The Ivory Gate, a new edition

The Ivory Gate, a new edition

PROLOGUE

WHO IS EDMUND GRAY?

Mr. Edward Dering, in a rare interval of work, occupied himself with looking into his bank book. Those humble persons whom the City, estimating the moral and spiritual worth of a man by his income, calls 'small,' frequently and anxiously examine their bank books, add up the columns, and check the entries. Mr. Dering, who was not a small man, but a big man, or rather, from a City point of view, a biggish man, very seldom looked at his bank book; first because, like other solicitors in large practice, he had clerks and accountants to do that kind of work for him: next because, like many solicitors, while he managed the affairs of other people with unceasing watchfulness, he was apt to neglect his own affairs. Happily, when one has an income of some thousands, private affairs from time to time force themselves upon their owner in the most agreeable manner possible. They obtrude themselves upon him. They insist upon being noticed. They compel him to look after them respectfully: to remove them from the dulness of the bank, and to make them comfortable in investments.

Mr. Dering opened the book, therefore, having for the moment nothing else to do, looked at the balance, was satisfied with its appearance, and began working backwards, that is to say, upwards, to read the entries. Presently, he came to one at which he stopped, holding his forefinger on the name.

It was on the right-hand side, the side which to small men is so terrifying, because it always does its best to annihilate the cash balance, and seems bent upon transforming addition into multiplication, so amazing are the results. The name which Mr. Dering read was Edmund Gray. The amount placed in the same line opposite to that name was 720l. Therefore, he had drawn a cheque to the order of Edmund Gray for the sum of 720l.

Now, a man may be in very great practice indeed; but if, like Mr. Dering, he knows the details of every case that is brought into the House, he would certainly remember drawing a cheque for 720l., and the reason why it was drawn, and the person for whom it was drawn, especially if the cheque was only three weeks old. Seven hundred and twenty pounds! It is a sum in return for which many and very substantial services must be rendered.

'Edmund Gray!' he murmured. 'Strange! I cannot remember the name of Edmund Gray. Who is Edmund Gray? Why did I give him 720l.?'

The strange fact that he should forget so large a sum amused him at first. Beside him lay a book which was his private Diary. He opened it and looked back for three months. He could find no mention anywhere of Edmund Gray. To repeat: he knew all the details of every case that came into the House: he signed all the cheques: his memory was as tenacious and as searching as the east wind in April; yet this matter of Edmund Gray and his cheque for 720l. he could not recall to his mind by any effort.

There is a certain stage in brain fatigue when one cannot remember names: it is the sure and certain symptom of over-work: the wise man recognises the symptom as a merciful warning and obeys it. Mr. Dering knew this symptom. 'I must take a holiday,' he said. 'At sixty-seven, one cannot afford to neglect the least loss of memory. Edmund Gray! To forget Edmund Gray and 720l.! I must run down to the sea-side for a fortnight's rest.'

He shut up the bank book and tried to go back to his work. But this name came back to him. 'Edmund Gray,' he murmured – 'Edmund Gray. Who on earth is this Edmund Gray? Why did he get a cheque for 720l.?'

The thing ceased to amuse him: it began to irritate him: in two minutes it began to torture him: he leaned back in his chair: he drummed with his fingers on the table: he took up the book and looked at the entry again. He got up and walked about the room – a long lean figure in a tight frock-coat. To walk about the room and to swing your arms often stimulates the memory. In this case, however, no good effect followed. The nommé Edmund Gray remained a name and nothing more – the shadow of a name. Mr. Dering rapped the table with his paper-knife, as if to conjure up that shadow. Futile superstition! No shadow appeared. But how could the shadow of a name – an unknown name – carry off 720 golden sovereigns?

'I feel as if I am going mad,' he murmured. 'Seven hundred and twenty pounds paid by myself in a single lump, only three weeks ago, and I remember nothing about it! I have no client named Edmund Gray. The money must therefore have been paid by me for some client to this unknown person. Yet it was paid by my cheque, and I don't remember it. Strange! I never forgot such a thing before.'

