The Channings

“By this communication,” touching the telegraphic despatch, “I learn that the letter was not opened after it left this office,” resumed Mr. Galloway. “Consequently, the note must have been abstracted from it while the letter lay here. Who has been guilty of it?”

Neither Arthur nor Roland spoke. It was not a pleasant accusation—if you can call it an accusation—and their faces deepened to scarlet; while Mr. Jenkins looked up half terrified, and began to think, what a mercy it was that he had broken his head, just that last particular Thursday night, on the marble flags of the cathedral.

CHAPTER XIX. – THE LOSS

When money is lost out of an office, suspicion very frequently falls upon one or more of that office’s employés. Mr. Galloway’s doubts, however, had not yet extended to those employed in his. The letter containing the bank-note had been despatched to Mr. Robert Galloway, at Ventnor, on the Friday. On the Sunday morning, while Mr. Galloway was at breakfast, a short answer was delivered to him from his cousin:—“Your letter has reached me, but not the note; you must have omitted to enclose it,” was the news it contained relative to that particular point. Mr. Galloway knew that he had enclosed the note; there was little doubt that both his clerks could testify that he had done so, for it was done in their presence. How could it have been taken out again? Had it been abstracted while the letter was still in his office?—or on its way to the post?—or in its transmission to Ventnor? “If in the office,” argued Mr. Galloway, “it must have been done before I sealed it; if afterwards, that seal must have been tampered with, probably broken. I’ll drop a note to Robert, and ask the question.” He rose from his breakfast and penned a line to Southampton, where, as he had reason to believe, Mr. Robert Galloway would be on the Monday. It was not Mr. Galloway’s habit to write letters on a Sunday, but he considered that the present occasion justified the act. “I certainly enclosed the note in my letter,” he wrote. “Send me word instantly whether the seal had been tampered with. I stamped it with my private seal.” Mr. Robert Galloway received this on the Monday morning. He did not wait for the post, but forwarded the reply by telegraph—“The seal had not been broken. Will send you back the envelope by first post.” This was the despatch which you saw Mr. Galloway receive in his office.

He went back into his private room, carrying the despatch with him, and there he sat down to think. From the very first, he had not believed the fraud to lie with the post-office—for this reason: had the note been taken out by one of its servants, the letter would almost certainly not have reached its destination; it would have disappeared with the note. He had cast a doubt upon whether Arthur Channing had posted the letters himself. Arthur assured him that he had done so, and Mr. Galloway believed him; the information that the seal of the letter was unbroken was now a further confirmation, had he needed it. At least, it confirmed that the letter had not been opened after it left the office. Mr. Galloway perfectly remembered fastening down the letter. He probably would have sealed it then, but for the commotion that arose at the same moment in the street caused by Mad Nance. There could be no shadow of doubt, so far as Mr. Galloway could see, and so far as he believed, that the abstraction had taken place between the time of his fastening down the envelope and of his sealing it. Who had done it?

“I’ll lay a guinea I know how it happened!” he exclaimed to himself. “Channing was at college—I must have given him permission in a soft moment to take that organ, or I should never have done it, quitting the office daily!—and, Yorke, in his indolent carelessness, must have got gossiping outside, leaving, it is hard to say who, in the office! This comes of poor Jenkins’s fall!”

Mr. Galloway rang his bell. It was answered by Jenkins. “Send Mr. Arthur Channing in,” said Mr. Galloway.

Arthur entered, in obedience. Mr. Galloway signed to him to close the door, and then spoke.

“This is an awkward business, Channing.”

“Very awkward, indeed, sir,” replied Arthur, at no loss to understand what Mr. Galloway alluded to. “I do not see that it was possible for the note to have been taken from the letter, except in its transmission through the post.”

“I tell you it was taken from it before it left this office,” tartly returned Mr. Galloway. “I have my reasons for the assertion. Did you see me put the bank-note into the letter?”

“Of course I did, sir. I was standing by when you did it: I remained by you after bringing you the note from this room.”

“I enclosed the note, and fastened down the envelope,” said Mr. Galloway, pointing the feather of his quill pen at each proposition. “I did not seal it then, because looking at Mad Nance hindered me, and I went out, leaving the letter on Jenkins’s desk, in your charge and Yorke’s.”

“Yes, sir. I placed the letter in the rack in your room, immediately afterwards.”

