The Ivory Gate, a new edition

'What does the girl do with him? Why are they both there together?'

'How should I know why she calls upon him? She's a young lady, and a sweet young thing too. He's her grandfather likely.'

Checkley groaned.

'I must go somewhere and think this out,' he said. 'Excuse me, Policeman. I am an old man, and – and – I've had a bit of a shock and – Good-evening, Policeman.' He shaded his eyes again and looked up. Yes – there they were, talking. Then Elsie rose and he saw her putting on her hat. Then she retreated up the room. But still he stood watching.

'Not had enough yet, guv'nor?' asked the Policeman.

'Only a minute. I want to see her go out. – Yes – there they are – going out together. It is, after all – Oh! there is no mistake.'

'There is no mistake, guv'nor,' said the Policeman. 'There goes Mr. Edmund Gray, and there goes that sweet young thing along of him. – Ah! there's many advantages about being a gentleman. No mistake, I say, about them two. – Now, old man, you look as if you'd had a surprise. Hadn't you better go home and take a drop of something?'

It was earlier than Checkley generally went to the Salutation. But he delayed no longer. He tottered across the Square, showing very much of extreme feebleness, looking neither to the right nor to the left, his cheek white, his eyes rolling. The people looked after him, expecting that he would fall. But he did not. He turned into the tavern, hobbled along the passage, and sank into an arm-chair in the parlour.

'Good gracious, Mr. Checkley!' cried the barmaid as he passed, 'whatever is the matter?'

Some of the usual company were already assembled, although it was as yet hardly eight. The money-lender was there, sitting in his corner, taking his tobacco and his grog in silence. The decayed Barrister was there, his glass of old and mild before him, reading the morning newspaper. The ex-M.P. was there. When Checkley tumbled into the room, they looked up in surprise. When he gazed about him wildly and gasped, they were astonished, for he seemed like unto one about to have a fit.

'Give me something, Robert – give me something,' he cried. 'Quick – something strong. I'll have it short. Quick – quick!'

Robert brought him a small glass of brandy, which he swallowed hastily.

'Oh!' he groaned, sitting up, 'I've seen – I've seen – '

'You look as if you had seen a ghost,' said the barmaid, who had come along with a glass of water. 'Shall I bathe your forehead?'

'No – no. I am better now – I am all right again. – Gentlemen' – he looked round the room solemnly – 'I've seen this evening a good man – an old man – a great man – a rich man; gentlemen, wrecked and cast away and destroyed and ruined. With a little devil of a woman to laugh at him!'

'They don't generally laugh at the men when they are ruined,' said Mr. Langhorne. 'They laugh while they are ruining them. It's fun to them. So it is to the men. Great fun it is while it lasts. I daresay the little woman won't really laugh at him. In my case – '

His case was left untold, because he stopped and buried his head in his newspaper.

Then Shylock spoke. He removed his pipe from his lips and spoke, moved, after his kind, by the mention of the words wreck and ruin, just as the vulture pricks up its feathers at the word death.

'To see a rich man wrecked and ruined, Mr. Checkley, is a thing which a man may see every day. The thing is not to lose by their wreck – to make money out of it. Rich men are always being wrecked and ruined. What else can you expect if men refuse to pay their interest and to meet their bills? The melancholy thing – ah! the real sadness – is the ruin of a man who has trusted his fellow creatures and got taken in for his pains. Only this morning I find that I've been let in by a swindler – a common swindler, gentlemen – who comes round and says he can't pay up – can't pay up – and I'm welcome to the sticks. – Which kind of man might your friend be, Mr. Checkley, the man who's trusted his neighbour and got left – or the neighbour who's ramped the man that trusted him?'

'It isn't money at all,' Checkley replied.

'Then, sir, if it isn't money,' said the money-lender, 'I don't know why you come in frightening this honourable company out of their wits. If it isn't money, how the devil can the gentleman be wrecked and ruined?'

For two hours Mr. Checkley sat in silence, evidently not listening to what was said. Then he turned to Mr. Langhorne the Barrister: 'You've known Mr. Edmund Gray a long time, I believe?'

'Nine years – ten years – since he came to the Inn.'

'Always the same man, I suppose?' said Checkley. 'Never another man – not sometimes a young man – or two young men – one rather a tall young man, looks as if the world was all his – supercilious beast?'

'Never more than one man at once,' replied the Barrister with a show of forensic keenness. 'He might have been two young men rolled into one; but not to my knowledge: always the same man to look at, so far as I know – and the same man to talk with.'

'Oh! yes – yes. There's no hope left – none. He's ruined and lost and cast away and done for.'

He rose and walked out. The company looked after him and shook their heads. Then they drew their chairs a little closer, and the gap made by his departure vanished.