There was an office bell on the table. He touched it. A clerk – an elderly clerk – an ancient clerk – obeyed the call. He was the clerk who sat in the room outside Mr. Dering's office: the clerk who wrote the cheques for the chief to sign, brought back the letters when they had been copied, directed the letters for the post, received visitors, and passed in cards: in fact, the private secretary, stage-manager – we all want a stage-manager in every profession – or confidential clerk. As befits a man of responsibility, he was dressed all in black, his office coat being as shiny as a mirror on the arms and on the shoulders: by long habit it hung in certain folds or curves which never unbent: his face was quite shaven and shorn: all that was left of his white hair was cut short: his eyes were keen and even foxy: his lips were thin: his general expression was one of watchfulness: when he watched his master it was with the attention of a servant: when he watched anybody else it was as one who watches a rogue, and would outwit him, if he could, at his own roguery. In certain commercial walks of the lower kind, where honour and morality consist in the success of attempts to cheat each other, this kind of expression is not uncommon. Whether his expression was good or bad, he was an excellent clerk: he was always at his post at nine in the morning: he never left the office before seven, and, because Mr. Dering was a whale for work, he sometimes stayed without a grumble until eight or even nine. Man and boy, Checkley had been in the office of Dering & Son for fifty-five years, entering as an errand-boy at twelve.

'Checkley,' said his master, 'look at this bank book. Credit side. Fourth entry. Have you got it?'

'Edmund Gray, 720l.,' the clerk read.

'Yes. What is that cheque for? Who is Edmund Gray?'

The clerk looked surprised. 'I don't know,' he said.

'Why did I pay that money?'

The clerk shook his head.

'Did you look at the book when you laid it on the table?'

The clerk nodded.

'Well – what did you think of it?'

'I didn't think of it at all. It wasn't one of the cheques you told me to draw about that time ago. If I had thought, I should have supposed it was your private business.'

'I was not aware, Checkley, that I have any private affairs that you do not know.'

'Well – but you might have.'

'True. I might have. Just so. As I haven't – who, I ask you again – who is this Edmund Gray?'

'I don't know.'

'Have you ever heard of any Edmund Gray?'

'Never to my knowledge.'

'This is the first time you have heard that name?' the lawyer persisted.

'The very first time.'

'Consider. Is there any Edmund Gray in connection with any of my clients?'

'Not to my knowledge.'

'Not to your knowledge. Has any Edmund Gray ever been employed about the office?'

'No – certainly not.'

'We have recently been painted and papered and whitewashed and new carpeted at great expense and inconvenience. Did Edmund Gray conduct any of those operations?'

'No.'

'Has the name of Edmund Gray ever been mentioned in any letters that have come here?'

It was notorious in the office that Checkley read all the letters that came, and that he never forgot the contents of any. If you named any letter he would at once tell you what was written in it, even if it were twenty years old.

'I have never even heard the name of Edmund Gray in any letter or in any connection whatever,' the clerk replied firmly.

'I put all these questions, Checkley, because I was pretty certain myself from the beginning; but I wanted to make myself quite certain. I thought it might be a trick of failing memory. Now, look at the name carefully' – the clerk screwed up his eyes tightly in order to get a good grip of the name. 'You see I have given him a cheque for 720l., only three weeks ago. I am not the kind of man to give away 720l. for nothing. Yet I have actually forgotten the whole business.'

Certainly he did not look the kind of man to forget such a simple thing as the giving away of 720l. Quite the contrary. His grave face, his iron-grey hair, his firm lips, his keen, steady eyes, apart from the methodical regularity with which his papers were arranged before him, all proclaimed that he was very far from being that kind of man. Very much the reverse, indeed.

'You don't mean to say, sir,' Checkley began, with a change in his face from watchfulness to terror – 'you can't mean – '

'I mean this, Checkley. I know of no Edmund Gray; and unless the bank has made a mistake, there has been committed – a – what do they call it in the law-courts?'

The clerk held the bank book in his hand, staring at his master with open eyes. 'What?' he repeated. 'What do they call it? Good Lord! They call it forgery – and for 720l.! And on you, of all people in the world! And in this office! In our office! – our office! What a dreadful thing, to be sure! Oh, what a dreadful thing to happen! In our office – here!' The clerk seemed unable to express his astonishment.

'First of all, get me the returned cheques.'

