The Ivory Gate, a new edition

'No; certainly not.' George looked at the letter. It presented as to handwriting exactly the same points of likeness and of difference as all the other letters in this strange case: the body of the letter apparently written in the hand of Mr. Dering; that is, so as to deceive everybody: the signature, with one or two small omissions. 'Certainly not,' he repeated. 'With such a reference, of course, you did not hesitate. Did you ever see Mr. Gray?'

'Certainly. I have seen him often. First when he was getting his rooms furnished, and afterwards on various occasions.'

'What kind of a man is he to look at?'

'Elderly. Not exactly the kind of man you'd expect to have Chambers. Mostly, they're young ones who like the freedom. An elderly gentleman: pleasant in his manners: smiling and affable: gray-haired.'

'Oh!' Then there was a real Edmund Gray of ten years' standing in the Inn, who lived or had Chambers at the number stated in the forged letters.

'I suppose,' said the house agent, 'that my respectable tenant has not done anything bad?'

'N-no – not to my knowledge. His name occurs in rather a disagreeable case. Would you be so very kind as to let him know, in case you should meet him – but of course we shall write to him – that we are most anxious to see him?'

This the landlord readily promised. 'There is another person,' he said, 'who can tell you a great deal more than anybody else. That is his laundress. I don't know who looks after him, but you can find out at the Inn. The policeman will know. Go and ask him.'

In the game of battledore and shuttlecock, the latter has no chance except to take the thing coolly, without temper. George was the shuttlecock. He was hit back into Gray's Inn – this time into the arms of the policeman.

'Well, sir,' said the guardian of the peace, 'I do not know anything about the gentleman myself. If he was one of the noisy ones, I should know him. But he isn't, and therefore I have never heard of him. But if he lives at No. 22, I can tell you who does his rooms; and it's old Mrs. Cripps, and she lives in Leather Lane.'

This street, which is now, comparatively speaking, purged and cleansed, is not yet quite the ideal spot for one who would have pure air and cleanliness combined with godliness of conversation. However, individual liberty is nowhere more absolutely free and uncontrolled than in Leather Lane.

Mrs. Cripps lived on the top floor, nearest to Heaven, of which she ought to be thinking because she was now old and near her end. She was so old that she was quite past her work, and only kept on Mr. Gray's rooms because he never slept there, and they gave her no trouble except to go to them in the morning with a duster and to drop asleep for an hour or so. What her one gentleman gave her, moreover, was all she had to live upon.

Though the morning was warm, she was sitting over the fire watching a small pan, in which she was stewing a savoury mess, consisting of a 'block ornament' with onions, carrots, and turnips. Perhaps she was thinking – the poor old soul – of the days gone by – gone by for fifty years – when she was young and wore a feather in her hat. Old ladies of her class do not think much about vanished beauty, but they think a good deal about vanished feathers and vanished hats: they remember the old free carriage in the streets with the young friends, and the careless laugh, and the ready jest. It is the ancient gentlewoman who remembers the vanished beauty, and thinks of what she was fifty years ago.

Mrs. Cripps heard a step on the narrow stair leading to her room – a manly step. It mounted higher and more slowly, because the stairs were dark as well as narrow. Then the visitor's hat knocked against the door. He opened it, and stood there looking in. A gentleman! Not a District Visitor or a Sister trying to persuade her to early Church – nor yet the clergyman – a young gentleman.

'You are Mrs. Cripps?' he asked. 'The policeman at Gray's Inn directed me here. You are laundress, I believe, to Mr. Edmund Gray of No. 22?'

'Suppose I am, sir,' she replied suspiciously. A laundress is like the Hall Porter of a Club: you must not ask her about any of her gentlemen.

'I have called to see Mr. Edmund Gray on very important business. I found his door shut. Will you kindly tell me at what hours he is generally in his Chambers?'

She shook her head: but she held out her hand.

The young gentleman placed half a sovereign in her palm. Her fingers closed over the coin. She clutched it, and she hid it away in some secret fold of her ragged dress. There is no woman so ragged, so dropping to pieces with shreds and streamers and tatters, but she can find a safe hiding-place, somewhere in her rags, for a coin or for anything else that is small or precious.

