee? True, Sir Alexander was not an ordinary man, and had unlimited confidence in him, Grey; but surely he could not be such a fool as to leave his daughter and his daughter's fortune in the hands solely of a popular, good-looking, and an agreeable widower of forty-five?
The thought flurried him, and he gasped and covered his face with his handkerchief, and leaned upon the mantelpiece.
Last night it had appeared to him nothing more advantageous to his fortune could arise than the death of his wife. Now that event seemed the most disastrous which could befall him. The more he looked at the whole situation the more hopeless his position appeared. What last night he regarded as the gateway to deliverance now was the cavern of ruin. Well, he had begun burning this book, and he might as well finish it. Destroying this could have no important influence for evil on the case, and might be beneficial or have a mitigating influence.