"No. Mrs. Carr had sent it off to Mr. Fauntleroy. She told me its contents, I daresay nearly word for word."
"Because I really do not think the marriage could have taken place as described. It would inevitably have been known if it had: some persons, surely, would have seen them go into the church; and the parson and clerk must have been cognisant of it! How was it that these people kept the secret? Besides, the parties were away from the town by eight o'clock, or thereabouts."
"I don't know anything about the details," said Mr. Littelby; "but I do know that the letter, stating what I have told you, was found by Mrs. Carr, and that she implicitly believes in it. Would the letter be likely to assert a thing that a minute's time could disprove? If the record of the marriage is not on the register of St. James the Less, to what end state that it is?"
"If this letter stated what you say, Mr. Littelby, rely upon it that the record is there. There have been such things known, mind you"—and old Mynn lowered his voice as he spoke—"as frauds committed on registers; false entries made. And they have passed for genuine, too, to unsuspicious eyes. But, if this is one, it won't pass so with me," he added, rising. "Not a man in the three kingdoms has a keener eye than mine."
"It is impossible that a false entry can have been made in the register!" exclaimed Mr. Littelby, speaking slowly, as if debating the question in his own mind.
"We shall see. I assure you I consider it equally impossible for the marriage to have taken place, as stated, without detection."
"But—assuming your suspicion to be correct—who can have been wicked enough to insert the entry?" cried Mr. Littelby.
"That, I can't tell. The entry of the marriage would take the property from our clients, the Carrs of Eckford, therefore they are exempt from the suspicion. I wonder," continued Mr. Mynn in a half-secret tone, "whether that young clergyman got access to the register when he was down here?"
"That young clergyman was honest as the day," emphatically interrupted Mr. Littelby. "I could answer for his truth and honour with my life. The finding of that letter would have sent him to his grave easier than he went to it."
"There's another brother, is there not?"
"Yes. But he is in Holland, looking after the home affairs, which are also complicated. He has not been here at all since his father's death."
"Ah, one doesn't know," said old Mynn, glancing at his watch. "Hundreds of miles have intervened, before now, between a committed fraud and its plotter. Well, we will say no more at present. I'll tell you more when I have had a look at this register. It will not deceive me."
"Are you going over now?" asked Mr. George.
"At once," replied old Mynn, with decision; "and I'll bring you back my report and my opinion as soon as may be."
But Mr. Mynn was away considerably longer than there appeared any need that he should be. When he did arrive he explained that his delay arose from the effectual and thorough searching of the register.
"I don't know what could have been the meaning or the use of that letter you told us of, Mr. Littelby," he said, as he took off his coat; "there is no entry of the marriage in the church register of St. James the Less."
"No entry of it!"
"None whatever."
Mr. Littelby did not at once speak: many thoughts were crowding upon his mind. He and old Mynn were standing now, and George Mynn was sitting with his elbow on the table, and his aching head leaning on his hand. The least excitement out of common, sometimes only the sitting for a day in the close office, would bring on these intolerable headaches.
"I have searched effectually—and I don't suppose the old clerk of the church blessed me for keeping him there—and I am prepared to take an affidavit, if necessary, that no such marriage is recorded in the book," continued the elder lawyer. "What could have been the aim or object of that letter, I cannot fathom."
"Mr. Carr will not come into the money, then?" said Mr. Littelby.
"Of course not, so far as things look at present. I thought it was very strange, if such a thing had been there, that Fauntleroy did not let it be known," he emphatically added.
"You are sure you have fully searched?"
"Mr. Littelby, I have fully searched," was the reply; and the lawyer was not pleased at being asked the question after what he had said. "There is no such marriage entered there; and rely upon it no such marriage ever was entered there. I might go farther and say, with safety in my opinion, that there never was such marriage entered anywhere."
"Then why should Robert Carr, the elder, have written the letter?"
"Did he write it? It may be a question."
"No, he never wrote it," interposed George Mynn, looking up. "There was some wicked plot concocted—I don't say by whom, and I can't say it—of which this letter was the prologue. Perhaps the epilogue—the insertion of the marriage in the register—was frustrated; possibly this letter was found before its time, and the despatching it to Mr. Fauntleroy marred the whole. How can we say?"
"We can't say," returned old Mynn. "One thing I can say and affirm—that there's no record; and had the letter been a genuine one, the entry would be there now."
"I wonder if Mr. Fauntleroy believes the entry to be there?" cried Mr. Littelby. "I am nearly sure that he has not given notice of the contrary to Mrs. Carr. She would have told me if he had."
"If Fauntleroy has been so foolish as to take the information in the letter for granted, without sending to see the register, he must put up with the consequences," said old Mynn; "I shall not enlighten him."
He spoke as he felt—cross. Mr. Mynn was not pleased at having spent the best part of the day over what he had found to be a fool's errand; neither did he like to have been startled unnecessarily. He sat down and drew the papers before him, saying something to the effect that perhaps they could attend to their legitimate business, now that the other was disposed of. Mr. Littelby caught the cue, and resolved to say no more in that office of Carr versus Carr.
And so, it was a sort of diamond cut diamond. Mr. Fauntleroy had said nothing to Mynn and Mynn of his private information; and Mynn and Mynn would say nothing to Mr. Fauntleroy of theirs.
Christmas drew on. Mrs. Dundyke, alone now, for Mr. Carr had gone back to Holland, was seated one afternoon by her drawing-room fire, in the twilight, musing very sadly on the past. The servants were at tea in the kitchen, and one of them had just been up to ask her mistress if she would take a cup, as she sometimes did before her late dinner, and had gone down again, leaving unintentionally the room door unlatched.
As the girl entered the kitchen, the sound of laughter and merriment came forth to the ears of Mrs. Dundyke. It quite jarred upon her heart. How often has it occurred to us, bending under the weight of some secret trouble that goes well-nigh to break us, to envy our unconscious servants, who seem to have no care!
The kitchen door closed again, and silence supervened—a silence that soon began to make itself felt, as it will in these moments of gloom. Mrs. Dundyke was aroused from it in a remarkable manner; not violently or loudly, but still in so strange a way, that her mouth opened in consternation as she listened, and she rose noiselessly from her chair in a sort of horror.
She had distinctly heard the latch-key put into the street-door lock; just as she had heard it many a time when her husband used to come home from business in the year last gone by. She heard it turned in the lock, the peculiar click it used to give, and she heard the door quietly open and then close again, as if some one had entered. Not since they went abroad the previous July had she heard those sounds, or had the door thus been opened. There had been but that one latch-key to the door, and Mr. Dundyke, either by chance or intention, had carried it away with him in his pocket. It had been in his pocket during the whole period of their travels, and been lost with him.
What could it mean? Who had come in? Footsteps, slow, hesitating footsteps were crossing the hall; they seemed to halt at the dining-room, and were now ascending the stairs. Mrs. Dundyke was by far too practical a woman to believe in ghosts,