Elster's Folly Part 54

Thomas Carr paused. "Do you know anything of Gordon's--or Gorton's doings in Calne? Did you ever hear him speak of them afterwards?"

"I don't know that I did particularly. The excuse he made to us for arresting Lord Hartledon was, that the brothers were so much alike he mistook the one for the other."

"Which would infer that he knew Mr. Elster by sight."

"It might; yes. It was not for the mistake that we discharged him; indeed, not for anything at all connected with Calne. He did seem to have gone about his business there in a very loose way, and to have paid less attention to our interests than to the gossip of the place; of which there was a tolerable amount just then, on account of Lord Hartledon's unfortunate death. Gorton was set upon another job or two when he returned; and one of those he contrived to mismanage so woefully, that I would give him no more to do. It struck me that he must drink, or else was accessible to a bribe."

Mr. Carr nodded his head, thinking the latter more than probable. His fingers were playing with a newspaper which happened to lie on the clerk's desk; and he put the next question with a very well-a.s.sumed air of carelessness, as if it were but the pa.s.sing thought of the moment.

"Did he ever talk about Mr. Elster?"

"Never but once. He came to my house one evening to tell me he had discovered the hiding-place of a gentleman we were looking for. I was taking my solitary gla.s.s of gin and water after supper, the only stimulant I ever touch--and that by the doctor's orders--and I could not do less than ask him to help himself. You see, sir, we did not look upon him as a common sheriff's man: and he helped himself pretty freely. That made him talkative. I fancy his head cannot stand much; and he began rambling upon recent affairs at Calne; he had not been back above a week then--"

"And he spoke of Mr. Elster?"

"He spoke a good deal of him as the new Lord Hartledon, all in a rambling sort of way. He hinted that it might be in his power to bring home to him some great crime."

"The man must have been drunk indeed!" remarked Mr. Carr, with the most perfect a.s.sumption of indifference; a very contrast to the fear that shot through his heart. "What crime, pray? I hope he particularized it."

"What he seemed to hint at was some unfair play in connection with his brother's death," said the old clerk, lowering his voice. "'A man at his wits' end for money would do many queer things,' he remarked."

Mr. Carr's eyes flashed. "What a dangerous fool he must be! You surely did not listen to him!"

"I, sir! I stopped him pretty quickly, and bade him sew up his mouth until he came to his sober senses again. Oh, they make great simpletons of themselves, some of these young fellows, when they get a little drink into them."

"They do," said the barrister. "Did he ever allude to the matter again?"

"Never; and when I saw him the next day, he seemed ashamed of himself, and asked if he had not been talking a lot of nonsense. About a fortnight after that we parted, and I have never seen him since."

"And you really do not know what has become of him?"

"Not at all. I should think he has left London."

"Why?"

"Because had he remained in it he'd be sure to have come bothering me to employ him again; unless, indeed, he has found some one else to do it."

"Well," said Mr. Carr, rising, "will you do me this favour? If you come across the man again, or learn tidings of him in any way, let me know it at once. I do not want him to hear of me, or that I have made inquiries about him. I only wish to ascertain _where_ he is, if that be possible.

Any one bringing me this information privately will find it well worth his while."

He went forth into the busy streets again, sick at heart; and upon reaching his chambers wrote a note for a detective officer, and put some business into his hands.

Meanwhile Lord Hartledon remained in London. When the term for which they had engaged the furnished house was expired he took lodgings in Grafton Street; and there he stayed, his frame of mind restless and unsatisfactory. Lady Hartledon wrote to him sometimes, and he answered her. She said not a word about the discovery she had made in regard to the alleged action-at-law; but she never failed in every letter to ask what he was doing, and when he was coming home--meaning to Hartledon.

He put her off in the best way he could: he and Carr were very busy together, he said: as to home, he could not mention any particular time.

And Lady Hartledon bottled up her curiosity and her wrath, and waited with what patience she possessed.

The truth was--and, perhaps, the reader may have divined it--that graver motives than the sensitive feeling of not liking to face the Ashtons were keeping Lord Hartledon from his wife and home. He had once, in his bachelor days, wished himself a savage in some remote desert, where his civilized acquaintance could not come near him; he had a thousand times more reason to wish himself one now.

