The Ivory Gate, a new edition

HE COMES FROM EDMUND GRAY

'Nothing,' said Athelstan, 'could possibly happen more fortunately. We have turned whispering conspirators into declared enemies. Now you are free to investigate in your own way without having to report progress every day.'

'About this new business about the letters and the things in the safe,' said Elsie. 'It looks to me like diablerie. Checkley couldn't do it. No conjuror in the world could do it. There must be somebody else in the office to do these things. They mean defiance. The forger says: "See – I do what I please with you. I return your letters addressed to Edmund Gray. I place placards about Edmund Gray in your safe – for which nobody has a key except yourself. Find me, if you can."'

'Yes; it is very mysterious.'

'A Person on Two Sticks might manage it. Very likely, he is concerned in the business. Or a boy under the table would be able to do it. Perhaps there is a boy under the table. There must be. Mr. Dering's table is like the big bed of Ware. I daresay fifty boys might creep under that table and wait there for a chance. But perhaps there is only one – a comic boy.'

'I should like to catch the joker,' said George. 'I would give him something still more humorous to laugh at.'

'If there is no comic boy – and no Person on Two Sticks,' Elsie continued, 'we are thrown back upon Checkley. He seems to be the only man who receives the letters and goes in and out of the office all day. Well – I don't think it is Checkley. I don't think it can be – George, you once saw Mr. Dering in a very strange condition, unconscious, walking about with open eyes seeing nobody. Don't you think that he may have done this more than once?'

'What do you mean, Elsie?'

'Don't you think that some of these things – things put in the safe, for instance, may have been put there by Mr. Dering himself? You saw him open the safe. Afterwards he knew nothing about it. Could he not do this more than once – might it be a habit?'

'Well – but if he puts the things in the safe – things that belonged to Edmund Gray, he must know Edmund Gray. For instance, how did he get my note to Edmund Gray, left by me on his table in Gray's Inn? That must have been given to him by Edmund Gray himself.'

'Or by some friend of Edmund Gray. Yes; that is quite certain.'

'Come,' said Athelstan. 'This infernal Edmund Gray is too much with us. Let us leave off talking about him for a while. Let him rest for this evening. – Elsie, put on your things. We will go and dine somewhere, and go to the play afterwards.'

They did so. They had the quiet little restaurant dinner that girls have learned of late to love so much – the little dinner, where everything seems so much brighter and better served than one can get at home. After the dinner they went to a theatre, taking places in the Dress Circle, where, given good eyes, one sees quite as well as from the stalls at half the money. After the theatre they went home and there was an exhibition of tobacco and soda water. Those were very pleasant days in the Piccadilly lodgings, even allowing for the troubles which brought them about. Athelstan was the most delightful of brothers, and every evening brought its feast of laughter and of delightful talk. But all through the evening, all through the play, Elsie saw nothing but Mr. Dering and him engaged in daylight somnambulism. She saw him as George described him, opening the safe, closing it again, and afterwards wholly forgetful of what he had done.

She thought about this all night. Now, when one has a gleam or glimmer of an idea, when one wants to disengage a single thought from the myriads which cross the brain, and to fix it and to make it clear, there is nothing in the world so good as to talk about it. The effort of finding words with which to drag it out makes it clearer. Every story-teller knows that the mere telling of a story turns his characters, who before were mere shadows, and shapeless shadows, into creatures of flesh and blood. Therefore, in the morning she began upon the thought which haunted her.

'Athelstan,' she said, 'do you know anything about somnambulism?'

'I knew a man once in California who shot a grizzly when he was sleep-walking. At least, he said so. That's the sum of my knowledge on the subject.'

'I want to know if people often walk about in the daytime unconscious?'

'They do. It is called wool-gathering.'

'Seriously, Athelstan. Consider. George saw Mr. Dering arrive in a state of unconsciousness. He saw nobody in the room. He opened the safe and placed some papers there. Then he locked the safe. Then he sat down at the window. Presently he awoke, and became himself again. If he did that once, he might do it again.'

'Well? And then?'

'You heard yesterday about the letters, and the placard and the Socialist tracts. Now Checkley couldn't do that. He couldn't, and he wouldn't.'

'Well?'

'But Mr. Dering could. If he had that attack once, he might have it again and again. Why, he constantly complains of forgetting things.'

'But the letters yesterday were addressed to Edmund Gray. How do you connect Edmund Gray with Edward Dering?'

'I don't know. But, my dear brother, the more I think of this business, the more persuaded I am that Checkley is not the prime mover, or even a confederate.'

'The same hand has doubtless been at work throughout. If not Checkley's aid to make that hand possible and successful, who is there? And look at the malignity with which he tries to fix it on some one else.'

'That may be because he is afraid of its being fixed upon him. Consider that point about the control of the letters. The business could only be done by some one through whose hands passed all the letters.'

'Checkley is the only person possible.'

'Yes; he understands that. It makes him horribly afraid. He therefore lies with all his might in order to pass on suspicion to another person. You and George think him guilty – well, I do not. If I were trying to find out the man, I should try a different plan altogether.'