“And, pray, what loose acquaintances did you and Yorke receive here that afternoon?”

“Not any,” replied Arthur. “I do not know when the office has been so free from callers. No person whatever entered it, except my brother Hamish.”

“That’s all nonsense,” said Mr. Galloway. “You are getting to speak as incautiously as Yorke. How can you tell who came here when you were at college? Yorke would be alone, then.”

“No, Yorke was not,” Arthur was beginning. But he stopped suddenly and hesitated. He did not care to tell Mr. Galloway that Yorke had played truant all that afternoon. Mr. Galloway saw his hesitation, and did not like it.

“Come, what have you to conceal? You and Yorke held a levee here, I suppose? That’s the fact. You had so many fellows in here, gossiping, that you don’t know who may have meddled with the letter; and when you were off to college, they stayed on with Yorke.”

“No, sir. For one thing, I did not take the organ that afternoon. I went, as usual, but Mr. Williams was there himself, so I came back at once. I was only away about ten minutes.”

“And how many did you find with Yorke?”

“Yorke stepped out to speak to some one just before I went to college,” replied Arthur, obliged to allude to it, but determined to say as little as possible. “Hamish was here, sir; you met him coming in as you were going out, and I got him to stay in the office till I returned.”

“Pretty doings!” retorted Mr. Galloway. “Hindering the time of Mr. Hamish Channing, that you and Yorke may kick up your heels elsewhere! Nice trustworthy clerks, both of you!”

“I was obliged to go to college, sir,” said Arthur, in a tone of deprecation.

“Was Yorke obliged to go out?”

“I was back again very shortly, I assure you, sir,” said Arthur, passing over the remark. “And I did not leave the office again until you sent me to the post.”

“Stop!” said Mr. Galloway; “let me clearly understand. As I went out, Hamish came in. Then, you say, Yorke went out; and you, to get to college, left Hamish keeping office! Did any one else come in besides Hamish?”

“Not any one. When I returned from college I inquired of Hamish who had called, and he said no one had called. Then Lady Augusta Yorke drove up, and Hamish went away with her. She was going to the missionary meeting.”

“And you persist in saying that no one came in, after that?”

“No one did come in, sir.”

“Very well. Send Yorke to me.”

Roland made his appearance, a pen behind his ear, and a ruler in his hand.

“More show than work!” sarcastically exclaimed Mr. Galloway. “Now, sir, I have been questioning Mr. Arthur Channing about this unpleasant business, for I am determined to come to the bottom of it. I can get nothing satisfactory from him; so I must try what I can do with you. Have the goodness to tell me how you spent your time on Friday afternoon.”

“On Friday?—let’s see,” began Roland, out of his wits with perplexity as to how he should conceal his afternoon’s absence from Mr. Galloway. “It’s difficult to recollect what one does on one particular day more than another, sir.”

“Oh, indeed! Perhaps, to begin with, you can remember the circumstances of my enclosing the bank-note in the letter, I went into the other room to consult a ‘Bradshaw’—”

“I remember that quite well, sir,” interrupted Roland. “Channing fetched the bank-note from this room, and you put it into the envelope. It was just before we were all called to the window by Mad Nance.”

“After that?” pursued Mr. Galloway.

“After that? I think, sir, you went out after that, and Hamish Channing came in.”

“Who else came in?”

“I don’t remember any one else,” answered Roland, wishing some one would come in then, and stop the questioning. No such luck, however.

“How many people called in, while Channing was at college, and you were keeping office?” demanded Mr. Galloway.

Roland fidgeted, first on one leg, then on the other. He felt that it must all come out. “What a passion he’ll go into with me!” thought Roland. “It is certain that no one can have touched the bank-note in this office, sir,” he said aloud. “Those poor, half-starved postmen must have helped themselves to it.”

“When I ask for your opinion upon ‘who has helped themselves to it,’ it will be time enough to give it me,” returned Mr. Galloway, drily. “I say that the money was taken from the letter before it left this office, when it was under the charge of you and Channing.”

“I hope you do not suspect us of taking it, sir!” said Roland, going into a heat.

“I suspect that you have been guilty of negligence in some way, Mr. Roland. Could the bank-note drop out of the letter of itself?”

“I suppose it could not, sir.”

“Good! Then it is my business to ascertain, if I can, how it did get out of it. You have not answered my question. Who came into this office, while Channing was at the cathedral, on Friday afternoon?”