'I never tell tales about my gentlemen,' she said, 'especially when they are young and handsome, like you. A pore laundress has eyes and ears and hands, but she hasn't got a tongue. If she had, there might be terrible, terrible trouble. Oh! dear – yes. But Mr. Gray isn't a young gentleman. He's old, and it isn't the same thing.'

'Then,' said George, 'how and when can I find him?'

'I was coming to that. You can't find him. Sometimes he comes, and sometimes he doesn't come.'

'Oh! He doesn't live in the rooms, then!'

'No. He doesn't live in the rooms. He uses the rooms sometimes.'

'What does he use them for?'

'How should I know? All the gentlemen do things with pens and paper. How should I know what they do? They make their money with their pens and paper. I dun know how they do it. I suppose Mr. Gray is making his money like the rest of them.'

Oh! he goes to the Chambers and writes?'

'Sometimes it's weeks and weeks and months and months before he comes at all. But always my money regular and beforehand sent in an envelope and a postal order.'

'Well, what is his private address? I suppose he lives in the country?'

'I don't know where he lives. I know nothing about him. I go there every morning, and I do the room. That's all I know.'

There was no more information to be obtained. Sometimes he came to the Inn; sometimes he stayed away for weeks and weeks, and for months and months.

'I might ha' told you more, young gentleman,' murmured the old woman, 'and I might ha' told you less. P'raps you'll come again.'

He went back to Lincoln's Inn, and set down his facts.

First, there was a forgery in the year 1882, in which the name of Edmund Gray was used. Next, in the series of forgeries just discovered, not only was the name of Edmund Gray used throughout, but the handwriting of the letters and cheques was exactly the same as that of the first cheque, with the same peculiarities in the signature. This could hardly be a coincidence. The same man must have written the whole.

Then, who was Edmund Gray?

He was a real personage – a living man – not a Firm – one known to the landlord of the Chambers, and to the laundress, if to nobody else. He did not live in the Chambers, but he used them for some business purposes; he sometimes called there and wrote. What did he write? Where was he, and what was he doing, when he was not at the Chambers? He might be one – leader or follower – of some secret gang. One has read of such gangs, especially in French novels, where the leaders are noble Dukes of the first rank, and Princesses – young, lovely, of the highest fashion. Why should there not be such a gang in London? Clever conspirators could go a very long way before they were even suspected. In this civilisation of cheques and registered shares and official transfers, property is so much defended that it is difficult to break through the armour. But there must be weak places in that armour. It must be possible for the wit of man to devise some plan by means of which property can be attacked successfully. Had he struck such a conspiracy?

Thus. A man calling himself Edmund Gray gets a lease of Chambers by means of a forged letter in answer to a reference. It is convenient for certain conspirators, hereinafter called the company, to have an address, though it may never be used. The conspiracy begins by forging a cheque to his order for 720l. That was at the outset, when the conspirators were young. It was found dangerous, and the notes were therefore replaced in the safe. Note, that the company, through one or other of its members, has access to that safe. This might perhaps be by means of a key – in the evening, after office hours: or by some one who was about the place all day.

Very good. The continued connection of some member of the Firm with Dering and Son is proved by the subsequent proceedings. After eight years, the company having matured their machinery, and perhaps worked out with success other enterprises, return to their first quarry, where they have the advantage of access to the letters, and can look over their disposition. They are thus enabled to conduct their successive coups, each bigger than the one before. And for four months the thing remains undiscovered. Having the certificates in their hands, what was to prevent them from selling the whole and dividing the proceeds? Nothing. Yet, in such a case they would disappear, and here was Edmund Gray still fearlessly at large. Why had he not got clear away long before?

Again – all the correspondence concerning Edmund Gray was carried on between the office and the brokers. There were no letters from Edmund Gray at all. Suppose it should be found impossible to connect Edmund Gray with the transactions carried on in his name. Suppose the real Edmund Gray were to deny any knowledge at all of the transactions. Suppose he were to say that ten years before he had brought a letter of introduction to Mr. Dering, and knew nothing more about him. Well – but the certificates themselves – what about them? Their possession would have to be accounted for. So he turned the matter over and over and arrived at nothing, not even the next step to take.

He went back to the Chief and reported what he had discovered: the existence of an Edmund Gray – the letter of recommendation to the landlord. 'Another forgery,' groaned Mr. Dering.