One dusty day, when the excessive heat of summer was on the wane, he went down to Mr. Carr's chambers, and found that gentleman out. Not out for long, the clerk thought; and sat down and waited. The room he was in looked out on the cool garden, the quiet river; in the one there was not a soul except Mr. Broom himself, who had gone in to watch the progress of his chrysanthemums, and was stooping lovingly over the beds; on the other a steamer, freighted with a straggling few, was paddling up the river against the tide, and a barge with its brown sail was coming down in all its picturesque charm. The contrast between this quiet scene and the bustling, dusty, jostling world he had come in from, was grateful even to his disturbed heart; and he felt half inclined to go round to the garden and fling himself on the lawn as a man might do who was free from care.

Mr. Carr indulged in the costly luxury of three rooms in the Temple; his sitting-room, which was his work-room, a bedroom, and a little outer room, the sanctum of his clerk. Lord Hartledon was in the sitting-room, but he could hear the clerk moving about in the ante-room, as if he had no writing on hand that morning. When tired of waiting, he called him in.

"Mr. Taylor, how long do you think he will be? I've been dozing, I think."

"Well, I thought he'd have been here before now, my lord. He generally tells me if he is going out for any length of time; but he said nothing to-day."

"A newspaper would be something to while away one's time, or a book,"

grumbled Hartledon. "Not those," glancing at a book-case full of ponderous law-volumes.

"Your lordship has taken the cream out of them already," remarked the clerk, with a laugh; and Hartledon's brow knitted at the words. He had "taken the cream" out of those old law-books, if studying them could do it, for he had been at them pretty often of late.

But Mr. Taylor's remarks had no ulterior meaning. Being a shrewd man, he could not fail to suspect that Lord Hartledon was in a sc.r.a.pe of some sort; but from a word dropped by his master he supposed it to involve nothing more than a question of debt; and he never suspected that the word had been dropped purposely. "Scamps would claim money twice over when they could," said Mr. Carr; and Elster was a careless man, always losing his receipts. He was a short, slight man, this clerk--in build something like his master--with an intelligent, silent face, a small, sharp nose, and fair hair. He had been born a gentleman, he was wont to say; and indeed he looked one; but he had not received an education commensurate with that fact, and had to make his own way in the world.

He might do it yet, perhaps, he remarked one day to Lord Hartledon; and certainly, if steady perseverance could effect it, he would: all his spare time was spent in study.

"He has not gone to one of those blessed consultations in somebody's chambers, has he?" cried Val. "I have known them last three hours."

"I have known them last longer than that," said the clerk equably. "But there are none on just now."

"I can't think what has become of him. He made an appointment with me for this morning. And where's his _Times_?"

Mr. Taylor could not tell where; he had been looking for the newspaper on his own account. It was not to be found; and they could only come to the conclusion that the barrister had taken it out with him.

"I wish you'd go out and buy me one," said Val.

"I'll go with pleasure, my lord. But suppose any one comes to the door?"

"Oh, I'll answer it. They'll think Carr has taken on a new clerk."

Mr. Taylor laughed, and went out. Hartledon, tired of sitting, began to pace the room and the ante-room. Most men would have taken their departure; but he had nothing to do; he had latterly shunned that portion of the world called society; and was as well in Mr. Carr's chambers as in his own lodgings, or in strolling about with his troubled heart.

While thus occupied, there came a soft tap to the outer door--as was sure to be the case, the clerk being absent--and Val opened it. A middle-aged, quiet-looking man stood there, who had nothing specially noticeable in his appearance, except a pair of deep-set dark eyes, under bushy eyebrows that were turning grey.

"Mr. Carr within?"

"Mr. Carr's not in," replied the temporary clerk. "I dare say you can wait."

"Likely to be long?"

"I should think not. I have been waiting for him these two hours."

The applicant entered, and sat down in the clerk's room. Lord Hartledon went into the other, and stood drumming on the window-pane, as he gazed out upon the Temple garden.

"I'd go, but for that note of Carr's," he said to himself. "If--Halloa!

that's his voice at last."

Mr. Carr and his clerk had returned together. The former, after a few moments, came in to Lord Hartledon.

"A nice fellow you are, Carr! Sending me word to be here at eleven o'clock, and then walking off for two mortal hours!"