Adventures of Martin Hewitt (7 page)

I laughed. “Probably,” I said, “she went off to some agent who’ll watch as
long as she likes to pay.”

“Quite possibly.” But we were quite wrong. Hewitt took his hat and we made
for the staircase. As we opened the landing-door there were hurried feet on
the stairs below, and as it shut behind Mrs. Geldard’s bonnet-load of pink
flowers hove up before us. She was in a state of fierce alarm and excitement
that had oddly enough something of triumph in it, as of the woman who says,
“I told you so.” Hewitt gave a tragic groan under his breath.

“Here’s a nice state of things I’m in for now, Mr. Hewitt,” she began
abruptly, “through your refusing to do anything for me while there was time,
though I was ready to pay you well as I told your young man but no you
wouldn’t listen to anything and seemed to think you knew my business better
than I could tell you and now you’ve caused this state of affairs by delay
perhaps you’ll take the case in hand now?”

“But you haven’t told me what has happened—” Hewitt began, whereat
the lady instantly rejoined, with a shrill pretence of a laugh, “Happened?
Why what do you suppose has happened after what I have told you over and over
again? My precious husband’s gone clean away, that’s all. He’s deserted me
and gone nobody knows where. That’s what’s happened. You said that if he did
anything of that sort you’d take the case up; so now I’ve come to see if
you’ll keep your promise. Not that it’s likely to be of much use
now.”

We turned back into Hewitt’s private office and Mrs. Geldard told her
story. Disentangled from irrelevances, repetitions, opinions and incidental
observations, it was this. After the quarrel Geldard had gone to business as
usual and had not been seen nor heard of since. After her yesterday’s
interview with Hewitt Mrs. Geldard had called at her husband’s office and
found it shut as before. She went home again and waited, but he never
returned home that evening, nor all night. In the morning she had gone to the
office once more, and finding it still shut had told the caretaker that her
husband was missing and insisted on his bringing his own key and opening it
for her inspection. Nobody was there, and Mrs. Geldard was astonished to find
folded and laid on a cupboard shelf the entire suit of clothes that her
husband had worn when he left home on the morning of the previous day. She
also found in the waste paper basket the fragments of two or three envelopes
addressed to her husband, which she brought for Hewitt’s inspection. They
were in the handwriting of the girl Trennatt, and with them Mrs. Geldard had
discovered a small fragment of one of the letters, a mere scrap, but
sufficient to show part of the signature “Emma,” and two or three of a row of
crosses running beneath, such as are employed to represent kisses. These
things she had brought with her.

Hewitt examined them slightly and then asked, “Can I have a photograph of
your husband, Mrs. Geldard?”

She immediately produced, not only a photograph of her husband, but also
one of the girl Trennatt, which she said belonged to the cook. Hewitt
complimented her on her foresight. “And now,” he said, “I think we’ll go and
take a look at Mr. Geldard’s office, if we may. Of course I shall follow him
up now.” Hewitt made a sign to me, which I interpreted as asking whether I
would care to accompany him. I assented with a nod, for the case seemed
likely to be interesting.

I omit most of Mrs. Geldard’s talk by the way, which was almost ceaseless,
mostly compounded of useless repetition, and very tiresome.

The office was on a third floor in a large building in Finsbury Pavement.
The caretaker made no difficulty in admitting us. There were two rooms,
neither very large, and one of them at the back very small indeed. In this
was a small locked door.

“That leads on to the small staircase, sir,” the caretaker said in
response to Hewitt’s inquiry. “The staircase leads down to the basement, and
it ain’t used much ‘cept by the cleaners.”

“If I went down this back staircase,” Hewitt pursued, “I suppose I should
have no difficulty in gaining the street?”

“Not a bit, sir. You’d have to go a little way round to get into Finsbury
Pavement, but there’s a passage leads straight from the bottom of the stairs
out to Moorfields behind.”

“Yes,” remarked Mrs. Geldard bitterly, when the caretaker had left the
room, “that’s the way he’s been leaving the office every day, and in
disguise, too.” She pointed to the cupboard where her husband’s clothes lay.
“Pretty plain proof that he was ashamed of his doings, whatever they
were.”