'It is done in the office,' said George. 'It is all done in the office – letters – cheques – everything.'

'The office,' Checkley repeated. 'No doubt about it.'

'Give up everything else, George,' said Mr. Dering eagerly 'everything else. Find out – find out. Employ detectives. Spend money as much as you please. I am on a volcano – I know not what may be taken from me next. Only find out, my partner, my dear partner – find out.'

When George was gone, Checkley went after him and opened the door mysteriously, to assure himself that no one was listening.

'What are you going on like that for, Checkley?' asked his master irritably. 'Is it another forgery? It rains forgeries.'

'No – no. Look here. Don't trouble too much about it. Don't try to think how it was done. Don't talk about the other man. Look here. You've sent that young gentleman to find out this business. Well – mark my words: he won't. He won't, I say. He'll make a splash, but he won't find anything. Who found out the last job?'

'You said you did. But nothing was proved.'

'I found that out. Plenty of proof there was. Look here' – his small eyes twinkled under his shaggy eyebrows – 'I'll find out this job as well, see if I don't. Why – ' He rubbed his hands. 'Ho! ho! I have found out. Don't ask me – don't put a single question. But – I've got 'em – oh! I've got 'em. I've got 'em for you – as they say – on toast.'

CHAPTER XIII

THINGS MORE REMARKABLE

After such a prodigious event as the discovery of these unparalleled forgeries, anything might happen without being regarded. People's minds are open at such times to see, hear, and accept everything. After the earthquake, ghosts walk, solid things fly away of their own accord, good men commit murder, rich men go empty away, and nobody is in the least surprised.

See what happened, the very next day, at the office in New Square. When George arrived in the morning he found that the senior Partner had not yet appeared. He was late. For the first time for fifty years and more, he was late. He went to his place, and the empty chair gave an air of bereavement to the room. Checkley was laying out the table; that is, he had done so a quarter of an hour before, but he could not leave off doing it: he was loth to leave the table before the master came: he took up the blotting pad and laid it down again: he arranged the pens: he lingered over the job.

'Not come yet?' George cried, astonished. 'Do you think that yesterday's shock has been too much for him?'

'I believe it's killed him,' said the old clerk – 'killed him. That's what it has done;' and he went on muttering and mumbling. 'Don't,'he cried, when George took up the letters. 'P'r'aps he isn't dead yet – you haven't stepped into his shoes just yet. Let them letters alone.'

'Not dead yet. I hope not.' George began to open the letters, regardless of the surly and disrespectful words. One may forgive a good deal to fidelity. 'He will go on for a good many years after we have got the money back for him.'

'After some of us' – Checkley corrected him – 'have got his money back for him.' He turned to go back to his own office, then turned again and came back to the table. He laid both hands upon it, leaned forward, shaking his head, and said with trembling voice: 'Did you never think, Mr. Austin, of the black ingratitood of the thing? Him that done it you know – him that eat his bread and took his money.' When Checkley was greatly moved, his grammar went back to the early days before he was confidential clerk.

'I daresay it was ungrateful. I have been thinking, hitherto, of stronger adjectives.'

'Well – we've agreed – all of us – haven't we? – that it was done in this office – some one in the office done it with the help of some one out: some one who knows his ways' – he pointed to the empty chair – 'some one who'd known all his ways for a long time, ten years at least.'

'Things certainly seem to point that way' – 'and they point to you,' he would have added, but refrained.

The old man shook his head again and went on. 'They've eaten his bread and done his work; and – and – don't you call it, Mr. Austin – I ask you plain – don't you call it black ingratitood?'

'I am sure it is. I have no doubt whatever about the ingratitude. But, you see, Checkley, that vice is not one which the Courts recognise. It is not one denounced in the Decalogue. – There is a good deal to consider, in fact, before we get to the ingratitude. It is probably a criminal conspiracy; it is a felony; it is a thing to be punished by a long term of penal servitude. When we have worried through all this and got our conspirators under lock and key, we will proceed to consider their ingratitude. There is also the bad form of it and the absence of proper feeling of it; and the want of consideration of the trouble they give. Patience! We shall have to consider the business from your point of view presently.'

'I wouldn't scoff and snigger at it, Mr. Austin, if I were you. Scoffin' and sniggerin' might bring bad luck. Because, you know, there's others besides yourself determined to bring this thing to a right issue.'

