A Secret of the Sea: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPter
[I.]	IN THE LAWYER'S OFFICE.
[II.]	MISS BELLAMY.
[III.]	THE STORY OF THE MURDER.
[IV.]	A BROKEN LIFE.
[V.]	GERALD AT PEMBRIDGE.
[VI.]	"THAT'S THE MAN!"
[VII.]	MISS DEANE FINDS A NEW HOME.
[VIII.]	GERALD AT STAMMARS.
[IX.]	FOUND.
[X.]	IN HARLEY STREET.
[XI.]	IN KENSINGTON GARDENS.
[XII.]	THE FACE IN THE GLASS.

A SECRET OF THE SEA.

[CHAPTER I.]

IN THE LAWYER'S OFFICE.

It was a December morning, clear and frosty. The timepiece in the office of Matthew Kelvin, attorney-at-law, Pembridge, Hertfordshire, racing noisily after the grave old Abbey clock which had just done chiming, pointed to the hour of ten. With his back to the welcome fire, and turning over yesterday's Times with an air of contemptuous indifference, stood Mr. Podley Piper--whose baptismal name was universally shortened into "Pod"--a short, thickset young gentleman of the mature age of sixteen. His nose was a pure specimen of a pug, and his short scrubby hair was of a colour sufficiently pronounced to earn him the nickname of "Carotty Pod" from sundry irreverent small boys of his acquaintance. His nose and his hair notwithstanding, Pod was a keen, bright-looking lad, with an air of shrewdness and decision about him by no means common in one of his age.

"Awfully dry reading--the Times," muttered Pod, tossing the paper on Mr. Kelvin's desk. "Only one suicide, and not a single murder in it. It's not worth buying. And yet there must be something in it, or so many people wouldn't read it. I suppose that by the time I'm fifty, and wear creaky shoes and carry a big gold watch in my fob, and have to count my hairs every morning to see that I haven't lost one overnight,--I suppose, when that time comes, I shall think as much of the Times as Sir Thomas Dudgeon does. But just at present I'd rather read the 'Bounding Wolf of the Prairies.'"

Hardly were the last words out of Pod's mouth, when the inner door was opened, and Matthew Kelvin walked silently into the room. In silence he sat down at his desk, after one sharp glance at Pod and another at the fire, and set to work at once at the task immediately before him. This task was the opening of the pile of post letters which had been placed ready to his hand by Pod. A brief glance at the contents of each was generally sufficient. In very few cases did he trouble himself to read a letter entirely through. Three or four of the more important documents were put aside to be attended to specially by himself; the rest of them had a corner turned up on which Pod pencilled down in shorthand Mr. Kelvin's instructions for the guidance of Mr. Bray, his chief clerk. It was his cleverness at shorthand that had gained Pod his present situation.

"That will do," said Mr. Kelvin, after a few minutes of this sharp work. "Give those papers to Mr. Bray, and tell him not to come in till I ring."

Something out of the ordinary way was evidently the matter with Mr. Kelvin this morning. After making one or two futile attempts to read over for the second time, and more carefully than before, the letters left behind by Pod, he gave up the attempt as a bad job.

"I don't feel as if I could settle down to anything this morning," he said. "And no wonder. How well the secret has been kept! Even I had not the remotest suspicion of such a thing. What a strange example of the irony of events that I, of all men in the world, should have to break these tidings to Eleanor! What will my proud beauty say when I tell her? I could never have devised so exquisite a revenge. And yet it is not my hand that will drag her down. It is the hand of Jacob Lloyd that smites her from out his grave."