“Come, come,” Hewitt answered deprecatingly, “we’ll hope there’s nothing
to be ashamed of—at any rate till there’s proof of it. There’s no proof
as yet that your husband has been disguising. A great many men who rent
offices, I believe, keep dress clothes at them—I do it myself—for
convenience in case of an unexpected invitation, or such other eventuality.
We may find that he returned here last night, put on his evening dress and
went somewhere dining. Illness, or fifty accidents, may have kept him from
home.”

But Mrs. Geldard was not to be softened by any such suggestion, which I
could see Hewitt bad chiefly thrown out by way of pacifying the lady, and
allaying her bitterness as far as he could, in view of a possible
reconciliation when things were cleared up.

“
That
isn’t very likely,” she said. “If he kept a dress suit here
openly I should know of it, and if he kept it here unknown to me, what did he
want it for? If he went out in dress clothes last night, who did he go with?
Who do you suppose, after seeing those envelopes and that piece of the
letter?”

“Well, well, we shall see,” Hewitt replied. “May I turn out the pockets of
these clothes?”

“Certainly; there’s nothing in them of importance,” Mrs. Geldard said. “I
looked before I came to you.”

Nevertheless Hewitt turned them out. “Here is a cheque-book with a number
of cheques remaining. No counterfoils filled in, which is awkward. Bankers,
the London Amalgamated. We will call there presently. An ivory pocket
paper-knife. A sovereign purse—empty.” Hewitt placed the articles on
the table as he named them. “Gold pencil case, ivory folding rule,
russia-leather card-case.” He turned to Mrs. Geldard. “There is no
pocket-book,” he said, “no pocket-knife and no watch, and there are no keys.
Did Mr. Geldard usually carry any of these things?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Geldard replied, “he carried all four.” Hewitt’s simple
methodical calmness, and his plain disregard of her former volubility,
appeared by this to have disciplined Mrs. Geldard into a businesslike brevity
and directness of utterance.

“As to the watch now. Can you describe it?”

“Oh, it was only a cheap one. He had a gold one stolen—or at any
rate he told me so—and since then he has only carried a very common
sort of silver one, without a chain.”

“The keys?”

“I only know there
was
a bunch of keys. Some of them fitted drawers
and bureaux at home, and others, I suppose, fitted locks in this office.”

“What of the pocket-knife?”

“That was a very uncommon one. It was a present, as a matter of fact, from
an engineering friend, who had had it made specially. It was large, with a
tortoise-shell handle and a silver plate with his initials. There was only
one ordinary knife-blade in it, all the other implements were small tools or
things of that kind. There was a small pair of silver calipers, for
instance.”

“Like these?” Hewitt suggested, producing those he used for measuring
drawers and cabinets in search of secret receptacles.

“Yes, like those. And there were folding steel compasses, a tiny flat
spanner, a little spirit level, and a number of other small instruments of
that sort. It was very well made indeed; he used to say that it could not
have been made for five pounds.”

“Indeed?” Hewitt cast his eyes about the two rooms. “I see no signs of
books here, Mrs. Geldard—account books I mean, of course. Your husband
must have kept account books, I take it?”

“Yes, naturally; he must have done. I never saw them, of course, but every
business man keeps books.” Then after a pause Mrs. Geldard continued: “And
they’re gone too. I never thought of
that.
But there, I might have
known as much. Who can trust a man safely if his own wife can’t? But I won’t
shield him. Whatever he’s been doing with his clients’ money he’ll have to
answer for himself. Thank heaven I’ve enough to live on of my own without
being dependent on a creature like him But think of the disgrace! My husband
nothing better than a common thief—swindling his clients and making
away with his books when he can’t go on any longer! But he shall be punished,
oh yes;
I’ll
see he’s punished, if once I find him!”

Hewitt thought for a moment, and then asked: “Do you know any of your
husband’s clients, Mrs. Geldard?”

“No,” she answered, rather snappishly, “I don’t. I’ve told you he never
let me know anything of his business—never anything at all; and very
good reason he had too, that’s certain.”

“Then probably you do not happen to know the contents of these drawers?”
Hewitt pursued, tapping the writing-table as he spoke.