The cheques always came back in the pocket of the bank book. Checkley was accustomed to take them out and to file them in their proper place.

Again, Mr. Dering neither drew his cheques nor wrote his letters with his own hand. He only signed them. One clerk wrote the letters; another drew the cheques by his instruction and dictation.

Checkley went back to his own room and returned with a bundle of returned drafts. He then looked in the safe – a great fireproof safe – that stood open in one corner of the room, and took out the current cheque book.

'Here it is,' he said. 'Check drawn by you yourself in your own handwriting, and properly signed, payable to order – not crossed – and duly endorsed. Now you understand why I know nothing about it. Edmund Gray, Esquire, or order. Seven hundred and twenty pounds. Signed Dering & Son. Your own handwriting and your own signature.'

'Let me look.' Mr. Dering took the paper and examined it. His eyes hardened as he looked. 'You call this my handwriting, Checkley?'

'I – I – I did think it was,' the clerk stammered. 'Let me look again. And I think so still,' he added more firmly.

'Then you're a fool. Look again. When did I ever sign like that?'

Mr. Dering's handwriting was one of those which are impossible to be read by any except his own clerks, and then only when they know what to expect. Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there. For his signature, however, that was different. It was the signature of the Firm: it was a signature a hundred and twenty years old: it was an eighteenth-century signature: bold, large, and clear, every letter fully formed: with dots and flourishes, the last letter concluding with a fantasia of penmanship belonging to a time when men knew how to write, belonging to the decorative time of penmanship.

'Two of the dots are out of place,' said Checkley, 'and the flourish isn't quite what it should be. But the cheque itself looks like your hand,' he added stoutly. 'I ought to have seen that there was something wrong about the signature, though it isn't much. I own to that. But the writing is like yours, and I would swear to it still.'

'It isn't my handwriting at all, then. Where is the counterfoil?'

Checkley turned over the counterfoils. 'What is the date?' he asked. 'March the 4th? I can't find it. Here are cheques for the 3rd and for the 6th, but none at all for the 4th.'

'Let me look.' Strange! There was no counterfoil. And the numbers did not agree with that on the cheque.

'You haven't got another cheque book, have you?'

'No; I certainly have not.'

Mr. Dering sat with the cheque in his hand, looking at it. Then he compared it with a blank cheque. 'Why,' he said, 'this cheque is drawn from an old book – two years old – one of the books before the bank amalgamated and changed its title and the form of the cheques – not much of a change, it is true – but – how could we be such fools, Checkley, as not to see the difference?'

'Then somebody or other must have got hold of an old cheque book. Shameful! To have cheque books lying about for every common rogue to go and steal!'

Mr. Dering reflected. Then he looked up and said: 'Look again in the safe. In the left-hand compartment over the drawer, I think you will find an old cheque book. It belonged to a separate account – a Trust. That has been closed. The book should be there. – Ah! There it is. – I wonder now,' the lawyer went on, 'how I came to remember that book? It is more than two years since I last used it or even thought of it. Another trick of memory. We forget nothing, in fact, nothing at all. Give it to me. Strange, that I should remember so slight a thing. Now – here are the cheques, you see – colour the same – lettering the same – size the same – the only difference being the style and title of the Company. The fellow must have got hold of an old book left about, as you say, carelessly. Ah!' His colour changed. 'Here's the very counterfoil we wanted! Look! the number corresponds. The cheque was actually taken from this very book! a book in my own safe! in this very office! Checkley, what does this mean?'

Checkley took the book from his master with a trembling hand, and read feebly the writing of the counterfoil, March 4th, 1883. Edmund Gray, 720l.'

'Lord knows what it means,' he said. 'I never came across such a thing in my life before.'

'Most extraordinary! It is two years since I have given a thought to the existence of that book. Yet I remembered it the moment when it became useful. Well, Checkley, what have you got to say? Can't you speak?'

'Nothing – nothing. O Lord, what should I have to say. If you didn't draw that cheque with your own hand – '

'I did not draw that cheque with my own hand.'

'Then – then it must have been drawn by somebody else's hand.'

'Exactly.'

'Perhaps you dictated it.'

