The Complete Works of Arthur Morrison (Illustrated). Arthur Morrison

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.”

      The pedestal table put in order again, Hewitt took the poker and raked in the fireplace. It was summer, and behind the bars was a sort of screen of cartridge paper with a frilled edge, and behind this various odds and ends had been thrown—spent matches, trade-circulars crumpled up, and torn paper. There were also the remains of several cigars, some only half smoked, and one almost whole. The torn paper Hewitt examined piece by piece, and finally sorted out a number of pieces which he set to work to arrange on the blotting pad. They formed a complete note, written in the same hand as were the envelopes already found by Mrs. Geldard—that of the girl Emma Trennatt. It corresponded also with the solitary fragment of another letter which had accompanied them, by way of having a number of crosses below the signature, and it ran thus:—

      Tuesday Night.

      Dear Sam,—To-morrow, to carry. Not late because people are coming for flowers. What you did was no good. The smoke leaks worse than ever, and F. thinks you must light a new pipe or else stop smoking altogether for a bit. Uncle is anxious. —Emma.

      Then followed the crosses, filling one line and nearly half the next; seventeen in all.

      Hewitt gazed at the fragments thoughtfully. “This is a find,” he said—“most decidedly a find. It looks so much like nonsense that it must mean something of importance. The date, you see, is Tuesday night. It would be received here on Wednesday—yesterday—morning. So that it was immediately after the receipt of this note that Geldard left. It’s pretty plain the crosses don’t mean kisses. The note isn’t quite of the sort that usually carries such symbols, and moreover, when a lady fills the end of a sheet of notepaper with kisses she doesn’t stop less than half way across the last line—she fills it to the end. These crosses mean something very different. I should like, too, to know what ‘smoke’ means. Anyway this letter would probably astonish Mrs. Geldard if she saw it. We’ll say nothing about it for the present.” He swept the fragments into an envelope, and put away the envelope in his breast pocket. There was nothing more to be found of the least value in the fireplace, and a careful examination of the office in other parts revealed nothing that I had not noticed before, so far as I could see, except Geldard’s boots standing on the floor of the cupboard wherein his clothes lay. The whole place was singularly bare of what one commonly finds in an office in the way of papers, handbooks, and general business material.

      Mrs. Geldard was not long away. At the bank she found that the manager was absent and his deputy had been very reluctant to say anything definite without his sanction. He gave Mrs. Geldard to understand, however, that there was a balance still remaining to her husband’s credit; also that Mr. Geldard had drawn a cheque the previous morning, Wednesday, for an amount “rather larger than usual.” And that was all.

      “By the way, Mrs. Geldard,” Hewitt observed, with an air of recollecting something, “there was a Mr. Cookson I believe, if I remember, who knew a Mr. Geldard. You don’t happen to know, do you, whether or not Mr. Geldard had a client or an acquaintance of that name?”

      “No, I know nobody of the name.”

      “Ah, it doesn’t matter. I suppose it isn’t necessary for your husband to keep horses or vehicles of any description in his business?”

      “No, certainly not.” Mrs. Geldard looked surprised at the question.

      “Of course—I should have known that. He does not drive to business, I suppose?”

      “No, he goes by omnibus.”

      “But as to Emma Trennatt now. This photograph is most welcome, and will be of great assistance, I make no doubt. But is there anything individual by which I might identify her if I saw her—anything beyond what I see in the photograph? A peculiarity of step, for instance, or a scar, or what not.”

      “Yes, there is a large mole—more than a quarter of an inch across I should think—on her left cheek, an inch below the outer corner of her eye. The photograph only shows the other side of the face.”

      “That will be useful to know. Now has she a relative living at Crouch End, or thereabout?”

      “Yes, her uncle; she’s living with him now—or she was at any rate till lately. But how did you know that?”

      “The Crouch End postmark was on those envelopes you found. Do you know anything of her uncle?”

      “Nothing, except that he’s a nurseryman, I believe.”

      “Not his full address?”

      “No.”

      “And Trennatt is his name?”

      “Thank you. I think, Mrs. Geldard,” Hewitt said, taking his hat, “that I will set out after your husband at once. You, I think, can do no better than stay at home till I have news for you. I have your address. If anything comes to your knowledge please telegraph it to my office at once.”

      The office door was locked, the keys were left with the caretaker, and we saw Mrs. Geldard into a cab at the door. “Come,” said Hewitt, “we’ll go somewhere and look at a directory, and after that to Dragon Yard. I think I know a man in Moorgate Street who’ll let me see his directory.”

      We started to walk down Finsbury Pavement. Suddenly Hewitt caught my arm and directed my eyes toward a woman who had passed hurriedly in the opposite direction. I had not seen her face, but Hewitt had. “If that isn’t Miss Emma Trennatt,” he said, “it’s uncommonly like the notion I’ve formed of her. We’ll see if she goes to Geldard’s office.”

      We hurried after the woman, who, sure enough, turned into the large door of the building we had just left. As it was impossible that she should know us we followed her boldly up the stairs and saw her stop before the door of Geldard’s office and knock. We passed her as she stood there—a handsome young woman enough—and well back on her left cheek, in the place Mrs. Geldard had indicated, there was plain to see a very large mole. We pursued our way to the landing above and there we stopped in a position that commanded a view of Geldard’s door. The young woman knocked again and waited.

      “This doesn’t look like an elopement yesterday morning, does it?” Hewitt whispered. “Unless Geldard’s left both this one and his wife in the lurch.”

      The young woman below knocked once or twice more, walked irresolutely across the corridor and back, and