“I declare nobody ever had such luck as I,” burst forth Roland, in a tone half comic, half defiant, as he felt he must make a merit of necessity, and confess. “If I get into the smallest scrape in the world, it is safe to come out. The fact is, sir, I was not here, last Friday afternoon, during Channing’s hour for college.”

“What! not at all?” exclaimed Mr. Galloway, who had not suspected that Yorke was absent so long.

“As I say, it’s my luck to be found out!” grumbled Roland. “I can’t lift a finger to-day, if it ought not to be lifted, but it is known to-morrow. I saw one of my chums going past the end of the street, sir, and I ran after him. And I am sorry to say I was seduced into stopping out with him longer than I ought to have done.”

Mr. Galloway stared at Roland. “At what time did you go out?” he asked.

“Just after you did, sir. The bell was going for college.”

“And pray what time did you come in again?”

“Well, sir, you saw me come in. It was getting on for five o’clock.”

“Do you mean to say you had not been in at all, between those hours!”

“It was Knivett’s fault,” grumbled Roland. “He kept me.”

Mr. Galloway sat drumming on his desk, apparently gazing at Roland; in reality thinking. To hear that Mr. Roland Yorke had taken French leave for nearly a whole afternoon, just on the especial afternoon that he ought not to have taken it—Jenkins being away—did not surprise him in the least; it was very much in the line of the Yorkes to do so. To scold or punish Roland for it, would have been productive of little good, since he was sure to do it again the very next time the temptation offered itself. Failing temptation, he would remain at his post steadily enough. No; it was not Roland’s escapade that Mr. Galloway was considering; but the very narrow radius that the affair of the letter appeared to be drawing itself into. If Roland was absent, he could not have had half the town in, to chatter; and if Arthur Channing asserted that none had been in, Mr. Galloway could give credence to Arthur. But then—how had the money disappeared? Who had taken it?

“Channing!” he called out, loudly and sharply.

Arthur, who was preparing to attend the cathedral, for the bell had rung out, hastened in.

“How came you not to tell me when we were speaking of Roland Yorke’s absence, that he remained away all the afternoon?” questioned Mr. Galloway.

Arthur was silent. He glanced once at Roland.

“Well?” cried Mr. Galloway.

“It was better for him to tell you himself, sir; as I conclude he has now done.”

“The fact is, you are two birds of a feather,” stormed Mr. Galloway, who, when once roused, which was not often, would say anything that came uppermost, just or unjust. “The one won’t tell tales of the other. If the one set my office on fire, and then said it was the cat did it, the other would stick to it. Is it true, sir, that he was not at the office during my absence from it on Friday afternoon?” he continued to Arthur.

“That is true.”

“Then who can have taken the money?” uttered Mr. Galloway, speaking what was uppermost in his thoughts.

“Which is as much as to say that I took it,” burst from haughty Roland. “Mr. Galloway, I—”

“Keep quiet, Roland Yorke,” interrupted that gentleman. “I do not suspect you of taking it. I did suspect that you might have got some idlers in here, mauvais sujets, you know, for you call plenty of them friends; but, if you were absent yourself, that suspicion falls to the ground. Again I say, who can have taken the money?”

“It is an utter impossibility that Yorke could have taken it, even were he capable of such a thing,” generously spoke Arthur. “From the time you left the office yourself, sir, until after the letters were taken out of it to be posted, he was away from it.”

“Just like him!” exclaimed Mr. Galloway. “It must have been done while your brother Hamish was waiting in the office. We must ascertain from him who came in.”

“He told me no one came in,” repeated Arthur.

“Rubbish!” testily observed Mr. Galloway. “Some one must have come in; some one with light fingers, too! the money could not go without hands. You are off to college now, I suppose, Channing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When service is over, just go down as far as your brother’s office, and ask him about it.”

“He is as obstinate as any old adder!” exclaimed Roland Yorke to Arthur, when they left Mr. Galloway alone. “The only possible way in which it can have gone, is through that post-office. The men have forked it; as they did Lady Augusta’s pills.”

“He says it was not the post-office,” mused Arthur. “He said—as I understood—that the telegraphic despatch proved to him that it had been taken out here.”

