Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “And that is just what I don’t know. Arthur has not chosen to let me know. He is at the hotel safe enough: why, he was expecting letters and telegrams and all kinds of things there! They have mistaken the name and given you the wrong answer.

  Hamish did not think this. He stood in silence, feeling a little puzzled. And in that moment a faint shadow, not of evil yet, but of something or other that was wrong, first dawned on his mind.

  “I want to find him,” said Hamish. “If it shall turn out that he is really not at the hotel and they can give me no information, I shall not know where to look for him or what to think. But for your being busy, Roland, I would have asked you to go back with me to Norfolk Street.”

  Roland looked across at Mr. Brown, the light of eagerness illumining his face. He did not ask to go, but it was a strong silent appeal. Not that he had any doubt on the score of Arthur; but the walking to Norfolk Street was in prospective a very delightful interlude to the evening’s hard work. But no answering look of assent did he receive.

  “We’d be back in an hour, Mr. Brown, and I’d set to work like a brick. Or in less than that if we take a cab,” briskly added Roland. “I have some money to pay for one; I’ve gone about since yesterday morning with a sovereign in my pocket, on the chance of standing treat for some sights, in case I found the chance of going out with Arthur Channing. Didn’t Mrs. J. read me a lecture on not spending it in waste when she handed it over!”

  “If you would promise to be back within the hour, Mr. Yorke, and really set to work with a will, you should go with Mr. Channing,” was the manager’s answer, who had of course heard the whole colloquy. In Roland’s present restless temper, he was likely to retard work more than to advance it, especially if denied the expedition to Norfolk Street: as nobody knew better than Mr. Brown. Roland could work with a will; and no doubt would on his return, if allowed to go. So that it was policy to let him.

  “Oh, thank you, Brown; that is generous,” said he gratefully, as he leaped off his stool and got his hat. “I’ll work away till morning light for you if it’s necessary, and make no mistakes.”

  But Arthur was not to be found at the hotel in Norfolk Street. And the tale told there was rather a singular one. Of course Roland, darting in headforemost in his impetuous way, demanded to see Mr. Arthur Channing, and also what they meant by denying that he was staying at it. The waiter came forward in the absence of the principal, and gave them the few particulars (all he knew) that Hamish had not before stayed to ask. In fact, Hamish had thought that Arthur must have taken some prejudice against the hotel and so quitted it for another. The following was the substance of the tale.

  Mr. Arthur Channing had written from Helstonleigh to desire that a room should be prepared for him, and any letters that might come addressed to him be taken care of. Upon his arrival at the hotel (which must have been when Roland left him at it) he was informed that his room was ready, and asked if he would like to see it. Presently, he answered, and went into the coffee-room. The man (this same one telling the story) left him in it reading his letters, after supplying him with writing materials, Arthur saying that when he wanted anything he would ring. It was an exceedingly quiet hotel, not much frequented at any time; the three or four people staying in it were out that evening, so that Arthur was quite alone. By-and-by, the man said, he went in again, and found the room empty. From that time they had neither seen nor heard of Arthur.

  This was the substance of the account, and it sounded somewhat incredible. Had Arthur been like Roland Yorke for instance, liable to dart about in random impetuosity, without the smallest concern for others, it might have been thought that he had taken himself off in a freak and forgotten to give notice; but Arthur was not likely to do such a thing. Hamish stood quietly while he listened to this: Roland had put himself upon a table, and sat there pulling fiercely at his whiskers, his long legs dangling downwards.

  “I came with him to the door my own self,” burst forth Roland before the man had well finished, as if that were a disputed point. “I watched him come right into it. That was at eight o’clock.”

  “Yes, sir; it was about that time, sir, that Mr. Arthur Channing got in,” answered the waiter, who gave them his name as Binns.

  “And when I came down, an hour later, you told me Mr. Arthur Channing had gone out; you know you did,” spoke Roland, who seemed altogether out of his reckoning at the state of affairs, and wanted to blame somebody. “You never said he had gone for good.”

