He suddenly pushed back the chair and sprang to his feet.
'My Scholar! You speak of me?'
It was so sudden that Elsie cried out and fell backwards in her chair. She had brought on the thing by her own words, by conjuring up a vision of the Chambers. But—the trouble was not the struggle of the memory getting hold of evasive facts.
'Why, child,' he remonstrated, 'you look pale. Is it the heat? Come, it is cooler outside. Let us go to the Chambers in Gray's Inn. This old fellow—this Dering—here he sits all day long. It is Tom Tiddler's ground. It is paved with gold, which he picks up. The place—let us whisper—because he must be in the outer office—it reeks of Property—reeks of Property.'
He took his hat and gloves. 'My Scholar, let us go.' By force of habit, he shut and locked the safe and dropped the bunch of keys in his pocket.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ATHELSTAN'S DISCOVERY
On the evening of that same day the same discovery was made by another of the persons chiefly concerned.
You have seen that Athelstan on his return made haste to find out the commissionaire who had presented the forged cheque. Happily, the man remembered not only the circumstance itself but also his employer on that occasion. A generosity far above what is commonly found among those who employ the services of that corps endeared and preserved the memory of the day. He had received, in fact, half a sovereign for an eighteenpenny job; and the commissionaire is not like the cabby, to whom such windfalls are common. Not at all. With the former we observe the letter of the law.