“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.”
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,