  “Well, sir; but how was I to think he had gone for good?” mildly inquired the waiter. “It have puzzled the house, sir: we don’t know what to suppose. Towards eleven o’clok, when the gentleman did not come in, I began to think the chambermaid must nave showed him to his room, being tired, perhaps; but she said she had not, and we went up and found the room unoccupied. We have never heard of him at all since, gentlemen.”

  The shadow looming over Hamish grew a little darker. He began to think all this was very strange.

  “The railway people were to have sent his portmanteau here,” cried Roland; who, when much put out, could not reason at all, and spoke any thought that came uppermost.

  “Yes, sir, the portmanteau came the next morning, sir. I carried it up to his room, sir, and it is there still.” —

  “What! unopened!” exclaimed Hamish. “I mean, has Mr. Arthur Channing not come here to claim it?”

  “No, sir; it’s waiting for him against he do.”

  It grew serious now. Whatever abode Arthur might have removed to, he would not fail to claim his portmanteau, as common sense told Hamish. Roland, hearing the answer, began to stare.

  “Have you any idea how long he remained in, writing?” asked Hamish.

  “No, sir. It might have been half-past eight or so, when I came back into the room, and found him gone. But I don’t think he had written at all, sir, for the ink and things was on the table, just as I placed them; they didn’t seem to have been used.”

  “Were many letters waiting for him?”

  “Four or five, sir. And there was a bit of a mishap with one of them, sir, for which I am very sorry. In taking them out of the rack to give to him, sir, I accidentally overlooked one, and left it in, so that Mr. Arthur Channing never had it. It’s in there now.”

  “Be so kind as bring it to me.”

  The man went for the letter, and gave it to Hamish. It was in Charles Channing’s handwriting, and bore the Marseilles post-mark. A proof that Charley had arrived there safely: which was a bit of gladness for Hamish.

  “I suppose you will not grumble at my opening this?” he said to the man, with a smile, as he took out his card and handed it to him. “I am Mr. Arthur Channing’s brother.”

  “Oh, sir! I can see that by the likeness; no need to tell it to me,” was the answer. “It’s all right, sir, I’m sure. These other three letters have come since, sir. The big one by this morning’s post, the other two later.”

  “The big one, as the man called it, a thick, official-looking, blue envelope, was in Mr. Galloway’s handwriting. Roland knew the proctor’s seal too well. That one Hamish did not feel at liberty to open, but the others he did, and thought the circumstances fully justified it. Running his eyes over Charles’s first, he found it had been written on board, as the steamer was nearing Marseilles. It stated that he was feeling very much better for the voyage, and thought of staying quite a week in Paris as he came through it. So far, that was good news; and now Hamish opened the other two.

  Each of them, dated that morning, proved to be from a separate firm of solicitors in London, and contained a few brief words of inquiry why Mr. Arthur Channing had not kept the appointment with them on the previous day.

  Was Arthur lost, then? Hamish felt startled to tremor. As to poor Roland, he could only stare in helpless wonder, and openly lament that he had been such a wicked jackanapes as to attribute unkindness to Arthur.

  “When I knew in my heart he was the best and truest man, the bravest gentleman the wo
rld ever produced, Hamish. Oh! I am a nice one.”

  Remaining at the hotel would not help them, for the waiter could tell no more than he had told. Hamish pointed to his address on the card already given, and they walked away up Norfolk Street in silence. Roland broke it as they turned into the Strand, his low voice taking a tone of dread.

  “I say, Hamish! Arthur had a lot of money about him.”

  “A lot of money!” repeated Hamish.

  “He had. He brought it up from old Galloway. You — you — don’t think he could have been murdered for it?”

  “Hush, Roland!”

  “Oh, well — But the roughs would not mind doing such a thing at Port Natal.”

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  Restless Wanderings.

  THE commotion was great. Six days had elapsed since Arthur Channing’s singular disappearance, and he had never been heard of.

  Six days! In a case of this nature, six days to anxious friends will seem almost like six weeks. Nay, and longer. And, while on the topic, it may be well and right to state that these circumstances, this loss, occurred just as written; or about to be written; and are not a rechauffé from a dish somewhat recently served to the public in real life.