'Don't be a fool, Checkley. Keep your wits together, though this is a new kind of case for you. Criminal law is not exactly in your line. Do you think I should dictate my own handwriting as well as my own words?'

'No. But I could swear – I could indeed – that it is your writing.'

'Let us have no more questions and answers. It is a forgery. It is a forgery. It is not a common forgery. It has been committed in my own office. Who can have done it? Let me think' – he placed the cheque and the old cheque book before him. 'This book has been in my safe for two years. I had forgotten its very existence. The safe is only used for my private papers. I open it every morning myself at ten o'clock. I shut it when I go up-stairs to lunch. I open it again when I return. I close it when I go away. I have not departed from this custom for thirty years. I could no more sit in this room with the safe shut – I could no more go away with the safe open – than I could walk the streets in my shirt sleeves. Therefore, not only has the forgery been committed by some one who has had access to my safe, but by some one who has stolen the cheque in my very presence and before my eyes. This consideration should narrow the field.' He looked at the cheque again. 'It is dated March the 4th. The date may mean nothing. But it was presented on the 5th. Who came to my room on the 4th or the days preceding? Go and find out.'

Checkley retired and brought back his journal.

'You saw on the 4th – ' He read the list of callers.

'That doesn't help,' said Mr. Dering.

'On the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th you had Mr. Arundel working with you here every day from ten till twelve.'

'Mr. Arundel. Yes, I remember. Anybody else?'

'Nobody else.'

'You forget yourself, Checkley,' Mr. Dering said. 'You were, as usual, in and out at different times.'

'O Lord! sir – I hope you don't think – ' The old clerk stammered, turning pale.

'I think nothing, I want to find out. Go to the bank. See the manager. Let him tell you if he can find out by whom the cheque was cashed. If in notes – it must have been in notes – let those notes be instantly stopped. It is not crossed, so that we must not expect anything so simple as the Clearing House. Go at once and find out exactly what happened.'

This happened at about half-past ten. The bank was no more than five minutes' walk. Yet it was twelve o'clock when the clerk returned.

'Well, what have you found out?' asked the master.

'I have found out a great deal,' Checkley began eagerly. 'First, I saw the manager, and I saw the pay clerk. The cheque was handed in by a commissionaire. Everybody trusts a commissionaire. The pay clerk knows your signature, and thought it was all right. I showed the cheque to the manager. He knows your handwriting, and he says he would swear that the cheque was drawn by you yourself. So I am not such a fool as you think.'

'Go on.'

'The commissionaire told the pay clerk that he was ordered to take it all in ten-pound notes. He took them, put them in his pouch, and walked away. He was a one-armed man, and took a long time over the job, and didn't seem a bit in a hurry.'

'About the notes?'

'The manager will stop them at once. But he says that if the thing was done by an old hand, there must be confederates in it, and there will be trouble. However, the notes are stopped. That's done. Then I went on to the commissionaires' barracks in the Strand. The sergeant very soon found the man, and I had a talk with him. He was employed by an old gentleman, he says, staying at the Cecil Hotel, Strand. The old gentleman sent him to the bank with instructions to get the money in ten-pound notes; and very particular he was with him about not losing any of them on the way. He didn't seem a bit in a hurry either. Took the notes from the man and laid them in a pocket-book. It was in the coffee-room, and half a dozen other gentlemen were there at the same time. But this gentleman seemed alone.'

'Humph! A pretty cool business, upon my word! No hurry about it. Plenty of time. That was because they knew that the old cheque book would not be found and examined.'

'Why did they write the cheque on the counterfoil? Why did they put the cheque book back again – after they had taken it out?'

'I don't know. The workings of a forger's brain are not within the compass of my experiences. Go on, Checkley.'

'The commissionaire says that he is certain he would know the gentleman again.'

'Very good indeed, if we can only find the gentleman.'

'I then went on to the Cecil Hotel and saw the head waiter of the coffee-room. He remembered the commissionaire being sent for: he saw the bundle of bank-notes brought back from the bank, and he remembers the old gentleman very well. Says he should certainly know him again.'

'Did he describe him?'

'There didn't seem anything particular to describe. He was of average height, so to speak, dressed in grey trousers and a black frock-coat, and was grey-haired. Much as if I was to describe you.'