CHAPTER XXX

THE DAY AFTER THE GHOST

When Mr. Dering arrived at his office next morning he observed that his table had not been arranged for him. Imagine the surprise of the housewife should she come down to breakfast and find the ham and the toast and the tea placed upon the table without the decent cloth! With such eyes did Mr. Dering gaze upon the pile of yesterday's letters lying upon his blotting-pad, the pens in disorder, the papers heaped about anyhow, the dust of yesterday everywhere. Such a thing had never happened before in his whole experience of fifty-five years. He touched his bell sharply.

'Why,' he asked, hanging up his coat without turning round, 'why is not my table put in order?' He turned and saw his clerk standing at the open door. – 'Good Heavens! Checkley, what is the matter?'

For the ancient servitor stood with drooping head and melancholy face and bent shoulders. His hands hung down in the attitude of one who waits to serve. But he did not serve. He stood still and he made no reply.

He understood now. Since the apparition of South Square he had had time to reflect. He now understood the whole business from the beginning to the end. One hand there was, and only one, concerned with the case. Now he understood the meaning of the frequent fits of abstraction, the long silences, this strange forgetfulness which made his master mix up days and hours, and caused him to wonder what he had done and where he had been on this and that evening. And somebody else knew. The girl knew. She had told her lover. She had told her brother. That was why the new Partner laughed and defied them. It was on his charge that young Arundel had been forced to leave the country. It was he who declared that he had seen him place the stolen notes in the safe. It was he who had charged young Austin and whispered suspicions into the mind of Sir Samuel. Now the truth would come out, and they would all turn upon him, and his master would have to be told. Who would tell him? How could they tell him? Yet he must be told. And what would be done to the jealous servant? And how could the old lawyer, with such a knowledge about himself, continue to work at his office? All was finished. He would be sent about his business. His master would go home and stay there – with an attendant. How could he continue to live without his work to do? What would he do all day? With whom would he talk? Everything finished and done with. Everything —

He stood, therefore, stricken dumb, humble, waiting for reproof.

'Are you ill, Checkley? asked Mr. Dering. 'You look ill. What is the matter?

'I am not ill,' he replied in a hollow voice, with a dismal shake of the head. 'I am not exactly ill. Yes, I am ill. I tried to put your table in order for you this morning, but I couldn't, I really couldn't. I feel as if I couldn't never do anything for you – never again. After sixty years' service, it's hard to feel like that.'

He moved to the table and began mechanically laying the papers straight.

'No one has touched your table but me for sixty years. It's hard to think that another hand will do this for you – and do it quite as well, you'll think. That's what we get for faithful service.' He put the papers all wrong, because his old eyes were dimmed with unaccustomed moisture. Checkley had long since ceased to weep over the sorrows of others, even in the most moving situations, when, for instance, he himself carried off the sticks instead of the rent. But no man is so old that he cannot weep over his own misfortunes. Checkley's eye was therefore dimmed with the tear of Compassion, which is the sister of Charity.

'I do not understand you this morning, Checkley. Have you had any unpleasantness with Mr. Austin – with any of the people?'

'No – no. Only that I had better go before I am turned out. That's all. That's all' – he repeated the words in despair. 'Nothing but that.'

'Who is going to turn you out? What do you mean, Checkley? What the devil do you mean by going on like this? Am I not master here? Who can turn you out?'

'You can, sir, and you will – and I'd rather, if you'll excuse the liberty, go out of my own accord. I'm a small man – only a very small man – but, thank God! I've got enough to give me a crust of bread and cheese to live upon.'

'I tell you what, Checkley: you had better go home and lie down and rest a little. You are upset. Now, at our age we can't afford to be upset. Go home, and be easy. Old friends don't part quite so easily as you think.' Mr. Dering spoke kindly and gently. One must be patient with so old a servant.

Checkley sobbed and choked. Like a child he sobbed. Like a child of four, Checkley choked and sniffed. 'You don't understand,' he said. 'Oh, no – you can't understand. It's what I saw last night.'

'This is very wonderful. What did you see? A ghost?'

'Worse than a ghost – who cares for a ghost? Ghosts can't turn a man out of his place and bring him to be a laughingstock. No – no. It was a man that I saw, not a ghost.'

'If you can find it possible to talk reasonably' – Mr. Dering took his chair and tore open an envelope – 'when you can find it possible to talk reasonably, I will listen. Meantime, I really think that you had better go home and lie down for an hour or two. Your nerves are shaken; you hardly know what you are saying.'

'I was in Gray's Inn yesterday evening. By accident, at eight.' He spoke in gasps, watching his master curiously. 'By accident – not spying. No – by accident. On my way to my club – at the Salutation. Walking through South Square. Not thinking of anything. Looking about me – careless-like.'

'South Square, Gray's Inn. That is the place where the man Edmund Gray lives: the man we want to find and cannot find.'

'Oh! Lord! Lord!' exclaimed the clerk. 'Is it possible?' He lifted his hand and raised his eyes to heaven and groaned. Then he resumed his narrative.