“What an idiot you are!” ejaculated Roland. “How could a despatch tell him who took it, or who did not?—unless it was a despatch from those spirit-rappers—mesmerists, or whatever they call themselves. They profess to show you who your grandmother was, if you don’t know!”

Roland laughed as he spoke. Arthur was not inclined for joking; the affair perplexed him in no ordinary degree. “I wish Mr. Galloway would mention his grounds for thinking the note was taken before it went to the post!” he said.

“He ought to mention them,” cried Roland fiercely. “He says he learns, by the despatch, that the letter was not opened after it left this office. Now, it is impossible that any despatch could tell him that. He talks to me about broad assertions! That’s a pretty broad one. What did the despatch say? who sent it?”

“Would it afford you satisfaction to know, Mr. Roland?” and Roland wheeled round with a start, for it was the voice of Mr. Galloway. He had followed them into the front office, and caught the latter part of the conversation. “Come, sir,” he added, “I will teach you a lesson in caution. When I have sealed letters that contained money after they were previously fastened down with gum, I have seen you throw your head back, Mr. Roland, with that favourite scornful movement of yours. ‘As if gum did not stick them fast enough!’ you have said in your heart. But now, the fact of my having sealed this letter in question, enables me to say that the letter was not opened after it left my hands. The despatch you are so curious about was from my cousin, telling me that the seal reached him intact.”

“I did not know the letter was sealed,” remarked Roland. “But that proves nothing, sir. They might melt the wax, and seal it up again. Every one keeps a stamp of this sort,” he added, stretching his hand out for the seal usually used in the office—an ordinary cross-barred wafer stamp.

“Ah,” said Mr. Galloway, “you are very clever, Master Roland. But I happened to stamp that letter with my own private seal.”

“That alters the case, of course,” said Roland, after a pause. “Sir, I wish you would set me to work to find out,” he impulsively continued. “I’d go to the post-office, and—”

“And there make enough noise for ten, and defeat your own ends,” interrupted Mr. Galloway. “Channing, you will be late. Do not forget to see Hamish.”

“Yes, I must be off,” said Arthur, coming out of his reverie with a start. He had waited to hear about the seal. And now flew towards the cathedral.

“I wish it had not happened!” he ejaculated. “I know Galloway does not suspect me or Yorke: but still I wish it had never happened!”

CHAPTER XX. – THE LOOMING OF AN AWFUL FEAR

Hamish Channing sat in his private room; his now; for, in the absence of Mr. Channing, Hamish was master. The insurance office was situated in Guild Street, a principal street, near to the Town Hall. It consisted of an entrance hall, two rooms, and a closet for hanging up coats, and for washing hands. The room on the left of the hall, as you entered, was the principal office; the room on the right, was the private room of Mr. Channing; now used, I say, by Hamish. The upper part of the house was occupied as a dwelling; the people renting it having nothing to do with the office. It was a large, roomy house, and possessed a separate entrance.

Hamish—gay, good-tempered, careless, though he was—ruled the office with a firm hand. There was no familiarity of manner there; the clerks liked him, but they had to defer to him and obey him. He was seated at his desk, deep in some accounts, on this same morning—the one mentioned in the last chapter—when one of the clerks entered, and said that Mr. Arthur Channing was asking to speak to him: for it was Mr. Hamish Channing’s good pleasure not to be interrupted indiscriminately, unless a clerk first ascertained whether he was at liberty to be seen. Possibly Hamish feared treachery might be abroad.

Arthur entered. Hamish pushed his books from him, and stretched himself. “Well, old fellow! you seem out of breath.”

“I came down at a pace,” rejoined Arthur. “College is just over. I say, Hamish, a disagreeable thing has happened at Galloway’s. I have never seen him put out as he is now.”

“Has his hair taken a change again, and come out a lovely rose colour?”

“I wish you would not turn everything into joke,” cried Arthur, who was really troubled, and the words vexed him. “You saw a letter on Jenkins’s desk last Friday—the afternoon, you know, that Yorke went off, and you remained while I went to college? There was a twenty-pound note in it. Well, the note has, in some mysterious manner, been abstracted from it.”

Hamish lifted his eyebrows. “What can Galloway expect, if he sends bank-notes in letters?”

“Yes, but this was taken before it left our office. Galloway says so. He sealed it with his private seal, and the letter arrived at his cousin’s intact, the seal unbroken—a pretty sure proof that the note could not have been in it when it was sealed.”