Her brother had work to do which took him out directly after an early breakfast. When Elsie was left alone, she began again to think about Mr. Dering's strange daylight somnambulism; about his continual fits of forgetfulness; about the odd things found on his table and in his safe, all connected with Edmund Gray. Checkley could not have placed those letters on the table: he could not have put those things in the safe.

Elsie looked at the clock. It was only just after nine. She ran to her room, put on her jacket and hat, and called a cab.

She arrived at half-past nine. Checkley was already in his master's room, laying out the table for the day's work as usual. The girl was touched at the sight of this old servant of sixty years' service doing these offices zealously and jealously. She stood in the outer office watching him through the open door. When he had finished, he came out and saw her.

'Oh!' he grumbled. 'It's you, is it? Well – he hasn't come. If you want to see Mr. Dering, it's full early. If you want to see the new partner, he isn't come. He don't hurry himself. Perhaps you'll sit down a bit and look at the paper. Here's the Times. He'll be here at a quarter to ten.'

Checkley sat down at his desk and took up a pen. But he laid it down again and began to talk. 'We're in trouble, Miss. No fault of yours – I don't say it is. We're in trouble. The trouble is going to be worse before it's better. They're not content with robbing the master, but they mock at him and jeer him. They jeer him. They put on his table letters addressed to the man they call Edmund Gray. They open his safe and put things in it belonging to Edmund Gray. We're not so young as we was, and it tells upon us. We're not so regular as we should be. Sometimes we're late – and sometimes we seem, just for a bit, not to know exactly who we are nor what we are. Oh! it's nothing – nothing, but what will pass away when the trouble's over. But think of the black ingratitood, Miss – Oh! black – black. I'm not blamin' you; but I think you ought to know the trouble we're in – considering who's done it and all.'

Elsie made no reply. She had nothing to say. Certainly she could not enter into a discussion with this man as to the part, if any, taken in the business by the new partner. Then Checkley made a show of beginning to write with zeal. The morning was hot: the place was quiet: the old man's hand gradually slackened: the pen stopped: the eyes closed: his head dropped back upon his chair: he was asleep. It is not uncommon for an old man to drop off in this way.

Elsie sat perfectly still. At eleven o'clock she heard a step upon the stairs. It mounted: it stopped: the private door was opened, and Mr. Dering entered. He stood for a moment in the doorway, looking about the room. Now, as the girl looked at him, she perceived that he was again in the condition described by George – as a matter of fact, it was in this condition that Mr. Dering generally arrived in the morning. His coat was unbuttoned: his face wore the genial and benevolent look which we do not generally associate with lawyers of fifty years' standing: the eyes were Mr. Dering's eyes, but they were changed – not in colour or in form, but in expression. Elsie was reminded of her portrait. That imaginary sketch was no other than the Mr. Dering who now stood before her.

He closed the door behind him and walked across the room to the window.

Then Elsie, lightly, so as not to awaken the drowsy old clerk, stepped into Mr. Dering's office and shut the door softly behind her.

The sleep-walker stood at the window, looking out. Elsie crept up and stood beside him. Then she touched him on the arm. He started and turned. 'Young lady,' he said, 'what can I do for you?' He showed no sign of recognition at all in his eyes: he did not know her. 'Can I do anything for you?' he repeated.

'I am afraid – nothing,' she replied.

He looked at her doubtfully. Then apparently remembering some duty as yet unfulfilled, he left the window and unlocked the safe. He then drew out of his pocket a manuscript tied up with red tape. Elsie looked into the safe and read the title – 'The New Humanity, by Edmund Gray,' which was written in large letters on the outer page. Then he shut and locked the safe and dropped the key in his own pocket. This done, he returned to the window and sat down, taking no manner of notice of his visitor. All this exactly as he had done before in presence of George and his old clerk.

For ten minutes he sat there. Then he shivered, straightened himself, stood up, and looked about the room, Mr. Dering again.

'Elsie!' he cried. 'I did not know you were here. How long have you been here?'

'Not very long. A few minutes, perhaps.'

'I must have fallen asleep. It is a hot morning. You must forgive the weakness of an old man, child. I had a bad night too. I was awake a long time, thinking of all these troubles and worries. They can't find out, Elsie, who has robbed me.' He spoke querulously and helplessly. 'They accuse each other, instead of laying their heads together. Nonsense! Checkley couldn't do it. George couldn't do it. The thing was done by somebody else. My brother came here with a cock-and-bull case, all built up of presumptions and conclusions. If they would only find out!'

'The trouble is mine as much as yours, Mr. Dering. I have had to leave my mother's house, where I had to listen to agreeable prophecies about my lover and my brother. I wish, with you, that they would find out!'

He took off his hat and hung it on its peg. He buttoned his frock-coat and took his place at the table, upright and precise. Yet his eyes were anxious.

'They tease me too. They mock me. Yesterday, they laid two letters addressed to this man, Edmund Gray, on my letters. What for? To laugh at me, to defy me to find them out. Checkley swears he didn't put them there. I arrived at the moment when he was leaving the room. Are we haunted? And the day before – and the day before that – there were things put in the safe – '

'In the safe? Oh! but nobody has the key except yourself. How can anything be put in the safe?'

'I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't know what may be taken next. My houses – my mortgages, my lands, my very practice – '