_ CHAPTER X. THE CHESTERMARKE WAY
Mrs. Carswell herself opened the door of the bank-house in response to Miss Fosdyke's ring. She started a little at sight of the visitor, and her eyes glanced involuntarily and, as it seemed to Betty, with something of uneasiness, at the side-door which led into the Chestermarkes' private parlour. And Betty immediately interpreted the meaning of that glance.
"No, Mrs. Carswell," she said, before the housekeeper could speak, "I haven't come to call on either Mr. Gabriel or Mr. Joseph Chestermarke--I came to see you. Mayn't I come in?"
Mrs. Carswell stepped back into the hall, and Betty followed. For a moment the two looked at each other. And in the elder woman's eyes there was still the same expression, and it was with obvious uncertainty, if not with positive suspicion, that she waited.
"You have not heard anything of Mr. Horbury?" asked Betty, who was not slow to notice the housekeeper's demeanour.
"Nothing!" replied Mrs. Carswell, with a shake of the head. "Nothing at all! No one has told me anything."
Betty turned to the door of the dining-room.
"Very well," she said. "I dare say you know, Mrs. Carswell, that I am my uncle's nearest relation. Now I want to go through his papers and things. I want to see his desk--his last letters--anything--and everything there is."
She laid a hand on the door--and Mrs. Carswell suddenly found her tongue.
"Oh, miss!" she said, in a low, frightened voice, "you can't! That room's locked up. So is the study--where all Mr. Horbury's papers are. So is his bedroom. Mr. Joseph Chestermarke locked them all up last night--he has the keys. Nobody's to go into them--nor into any other room--without his permission."
Betty's cheeks began to glow, and an obstinate look to settle about her lips.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "But I think I shall have something to say to that, Mrs. Carswell. Ask Mr. Joseph Chestermarke to come here a minute."
The housekeeper shrunk back.
"I daren't, Miss Fosdyke!" she answered. "It would be as much as my place was worth!"
"I thought you were my uncle's housekeeper," suggested Betty. "Aren't you? Or are you employed by Mr. Joseph Chestermarke? Come, now?"
Mrs. Carswell hesitated. It was very evident that she was afraid. But of what?
"So far as I know," continued Betty, "this is my uncle's house, and you're his servant. Am I right or wrong, Mrs. Carswell?"
"Right as regards my being engaged by Mr. Horbury," replied the housekeeper. "But the house belongs to--them! Mr. Horbury--so I understand--had the use of it--it was reckoned as part of his salary. It's their house, miss."
"But, anyway, my uncle's effects are his--and I mean to see them," insisted Betty. "If you won't call Mr. Joseph--or Mr. Gabriel--out, I shall walk into the bank at the front door, and demand to see them. You'd better let one of them know I'm here, Mrs. Carswell--I'm not going to stand any nonsense."
Mrs. Carswell hesitated a little, but in the end she knocked timidly at the private door. And presently Joseph Chestermarke opened it, looked out, saw Betty, and came into the hall. He offered his visitor no polite greeting, and for once he forgot his accustomed sneering smile. Instead, he gave the housekeeper a swift look which sent her away in haste, and he turned to Betty with an air of annoyance.
"Yes?" he asked abruptly. "What do you want?"
"I want to go into my uncle's house--into his rooms," said Betty. "I am his next-of-kin--I wish to examine his papers."
"You can't!" answered Joseph. "We haven't examined them ourselves yet."
"What right have you to examine them?" demanded Betty.
"Every right!" retorted Joseph.
"Not his private belongings!" she said firmly.
"This is our house--you're not going into it," declared Joseph. "Nobody's going into it--without our permission."
"We'll see about that, Mr. Joseph Chestermarke!" replied Betty. "If--supposing--my uncle is dead, I've the right to examine anything he's left. I insist upon it! I insist on seeing his papers, looking through his desk. And at once!"
"No!" said Joseph. "Nothing of the sort. We don't know that you've any right. We don't know that you're his next-of-kin. We're not--legally--aware that you're his niece. You say you are--but we don't know it--as a matter of real fact. You'd better go away."
Betty's cheeks flamed hotly and her eyes flashed.
"So that's your attitude--to me!" she exclaimed. "Very well! But you shall soon see whether I am what I say I am. What are you and your uncle implying, suggesting, hinting at?" she went on, suddenly letting her naturally hot temper get the better of her. "Do you realize what an utterly unworthy part you are playing? You accuse my uncle of being a thief--and you dare not make any specified accusation against him! You charge him with stealing your securities--and you daren't tell the police what securities! I don't believe you've a security missing! Nobody believes it! The police don't believe it. Lord Ellersdeane doesn't believe it. Why, your own clerk, Mr. Neale, who ought to know, if anybody does, doesn't believe it! You're telling lies, Mr. Joseph Chestermarke--there! Lies! I'll denounce you to the whole town--I'll expose you! I believe my uncle has met with some foul play--and as sure as I am his niece I'll probe the whole thing to the bottom. Are you going to admit me to those rooms?"
The door of the private room, which Joseph had left slightly ajar behind him, was pushed open a little, and Gabriel's colourless face looked out.
"Tell the young woman to go and see a solicitor," he said, and vanished again.
Joseph glanced at Betty, who was still staring indignantly at him.
"You hear?" he said quietly. "Now you'd better go away. You are not going in there."
Betty suddenly turned and walked out. She was across the Market-Place and at the door of the Scarnham Arms before her self-possession had come back to her. And she was aware then that a gentleman, who had just alighted from a horse which a groom was leading away to the stable yard, was looking and smiling at her.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Is it you, Lord Ellersdeane?--I beg your pardon--I was preoccupied."
"So I saw," said the Earl. "I'd watched you come across from the Bank. Is there any news this morning?"