“Who took it out?” asked Hamish.

“That’s the question. There was not a soul near the place, that I can find out, except you and I. Yorke was away, Jenkins was away, and Mr. Galloway was away. He says some one must have come in while you were in the office.”

“Not so much as a ghost came in,” said Hamish.

“Are you sure, Hamish?”

“Sure! I am sure they did not, unless I dropped asleep. That was not an unlikely catastrophe to happen; shut up by myself in that dull office, amidst musty parchments, with nothing to do.”

“Hamish, can you be serious for once? This is a serious matter.”

“Mr. Martin Pope wants you, sir,” said the clerk again, interrupting at this juncture. Martin Pope’s face came in also, over the clerk’s shoulder. It was red, and he looked in a hurry.

“Hamish, he has had a letter, and is off by the half-past eleven train,” spoke Martin Pope, in some excitement. “You must rush up to the station, if you want a last word with him. You will hardly catch him, running your best.”

Up jumped Hamish, in excitement as great as his friend’s. He closed and locked the desk, caught his hat, and was speeding out of the office, when Arthur, to whom the words had been a puzzle, seized his arm.

“Hamish, did any one come in? It was Mr. Galloway sent me here to ascertain.”

“No, they did not. Should I not tell you if they had? Take care, Arthur. I must fly like the wind. Come away, Pope!”

Arthur walked back to Mr. Galloway’s. That gentleman was out. Roland Yorke was out. But Jenkins, upon whom the unfortunate affair had taken great hold, lifted his face to Arthur, his eyes asking the question that his tongue scarcely presumed to do.

“My brother says no one came in while he was here. It is very strange!”

“Mr. Arthur, sir, if I had repined at all at that accident, and felt it as a misfortune, how this would have reproved me!” spoke Jenkins, in his simple faith. “Why, sir, it must have come to me as a mercy, a blessing; to take me away out of this office at the very time.”

“What do you mean, Jenkins?”

“There’s no telling, sir, but Mr. Galloway might have suspected me. It is the first loss we have had since I have been here, all these years; and—”

“Nonsense!” interrupted Arthur. “You may as well fear that Mr. Galloway will suspect me, or Mr. Yorke.”

“No, sir, you and Mr. Yorke are different; you are gentlemen. Mr. Galloway would no more suspect you, than he would suspect himself. I am thankful I was absent.”

“Be easy, Jenkins,” smiled Arthur. “Absent or present, every one can trust you.”

Mr. Galloway did not return until nearly one o’clock. He went straight to his own room. Arthur followed him.

“I have seen Hamish, sir. He says no person whatever entered on Friday, while he was here alone.”

Mr. Galloway paused, apparently revolving the news. “Hamish must be mistaken,” he answered.

“He told me at the time, last Friday, that no one had been in,” resumed Arthur. “I asked the question when I returned from college, thinking people might have called on business. He said they had not done so; and he says the same now.”

“But look you here, Arthur,” debated Mr. Galloway, in a tone of reasoning. “I suspect neither you nor Yorke; indeed, as it seems, Yorke put himself out of suspicion’s way, by walking off; but if no one came to the office, and yet the note went, remember the position in which you place yourself. I say I don’t blame you, I don’t suspect you; but I do say that the mystery must be cleared up. Are you certain no person came into the office during your presence in it?”

“I am quite certain of that, sir. I have told you so.”

“And is Hamish equally certain—that no one entered while he was here alone?”

“He says so.” But Arthur’s words bore a sound of hesitation, which Mr. Galloway may or may not have observed. He would have spoken far more positively had Hamish not joked about it.

“‘Says’ will not do for me,” retorted Mr. Galloway. “I should like to see Hamish. You have nothing particular to finish before one o’clock; suppose you run up to Guild Street, and request him to come round this way, as he goes home to dinner? It will not take him two minutes out of his road.”

Arthur departed; choosing the nearest way to Guild Street. It led him through the street Hamish had been careful to avoid on account of a troublesome creditor. Arthur had no such fear. One o’clock struck as he turned into it. About midway down it, what was his astonishment at encountering Hamish! Not hurrying along, dreading to be seen, but flourishing leisurely at his ease, nodding to every one he knew, his sweet smile in full play, and his cane whirling circlets in the air.

“Hamish! I thought this was forbidden ground!”