  Arthur Channing arrived at the Euston Square Station on a certain evening already told of, and was met there by Roland Yorke later, soon after eight, he went to the private hotel in Norfolk Street, in which a room had been engaged for him, and where he had stayed before. Roland saw him go in: the waiter, Binns, received him, and left him in the coffee-room reading his letters. Upon the waiter’s entering the room nearly half an hour subsequently, he found it empty. A small parcel and an umbrella belonging to him where there, but he himself was not. Naturally the waiter concluded that he had put stepped out temporarily. He was mistaken, however. From that moment nothing had been seen or heard of Arthur Channing.

  If ever Roland Yorke went nigh to lose his mind, it was now. Strangers thought he must be a candidate for Bedlam. Totally neglecting the exigencies of the office, he went tearing about like a lunatic. From one place to another, from this spot to that, backwards and forwards and round again, strode Roland, as if his legs went on wires. His aspect was fierce, his hair wild. The main resting-posts, at which he halted by turns, were Scotland Yard, Waterloo Bridge, and the London docks. The best that Roland’s dark fears could suggest was, that Arthur had been murdered. Murdered for the sake of the money he had about him, and then put quietly out of the way. Waterloo Bridge, bearing a reputation for having been a former chosen receptacle for mysterious carpet-bags, was of course pitched upon by Roland as an ill-omened element in the tragedy now. It had also just happened that a man, drowned from one of the bridges, had been found in the London docks: having drifted in, no doubt, with an entering or leaving ship. This was quite enough for Roland. Morning after morning would find him there; and St. Katharine’s docks, being nearer, sometimes had him twice in the day.

  Putting aside Roland’s migrations, and his outspoken fears of dark deeds, others, interested, were to the full as much alarmed as he. The facts were more than singular; they were mysterious. From the time that Arthur Channing had entered the hotel in Norfolk Street, or — to be strictly correct — from a few minutes subsequent to that, when the waiter, Binns, had left him in the coffee-room, he seemed to have disappeared. The police could make nothing of it. Mr. Galloway, who had been at once communicated with by Hamish Channing, was nearly as much assailed by fears as Roland, and sent up letters or telegrams every other hour in the day.

  The first and most natural theory taken up, as to the cause of the disappearance, was this — that Arthur Channing had received some news, amidst the letters given to him, that caused him to absent himself. But for the circumstance of the letter (written by Charles Channing on board the P. and O. steamer, and posted at Marseilles) not having been handed to Arthur, it might have been assumed that it had contained bad news of Charles, and that Arthur had hastened away to him. As the letter was omitted to be given to him — and it was an exceedingly curious incident in the problem that it should so have fallen out — this hope could not be entertained: Charles was well; and by that time, no doubt, in Paris enjoying himself. But, even had circumstances enabled them to take up this hope, it could not have lasted long: had Arthur been called suddenly away, to Charles, or elsewhere, he would not have failed to let his friends know it.

  His portmanteau remained at the hotel unsought for; with his umbrella and small parcel, containing the few articles he had bought earlier in the night; full proof that when he quitted the hotel, he had meant to return to it. Now and again, even yet, a letter would reach the hotel from some stray individual or other, whom he ought to have seen on business during his sojourn in London, and had not. The letters, like the luggage, remained unclaimed, except by Hamish.

  In reply to inquiries, Mr. Galloway stated that the amount of money brought up to town by Arthur from himself, was sixty pounds; chiefly in five-pound notes. This was, of course, exclusive of what Arthur might have about him of his own. Mr. Galloway, in regard to the transmission of money, seemed to do things like nobody else: who, save himself, but would have given Arthur an order on his London bankers, Glyn and Co.? Not he. He happened to have the sixty pounds by him, and so sent it up in hard cash.