“Oh, there’s nothing of importance in them—at any rate in the
unlocked ones. I looked at all of them this morning when I first came.”

The table was of the ordinary pedestal pattern with four drawers at each
side and a ninth in the middle at the top, and of very ordinary quality. The
only locked drawer was the third from the top on the left-hand side. Hewitt
pulled out one drawer after another. In one was a tin half full of tobacco;
in another a few cigars at the bottom of a box; in a third a pile of
notepaper headed with the address of the office, and rather dusty; another
was empty; still another contained a handful of string. The top middle drawer
rather reminded me of a similar drawer of my own at my last newspaper office,
for it contained several pipes; but my own were mostly briars, whereas these
were all clays.

“There’s nothing really so satisfactory,” Hewitt said, as he lifted and
examined each pipe by turn, “to a seasoned smoker as a well-used clay. Most
such men keep one or more such pipes for strictly private use.” There was
nothing noticeable about these pipes except that they were uncommonly dirty,
but Hewitt scrutinised each before returning it to the drawer. Then he turned
to Mrs. Geldard and said: “As to the bank now—the London Amalgamated,
Mrs. Geldard. Are you known there personally?”

“Oh, yes; my husband gave them authority to pay cheques signed by me up to
a certain amount, and I often do it for household expenses, or when he
happens to be away.”

“Then perhaps it will be best for you to go alone,” Hewitt responded. “Of
course they will never, as a general thing, give any person information as to
the account of a customer, but perhaps, as you are known to them, and hold
your husband’s authority to draw cheques, they may tell you something. What I
want to find out is, of course, whether your husband drew from the bank all
his remaining balance yesterday, or any large sum. You must go alone, ask for
the manager, and tell him that you have seen nothing of Mr. Geldard since he
left for business yesterday morning. Mind, you are not to appear angry, or
suspicious, or anything of that sort, and you mustn’t say you are employing
me to bring him back from an elopement. That will shut up the channel of
information at once. Hostile inquiries they’ll never answer, even by the
smallest hint, except after legal injunction. You can be as distressed and as
alarmed as you please. Your husband has disappeared since yesterday morning,
and you’ve no notion what has become of him; that is your tale, and a
perfectly true one. You would like to know whether or not he has withdrawn
his balance, or a considerable sum, since that would indicate whether or not
his absence was intentional and premeditated.”

Mrs. Geldard understood and undertook to make the inquiry with all
discretion. The bank was not far, and it was arranged that she should return
to the office with the result.

As soon as she had left Hewitt turned to the pedestal table and probed the
keyhole of the locked drawer with the small stiletto attached to his
penknife. “This seems to be a common sort of lock,” he said. “I could
probably open it with a bent nail. But the whole table is a cheap sort of
thing. Perhaps there is an easier way.”

He drew the unlocked drawer above completely out, passed his hand into the
opening and felt about. “Yes,” he said, “it’s just as I hoped—as it
usually is in pedestal tables not of the best quality; the partition between
the drawers doesn’t go more than two-thirds of the way back, and I can drop
my hand into the drawer below. But T can’t feel anything there—it seems
empty.”

He withdrew his hand and we tilted the whole table backward, so as to
cause whatever lay in the drawers to slide to the back. This dodge was
successful. Hewitt reinserted his hand and withdrew it with two orderly heaps
of papers, each held together by a metal clip.

The papers in each clip, on examination, proved to be all of an identical
character, with the exception of dates. They were, in fact, rent receipts.
Those for the office, which had been given quarterly, were put back in their
place with scarcely a glance, and the others Hewitt placed on the table
before him. Each ran, apart from dates, in this fashion: “Received from Mr.
J. Cookson 15s., one month’s rent of stable at 8 Dragon Yard, Benton Street,
to”—here followed the date. “Also rent, feed and care of horse in own
stable as agreed, £2.—W. GASK.” The receipts were ill-written, and here
and there ill-spelt. Hewitt put the last of the receipts in his pocket and
returned the others to the drawer. “Either,” he said, “Mr. Cookson is a
client who gets Mr. Geldard to hire stables for him, which may not be likely,
or Mr. Geldard calls himself Mr. Cookson when he goes driving—possibly
with Miss Trennatt. We shall see.”