'Oh! The notes are stopped. Yet in three weeks there has been ample time to get them all changed. Every note may have been changed into gold in three weeks. An elderly gentleman: grey hair: average height: that tells us nothing. Checkley, the thing has been done by some one who had, or still has, access to my safe. Perhaps, in some way or other, keys have been procured. In that case – ' He stepped over to the safe and opened a drawer. 'See, Checkley; this drawer is untouched: it is full of jewellery and things which belonged to my mother. Nothing touched. Here is a bag of spade guineas again – nothing taken. What do you say to that? If the forger had possessed keys, he would, first of all, have cleared out the things which he could turn into money without any difficulty and very little risk. Nothing taken except that cheque, and the cheque book replaced. What do you say to that? Eh?'

'I don't know what to say. I'm struck stupid. I never heard of such a thing before.'

'Nor I. Why, it must have been done in this room, while the safe was open, while I was actually present. That is the only solution possible. Again, who has been in this room?'

'All the callers – I read their names to you – your clients.'

'They all sit in that chair. They never leave that chair so long as they are with me.' He indicated the chair which stood at the corner of the lawyer's great table at his left hand. Now the safe was in the far corner, on the other side of the room. 'They could not possibly – Checkley, the only two who could possibly have access to that safe in office hours are yourself and Mr. Arundel.'

'Good heavens! sir – you can't believe – you can't actually think – '

'I believe nothing. I told you so before. I think nothing. I want the facts.'

The room was long rather than square, lit by two large windows, overlooking the gardens of New Square, Lincoln's Inn. The lawyer sat with his back to the fire, protected by a cane-screen, before a large table. On his left hand, at the corner of the table, stood the clients' chair: on his right hand, between the two windows, was a small table with a couple of drawers in it. And in the corner, to the left of any one writing at the small table, and on the right hand of the lawyer, was the open safe already mentioned. There were two doors, one communicating with the clerk's room, the other opening directly on the stairs. The latter was locked on the inside.

'Call Mr. Arundel,' said the chief.

While Checkley was gone, he walked to the window and observed that any one sitting at the table could, by merely reaching out, take anything from the safe and put it back again unobserved, if he himself happened to be occupied or looking another way. His grave face became dark. He returned to his own chair, and sat thinking, while his face grew darker and his eyes harder, until Mr. Arundel appeared.

Athelstan Arundel was at this time a recently admitted member of the respectable but too numerous family of solicitors. He was between two and three and twenty years of age, a tall and handsome young fellow, of a good manly type. He was an ex-articled clerk of the House, and he had just been appointed a Managing Clerk until something could be found for him. The Arundels were a City family of some importance: perhaps something in a City Firm might presently be achieved by the united influence of family and money. Meantime, here he was, at work, earning a salary and gaining experience. Checkley – for his part, who was as jealous of his master as only an old servant, or a young mistress, has the right to be – had imagined symptoms or indications of a growing preference or favour toward this young gentleman on the part of Mr. Dering. Certainly, he had Mr. Arundel in his own office a good deal, and gave him work of a most confidential character. Besides, Mr. Dering was Executor and Trustee for young Arundel's mother, and he had been an old friend and schoolfellow of his father, and had known the young man and his two sisters from infancy.

'Mr. Arundel,' the lawyer began. At his own house, he addressed his ward by his Christian name: in the office, as managing clerk, he prefixed the courtesy title. 'An extremely disagreeable thing has happened here. Nothing short of a forgery. – Don't interrupt me, if you please' – for the young man looked as if he was about to practise his interjections. – 'It is a most surprising thing, I admit. You needn't say so, however. That wastes time. A Forgery. On the fifth of this month, three weeks ago, a cheque, apparently in my handwriting, and with my signature, so skilfully executed as to deceive even Checkley and the manager of the bank, was presented at my bank and duly cashed. The amount is – large – 720l. – and the sum was paid across the counter in ten-pound notes, which are now stopped – if there are any left.' He kept his eyes fixed on the young man, whose face betrayed no other emotion than that of natural surprise. 'We shall doubtless trace these notes, and through them, of course, the forger. We have already ascertained who presented the cheque. You follow?'