George put down his papers and looked at this importunate person. What did he mean? The old man shrunk and shrivelled and grew small. He trembled all over. But he remained standing with his hands on the table – leaning forward. 'Eight years ago,' he went on, 'when that other business happened – when Mr. Arundel cut his lucky – '

'I will have nothing said against Mr. Arundel. Go to your own room.'

'One word – I will speak it. If he's dead I shall not stay long here. But I shall stay so long as he's alive, though you are his partner. Only one word, sir. If Mr. Arundel hadn't – run away – he'd 'a been a partner instead of you.'

'Well?'

'Well, sir – s'pose he'd been found out after he was made a partner, instead of before?'

George pointed to the door. The old man seemed off his head – was it with terror? Checkley obeyed. But at the door he turned his head and grinned. Quite a theatrical grin. It expressed malignity and the pleasure of anticipation. What was the matter with the old man? Surely, terror. Who, in the office, except himself, had the control of the letters? Who drew that quarterly cheque? Surely, terror.

It was not until half-past eleven that Mr. Dering arrived at the office. He usually passed through the clerk's office outside his own; this morning he entered by his own private door, which opened on the stairs. No one had the key except himself. He generally proceeded in an orderly and methodical manner to hang up his hat and coat, take off his gloves, place his umbrella in the stand, throw open the safe, sit down in his chair, adjusted at a certain distance of three inches or so, to put on his glasses, and then, without either haste or dawdling, to begin the work of the day. It is very certain that to approach work always in exactly the same way saves the nerves. The unmethodical workman gets to his office at a varying hour, travels by different routes – now on an omnibus, now on foot; does nothing to-day in the same way that he did it yesterday. He breaks up early. At sixty he talks of retiring, at seventy he is past his work.

This morning, Mr. Dering did nothing in its proper order. First, he was nearly two hours late. Next, he came in by his private door. George rose to greet him, but stopped because – a most wonderful thing – his Partner made as if he did not observe his presence. His eyes went through George in creepy and ghostly fashion. The junior partner stood still, silent, in bewilderment. Saw one ever the like, that a man should at noontide walk in his sleep! His appearance, too, was strange; his hat, pushed a little back, gave a touch of recklessness – actually recklessness – to the austere old lawyer: his eyes glowed pleasantly; and on his face – that grave and sober face – there was a pleased and satisfied smile: he looked happy, interested, benevolent, but not – no – not Mr. Edward Dering. Again, his coat, always tightly buttoned, was now hanging loose; outside, it had been swinging in the breeze, to the wonder of Lincoln's Inn: and he wore no gloves, a thing most remarkable. He looked about the room, nodded his head, and shut the door behind him.

'He's somnambulating,' George murmured, 'or else I am invisible: I must have eaten fern-seed without knowing it.'

Mr. Dering, still smiling pleasantly, walked across the room to the safe and unlocked it. He had in his hand a brown-paper parcel tied with red tape – this he deposited in the safe, locked it up, and dropped the keys in his pocket. The window beside the safe was open. He sat down, looking out into the Square.

At this moment Checkley opened the door softly, after his wont, to bring in more letters. He stopped short, seeing his master thus seated, head in hand, at the window. He recognised the symptoms of yesterday – the rapt look, the open eyes that saw nothing. He crept on tiptoe across the room. 'Hush!' he whispered. 'Don't move. Don't speak. He went like this yesterday. Don't make the least noise. He'll come round presently.'

'What is it?'

'Kind of fit, it is. Trouble done it. Yah! Ingratitood.' He would have hissed the word, but it has no sibilant. You can't hiss without the materials. 'Yesterday's trouble. That's what's done it.'

They stood watching in silence for about ten minutes. The office was like the Court of the sleeping Princess. Then Checkley sneezed. Mr. Dering probably mistook the sneeze for a kiss, for he closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again, and arose once more himself, grave and austere.

He nodded cheerfully, took off his hat, hung it on its peg, buttoned his coat, and threw open the safe. Evidently he remembered nothing of what had just passed.

'You are early, George,' he said. 'You are before me, which is unusual. However – the early bird – we know.'

'Before you for once. Are you quite well this morning? None the worse for yesterday's trouble?'

