The Chestermarke Instinct/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
MR. CHESTERMARKE DISCLAIMS LIABILITY
Gabriel Chestermarke, after that one look at his nephew, turned again to the Earl, politely motioning him to the chair which he had already drawn forward. And the Earl, whose eyes had been wandering over the pile of documents on the senior partner's desk, glancing curiously at the open door of the strong room, and generally taking in a sense of some unusual occurrence, dropped into it and looked expectantly at the banker.
"There's nothing wrong?" he asked suddenly. "You look—surprised."
Gabriel stiffened his already upright figure.
"Surprised—yes!" he answered. "And something more than surprised—I am astonished! Your lordship left the Countess's jewels with our manager? May I ask when—and under what circumstances?"
"About six weeks ago," replied the Earl promptly. "As a rule the jewels are kept at my bankers in London. The Countess wanted them to wear at the Hunt Ball, so I fetched them from London myself. Then, as we were going off to the Continent two days after the ball, and sailing direct from Kingsport to Hamburg, I didn't want the bother of going up to town with them, and I thought of Horbury. So I drove in here with them one evening—the night before we sailed, as a matter of fact—and asked him to lock them up until our return. And as I said just now, we only got home the night before last, and we're going up to town tomorrow, and the Countess wants them to take with her. Of course, you've got 'em all right?"
Gabriel Chestermarke spread out his hands.
"I know nothing whatever about them!" he said. "I never heard of them being here."
"Nor I," affirmed Joseph. "Not a word!"
Gabriel looked at Neale, and drew Lord Ellersdeane's attention to him.
"Our senior clerk—Mr. Neale," he said. "Neale—have you heard of this transaction?"
"Never!" replied Neale. "Mr. Horbury never mentioned it to me."
Gabriel waved his hand towards the open door of the strong room.
"Any valuables of that sort would have been in there," he remarked. "There is nothing of that sort there—beyond what I and my nephew know of. I am sure your lordship's jewels are not there."
"But—Horbury?" exclaimed the Earl. "Where is he? He would tell you!"
"We don't know where Mr. Horbury is," answered Gabriel. "The truth may as well be told—he's missing. And so are some of our most valuable securities."
The Earl slowly looked from one partner to another. His face flushed, almost as hotly as if he himself had been accused of theft.
"Oh, come!" he said. "Horbury, now, of all men! Come—come!—you don't mean to tell me that Horbury's been playing games of that sort? There must be some mistake."
"I shall be glad to be assured that I am making it," said Gabriel coolly. "But it will be more to the purpose if your lordship will tell us all about the deposit of these jewels. And—there's an important matter which I must first mention. We have not the honour of reckoning your lordship among our customers. Therefore, whatever you handed to Horbury was handed to him privately—not to us."
Joseph Chestermarke nodded his head at that, and the Earl stirred a little uneasily in his chair.
"Oh, well!" he said. "I—to tell you the truth, I didn't think about that, Mr. Chestermarke. It's true I don't keep any account with you—it's never seemed—er, necessary, you know. But, of course, I knew Horbury so well—he's a member of our golf club and our archæological society—that———"
"Precisely," interrupted Gabriel, with a bow. "You came to Mr. Horbury privately. Not to the firm."
"I came to him knowing that he was your manager, and a man to be thoroughly trusted, and that he'd have safes and things in which he could deposit valuables in perfect safety," answered the Earl. "I never reflected for a moment on the niceties of the matter. I just explained to him that I wanted those jewels taken care of, and handed them over. That's all!"
"And—their precise nature?" asked Gabriel.
"And—their value?" added Joseph.
"As to their nature," replied the Earl, "there was my wife's coronet, her diamond necklace, and the Ellersdeane butterfly, of which I suppose all the world's heard—heirloom, you know. It's a thing that can be worn in a lady's hair or as a pendant—diamonds, of course. As to their value—well, I had them valued some years ago. They're worth about a hundred thousand pounds."
Gabriel turned to his desk and began to arrange some papers on it, and Neale, who was watching everything with close attention, saw that his fingers trembled a little. He made no remark, and the silence was next broken by Joseph Chestermarke's soft accents.
"Did Horbury give your lordship any receipt, or acknowledgment that he had received these jewels on deposit?" he asked. "I mean, of course, in our name?"
The Earl twisted sharply in his chair, and Neale fancied that he saw a shade of annoyance pass over his good-natured face.
"Certainly not!" he answered. "I should never have dreamt of asking for a receipt from a man whom I knew as well as I knew—or thought I knew—Horbury. The whole thing was just as if—well, as if I should ask any friend to take care of something for me for a while."
"Did Horbury know what you were giving him!" asked Joseph.
"Of course!" replied the Earl. "As a matter of fact, he'd never seen these things, and I took them out of their case and showed them to him."
"And he said he would lock them up?—in our strong room?" suggested the soft voice.
"He said nothing about your strong room," answered the Earl. "Nor about where he'd put them. That was understood. It was understood—a tacit understanding—that he'd take care of them until our return."
"Did your lordship give him the date of your return?" persisted Joseph, with the thorough-going air of a cross-examiner.
"Yes—I told him exactly when we should be back," replied the Earl. "The twelfth of May—day before yesterday."
Joseph moved away from the sideboard towards the hearth, and leaning against the mantelpiece threw a glance at the strong room.
"The jewels are not in our possession," he said, half indolently. "There is nothing of that sort in there. There are two safes in the outer room of the bank—I should say that Mr. Neale here knows everything that is in them. Do you know anything of these jewels, Neale?"