  The first thing the police did, upon being summoned to the search, was to endeavour to ascertain what letters Arthur had received that night upon entering the hotel in Norfolk Street, and who they were from. The waiter said there were either four or five; he was not sure which, but thought the former. He fancied there had been five in all; and, as the one was accidentally left in the rack, it must, he felt nearly sure, have been but four he delivered over. One of them — he was positive of this — had arrived that same evening, only an hour or two before Mr. Arthur Channing. The young person who presided over the interests of a kind of office, or semi-public parlour, where inquiries were made by visitors, and whence orders were issued, was a Miss Whiffin. She was an excessively smart lady in a rustling silk, with frizzy curls of a light tow on the top of her forehead, and a remarkable chignon behind that might have been furnished by the coiffeur of Mrs. Bede Greatorex. Miss Whiffin could not, or would not, recollect what number of letters there had been waiting for Mr. Channing. Being a supercilious young lady — or, at least, doing her best to appear one — she assumed to think it a piece of impertinence to be questioned at all. Yes, she remembered there were a small few letters waiting for Mr. Arthur Channing; foreign or English; she did not notice which: if Binns said it was five, no doubt it was five. She considered it exceedingly unreasonable of any customer, not to say ungentlemanly, to write and order a bed-room, and walk into the house and then walk out again, and never occupy it: it was a thing she neither understood nor had been accustomed to.

  And that was all that could be got out of Miss Whiffin. Binns’ opinion, that the number of letters given to Arthur had been four, was in a degree borne out: for that was just the number they had been able to trace as having been written to him. Three of them were notes from people in London, making appointments for Arthur to call on them the next day; the fourth (the one spoken of by Binns as having arrived just before Arthur himself), was known to be from Mr. Galloway, that gentleman having despatched it by the day-mail from Helstonleigh.

  What could have taken Arthur out again? That was the point to be, if possible, solved. Unless it could be, neither the police nor anybody else had the smallest clue as to the quarter their inquiries should be directed to. Had he quitted London again (which seemed highly improbable), then the railway stations must be visited for news of him: had he but strolled out for a walk, it must be the streets.

  One of the three notes mentioned came from a firm of proctors in Parliament Street. It contained these words from the senior partner, who was an old friend of Mr. Galloway’s:— “If it were convenient for you to call on me the evening of your arrival in town, I should be glad, as I wish to see you myself, and I am leaving home the fo
llowing morning for a week. I shall remain at the office until nine at night, on the chance that you may come.”

  That Arthur, on reading the note, might have hastened out to make the call in Parliament Street, was more than probable. — He knew London fairly well, having been up on two previous occasions for Mr. Galloway. — But Arthur never made his appearance there. Though of course that did not prove that he did not set out with the intention of going. Another feasible conjecture, started by Roland Yorke, was, that he might have forgotten some trifling article or other amidst his previous purchases, and gone out again to get it. Allowing that one or other of these suppositions was correct, it did not explain the mystery of his subsequent disappearance.

  What became of him? If, according to this theory, he walked, or ran, up Norfolk Street to the Strand, and turned to the right or the left, or bore on across the road in pursuance of his purposed way, wherever that might be, how far did he go on that way? Where had his steps halted? at what point had he turned aside? How, and where, and in what manner had he disappeared? It was in truth a strange mystery, and none were able to answer the questions. A thousand times a day Roland declared he had been murdered — but that assertion was not looked upon as a satisfactory answer.

  Upon a barrel, which happened to stand, end upwards, in a corner of an outer office at one of the police stations, into which he had gone dashing with dishevelled hair and agitated mien, sat Roland Yorke. Six days of search had gone by, and this was the seventh. With every morning that rose and brought forth no news of Arthur, Roland’s state of mind grew worse and worse. The police for miles round were beginning to dread him, for he bothered their lives out. The shops in the Strand could say nearly the same. When it was found beyond doubt that Arthur was really missing, Roland had gone to the shops ringing and knocking frantically, just as he had at Mrs. Jones’s door, and bursting into those accessible. It happened to be evening: for a whole day was wasted in inquiring at more likely places, proctors’ and solicitors’ offices, Gerald’s chambers, and the like: and so a great many of the shops were closed. Into all that he could get, dashed Roland, asking for news of a gentleman; a “very handsome young fellow nearly as tall as himself, who might have gone in to buy something.”