'He's always well,' said Checkley, with cheerfulness assumed. 'Nobody ever sees him ill —he get ill? Not him. Eats as hearty as five-and-twenty and walks as upright.'

'I am perfectly well, to the best of my knowledge. Yesterday's business upset me for the time – but it did not keep me awake. Yet it is certainly a very great trouble. You have no news, I suppose, that brought you here earlier than usual?'

'Nothing new since yesterday.'

'And you feel pretty confident?'

'I feel like a sleuth-hound. I understand the pleasures of the chase. I long to be on the scent again. As for Edmund Gray, he is as good as in prison already.'

'Good. I was for the moment shaken out of myself. I was bewildered. I was unable to look at the facts of the case calmly. For the first time in my life I wanted advice. Well: I now understand what a great thing it is that our profession exists for the assistance of men in trouble. How would the world get along at all without solicitors?'

He took his usual place at the table and turned over his letters. 'This morning,' he went on, 'I feel more assured: my mind is clear again. I can talk about the case. Now then. Let us see – Edmund Gray is no shadow but a man. He has made me recommend him to his landlord. He is a clever man and a bold man. Don't be in a hurry about putting your hands upon him. Complete your case before you strike. But make no delay.'

'There shall be none. And you shall hear everything from day to day, or from hour to hour.'

Left alone, Mr. Dering returned to his papers and his work.

At half-past one, Checkley looked in. 'Not going to take lunch this morning?'

'Lunch? I have only just – ' Mr. Dering looked at his watch. 'Bless me! Most extraordinary! This morning has slipped away. I thought I had only just sat down. It seems not more than half an hour since Mr. Austin left me. Why, I should have forgotten all about it and let the time go by – nothing worse for a man of my years than irregular feeding.'

'It's lucky you've got me,' said his clerk. 'Half-a-dozen partners wouldn't look after your meal-times. – Ah!' as his master went up-stairs to the room where he always had his luncheon laid out, 'he's clean forgotten. Some of these days, walking about wropped up in his thoughts, he'll be run over. – Clean forgotten it, he has. Sits down in a dream: walks about in a dream: some of these days he'll do something in a dream. Then there will be trouble.' He closed the door and returned to his own desk, where he was alone, the juniors having gone out to dinner. His own dinner was in his coat pocket. It consisted of a saveloy cut in thin slices and laid in bread with butter and mustard – a tasty meal. He slowly devoured the whole to the last crumb. Then, Mr. Dering having by this time finished his lunch and descended again, Checkley went up-stairs and finished the pint of claret of which his master had taken one glass. 'It's sour stuff,' he said. 'It don't behave as wine in a man's inside ought to behave. It don't make him a bit joyfuller. But it's pleasant too. Why they can't drink Port wine – which is real wine – when they can afford it, I don't know.'

It was past three in the afternoon when George returned, not quite so confident in his bearing, yet full of news.

'If you are quite ready to listen,' he said, 'I've got a good deal to tell. First of all, I thought I would have another shot at Gray's Inn. I went to the Chambers. The outer door was open, which looked as if the man was at home. I knocked at the inner door, which was opened by the laundress, the old woman whom I saw yesterday. "Well, sir," she said, "you are unlucky. The master has been here this very morning. And he hasn't been long gone. You've only missed him by half an hour or so." I asked her if he would return that day; but she knew nothing. Then I asked her if she would let me write and leave a note for him. To this she consented, rather unwillingly. I went in therefore, and wrote my note at Mr. Gray's table. I asked him to call here on important business, and I marked the note "Urgent." I think there can be no harm in that. Then I looked about the room. It is one of those old wainscoted rooms, furnished simply, but everything solid and good – a long table, nearly as large as this one of yours: solid chairs – a solid sofa. Three or four pictures on the wall, and a bookcase full of books. No signs of occupation: no letters: no flowers. Everything covered with dust, although the old woman was there. I could have wished to examine the papers on the table, but the presence of the old woman forbade that dishonourable act. I did, however, look at the books. And I made a most curious discovery. Mr. Edmund Gray is a Socialist. All his books are on Socialism: they are in French, German, and English: all books of Socialism. And the pictures on the wall are portraits of distinguished Socialists. Isn't that wonderful? Did one ever hear before of Socialism and forgery going together?'