"Come up to my sitting-room and let us talk," said Betty. She led the way upstairs and closed her door on herself and her visitor. "No news of my uncle," she continued, turning to the Earl. "Have you any?"
The Earl shook his head disappointedly.
"No!" he replied. "I wish I had! I myself and a lot of my men have been searching all round Ellersdeane--practically all night. We've made inquiries at each of the neighbouring villages--without result. Have the police heard anything?--I've only just come into town."
"You haven't seen Polke, then?" said Betty. "Oh, well, he heard something last night." She went on to tell the Earl of the meeting with the tinker, and of Mrs. Pratt's account of the mysterious stranger, and of what Starmidge was now doing. "It all seems such slow work," she concluded, "but I suppose the police can't move any faster."
"You heard nothing at the bank itself--from the Chestermarkes?" asked the Earl.
"I heard sufficient to make me as--as absent-minded as I was when you met me just now! I went there, as my uncle's nearest relation, with a simple request to see his papers and things--a very natural desire, surely. The Chestermarkes have locked up his rooms--and they ordered me out--showed me the door!"
"How very extraordinary!" exclaimed the Earl. "Really!--in so many words?"
"I think Joseph had the grace to say I had better go away," said Betty. "And Gabriel--who called me a young woman--told me to go and see a solicitor, which, of course," she added reflectively, "is precisely what I shall do--as they will very soon find!"
The Earl stepped over to one of the windows, and stood for a moment or two silently looking out on the Market-Place.
"I don't understand this at all," he said at last. "What is the meaning of all this reserve on the Chestermarkes' part? Why didn't they tell the police what securities are missing? Why don't they let you, his niece, examine Horbury's effects? What right have they to fasten up his house?"
"Their house--so Mrs. Carswell says," remarked Betty.
"Oh, well--it may be their house, strictly speaking," agreed the Earl, "but Horbury was its tenant, anyway, and the furniture and things in it are his--I'm sure of that, for he and I shared a similar taste in collecting old oak, and I know where he bought most of his possessions. I can't make the behaviour of these people out at all--and I'm getting more and more uneasy about the whole thing, Miss Fosdyke--as I'm sure you are. I wonder if the police will find the man who came to the Station Hotel on Saturday? Now, if they could lay hands on him, and get to know who he was, and what he wanted, and if he really met your uncle----"
The Earl suddenly paused and turned from the window with a glance at Betty.
"There's young Mr. Neale coming across from the bank," he observed. "I think he's coming here. By the by, isn't he a relation of Horbury's?"
"No," said Betty. "But my uncle was his guardian. Is he coming here, Lord Ellersdeane?"
"Straight here," replied the Earl. "Perhaps he's got some news."
Betty had the door open before Neale could knock at it. He came in with a smile, and glanced half-whimsically, half as if he had queer news to give, at the two people who looked so inquiringly at him.
"Well?" demanded Betty. "What is it, Wallie? Have these two precious principals sent you with news?"
"They're not my principals any longer," answered Neale. He laid down some books and an old jacket on the table. "That's my old working coat," he went on, with a laugh. "I've worn it for the last time--at Chestermarke's. They've dismissed me."
Lord Ellersdeane turned sharply from the window, and Betty indulged in a cry of indignation.
"Dismissed--you?" she exclaimed. "Dismissed!"
"With a quarter's salary in lieu of notice," laughed Neale, slapping his pocket. "I've got it here--in gold."
"But--why?" asked Betty.
Neale shook his head at her.
"Because you told Joseph that I didn't believe them when they said that some of their securities were missing," he answered. "You did it! As soon as you'd gone, they had me in, told me that it was contrary to their principles to retain servants who took sides with other people against them, handed me a cheque, and told me to cash it forthwith and depart. And--here I am!"
"You don't seem to mind this very much, Mr. Neale," observed the Earl, looking keenly at this victim of summary treatment. "Do you?"
"If your lordship really wants to know," answered Neale, "I don't! I'm truly thankful. It's only what would have happened--in another way. I meant to leave Chestermarke's. If it hadn't been for Mr. Horbury, I should have left ages ago. I hate banking! I hated the life. And--I dislike Chestermarke's! Immensely! Now, I'll go and have a free life somewhere in Canada or some equally spacious clime--where I can breathe."
"Not at all!" said Betty decidedly. "You shall come and be my manager in London. The brewery wants one, badly. You shall have a handsome salary, Wallie--much more than you had at that beastly bank!"
"Very kind of you, I'm sure," laughed Neale. "But I think I'm inclined to put breweries in the same line with banks. Don't you be too rash, Betty--I'm not exactly cut out for commercialism. Not," he added reflectively, "not that I haven't been a very good servant to Chestermarke's. I have! But Chestermarkes are--what they are!"
The Earl, who had been watching the two young people with something of amused interest, suddenly came forward from the window.
"Mr. Neale!" he said.
"My lord!" responded Neale.
"What's your honest opinion about your late principals?" asked the Earl.
Neale shook his head slowly and significantly.
"I don't know," he answered.
"Do you know that they've--just now--refused Miss Fosdyke permission to examine her uncle's belongings?" continued the Earl. "That they wouldn't even let her enter the house?"
"No, I didn't know," replied Neale. "But I'm not surprised. Nothing that those two could do would ever surprise me."
"Feeling that, what do you advise in this case?" asked the Earl. "Come!--you're no longer in their employ--you can speak freely now. What do you think?"
"Well," said Neale, after a pause, and speaking with unusual gravity, "I think the police ought to make a thorough examination of the bank-house--I'm surprised it hasn't been thought of before."
The Earl picked up his hat.
"I've been thinking of it all the morning!" he said. "Come--let us all go round to Polke." _