"Nothing!" said Neale. "I never heard of them."
Gabriel looked up from his papers.
"None of us have heard of them," he remarked. "Horbury could not have put them in this strong room without my knowledge. They are certainly not there. The safes my nephew mentioned just now are used only for books and papers. Your lordship's casket is not in either."
The Earl rose slowly from his chair. It was evident to Neale that he was more surprised than angry: he looked around him as a man looks whose understanding is suddenly brought up against something unexplainable.
"All I know is that I handed that casket to Mr. Horbury in his own dining-room one evening some weeks ago," he said. "That's certain! So I naturally expect to find it—here."
"And it is not here—that is equally certain," observed Gabriel. "What is also certain is that our manager—trusted in more than he should have been!—is missing, and many of our valuable securities with him. Therefore———"
He spread his hands again with an expressive gesture and once more bent over his papers. Once more there was silence. Then the Earl started—as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him.
"I say!" he exclaimed, "don't you think Horbury may have put those jewels away in his own house?"
Joseph Chestermarke smiled a little derisively.
"A hundred thousand pounds' worth!" he said softly. "Not very likely!"
"But he may have a safe there," urged the Earl.
"Most people have a safe in their houses nowadays—they're so handy, you know, and so cheap. Don't you think that may be it?"
"I am not familiar with Horbury's domestic arrangements," said Gabriel. "I have not been in his house for some years. But as we are desirous of giving your lordship what assistance we can, we will go into the house and see if there is anything of the sort. Just tell the housekeeper we are coming in, Neale."
The Earl nodded to Mrs. Carswell as she received him and the two partners in the adjacent hall.
"This lady will remember my calling on Mr. Horbury one evening a few weeks ago," he said. "She saw me with him in that room."
"Certainly!" assented Mrs. Carswell, readily enough. "I remember your lordship calling on Mr. Horbury very well. One night after dinner—your lordship was here an hour or so."
Gabriel Chestermarke opened the door of the dining-room—an old-fashioned apartment which looked out on a garden and orchard at the rear of the house.
"Mrs. Carswell," he said, as they all went in, "has Mr. Horbury a safe in this room, or in any other room? You know what I mean."
But the housekeeper shook her head. There was no safe in the house. There was a plate-chest—there it was, standing in a recess by the sideboard; she had the key of it.
"Open that, at any rate," commanded Gabriel. "It's about as unlikely as anything could be, but we'll leave nothing undone."
There was nothing in the plate-chest but what Gabriel expected to find there. He turned again to the housekeeper.
"Is there anything in this house—cupboard, chest, trunk, anything—in which Mr. Horbury kept valuables?" he asked. "Any place in which he was in the habit of locking up papers, for instance?"
Mrs. Carswell again shook her head. No, she knew of no such place or receptacle. There was Mr. Horbury's desk, but she believed all its drawers were open. Her belief proved to be correct: Gabriel himself opened drawer after drawer, and revealed nothing of consequence. He turned to the Earl with another expressive spreading out of his hands.
"I don't see what more we can do to assist your lordship," he said. "I don't know what more can be done."
"The question is—so it seems to me—what is to be done," replied the Earl, whose face had been gradually growing graver. "What, for instance, are you going to do, Mr. Chestermarke? Let us be plain with each other. You disclaim all liability in connection with my affair?"
"Most certainly!" exclaimed Gabriel. "We know nothing of that transaction. As I have already said, if Horbury took charge of your lordship's property, he did so as a private individual, not on our behalf, not in his capacity as our manager. If your lordship had been a customer of ours———"
"That would have been a very different matter," said Joseph. "But as we have never had any dealings with your lordship———"
"We have, of course, no liability to you," concluded Gabriel. "The true position of the case is that your lordship handed your property to Horbury as a friend, not as manager of Chestermarke's Bank."
"Then let me ask you, what are you going to do?" said the Earl. "I mean, not about my affair, but about finding your manager?"
Gabriel looked at his nephew: Joseph shook his head.
"So far," said Joseph, "we have not quite considered that. We are not yet fully aware of how things stand. We have a pretty good idea, but it will take another day."
"You don't mean to tell me that you're going to let another day elapse before doing something?" exclaimed the Earl. "Bless my soul!—I'd have had the hue and cry out before noon today, if I'd been you!"
"If you'd been Chestermarke's Bank, my lord," remarked Joseph, in his softest manner, "that's precisely what you would not have done. We don't want it noised all over the town and neighbourhood that our trusted manager has suddenly run away with our money—and your jewels—in his pocket."
There was a curious note—half-sneering, half-sinister—in the junior partner's quiet voice which made the Earl turn and look at him with a sudden new interest. Before either could speak, Neale ventured to say what he had been wanting to say for half an hour.
"May I suggest something, sir?" he said, turning to Gabriel.
"Speak—speak!" assented Gabriel hastily. "Anything you like!"
"Mr. Horbury may have met with an accident," said Neale. "He was fond of taking his walks in lonely places—there are plenty outside the town. He may be lying somewhere even now—helpless."
"Capital suggestion!—much obliged to you," exclaimed the Earl. "Gad! I wonder we never thought of that before! Much the most likely thing. I can't believe that Horbury———"
Before he could say more, the door of the dining-room was thrown open, a clear, strong voice was heard speaking to some one without, and in walked a handsome young woman, who pulled herself up on the threshold to stare out of a pair of frank grey eyes at the four startled men.