George Fenn - This Man's Wife

The manager smiled as he wrote out the document, while Mr Gemp, who seemed as much relieved as if he had been eased of an aching tooth, rose to make a closer inspection of the loaded pistols and the bell-mouthed brass blunderbuss, all of which he tapped gently in turn with the hook of his stick.

“There you are, Mr Gemp,” said the manager smiling. “Now you can go home and feel at rest, for your deeds and warrants will be secure.”

“Yes, sir, to be sure; that’s the way,” said the old man, hastily reading the memorandum, and then placing it in a very old leather pocket-book; “but if you wouldn’t mind, sir, Mr Hallam, sir, I should like to see you lock them all in yonder.”

“Well, then, you shall,” said the manager good-humouredly and taking up the packets he tied them together with some green ferret, swung open the heavy door, which creaked upon its pivots, stepped inside, turned a key with a rattle, and opened a large iron chest, into which he threw the deeds, shut the lid with a clang, locked it ostentatiously, took out the key, backed out, and then closed and locked the great door of the safe.

“There, Mr Gemp; I think you’ll find they are secure now.”

“Safe! safe as the bank!” said the old man with an admiring smile as, with a sigh of relief, he picked up his old rough beaver hat from the floor, stuck it on rather sidewise, and with a short “good-morning,” stamped out, tapping the floor as he went.

“Good-morning, Mr Thickens, sir,” he said, pausing at the outer door to look back over his shoulder at the clerk. “I’ve done my bit o’ business with the manager. It’s all right.”

“Good-morning, Mr Gemp,” said Thickens quietly; and then to himself, as the tap of the stick was heard going down the street, “An important old idiot!”

Several little pieces of business were transacted, and then, according to routine, the manager came behind the counter to relieve his lieutenant, who put on his hat and went to his dinner.

During his absence the manager took his place at his subordinate’s desk, and was very busy making a few calculations, after divers references to a copy of yesterday’s Times , which came regularly by coach.

These calculations made him thoughtful, and he was in the middle of one when his face changed, and turned of a strange waxen hue, but he recovered himself directly.

“Might have expected it,” he said softly; and he went on writing as some one entered the bank.

The visitor was a thin, dejected-looking youth of about two-and-twenty, shabbily dressed in clothes that did not fit him. His face was of a sickly pallor, as if he had just risen from an invalid couch, an idea strengthened by the extremely shortly-cut hair, whose deficiency was made the more manifest by his wearing a hat a full size too large. This was drawn down closely over his forehead, his pressed-out ears acting as brackets to keep it from going lower still.

He was a tamed-down, feeble-looking being, but the spirit was not all gone, for as he came down the street, with the genial friendliness of all dogs towards one who seems to be a stranger and down in the world, Miss Heathery’s fat, ill-conditioned terrier, that she pampered under the belief that it was a dog of good breed, being in an evil temper consequent upon not having been taken for a walk by its mistress, rushed out baying, barking, and snapping at the stranger’s heels.

“Get out, will you?” he shouted; but the dog barked the more, and the stranger looked as if about to run. In fact he did run a few yards, but, as the dog followed, he caught up a flower-pot from a handy window-sill – every one had flower-pots at King’s Castor – and hurled it at the dog.

There was a yell, a crash, and explosion as if of a shell; Miss Heathery’s dog fled, and, without waiting to encounter the owner of the flower-pot, the stranger hurried round the corner, and after an inquiry or two, made for the bank.

“Vicious little beast! Wish I’d killed it,” he grumbled, giving the hat a hoist behind which necessitated another in front, and then the equilibrium adjusting at the sides. “Wonder people keep dogs,” he continued. “A nuisance. Wish I was a dog – somebody’s dog, and well fed. Lead a regular dog’s life, and get none of the bones. Perhaps I shall, though, now.”

The young man looked anything but a bank customer, but he did not hesitate. Merely stopping to give his coat a drag down, and then, tilting his hat slightly, he entered with a swagger, and walked up to the broad counter. Upon this he rested a gloveless hand, an act which seemed to give a little more steadiness to his weak frame.

“Rob,” he said.

The manager raised his head with an affected start.

“Oh, you don’t know me, eh?” said the visitor. “Well, I s’pose I am a bit changed.”

“Know you? You wish to see me?” said Hallam coolly.

“Yes, Mr Robert Hallam; I’ve come down from London on purpose. I couldn’t come before,” he added meaningly, “but now I want to have a talk with you.”

“Stephen Crellock! Why, you are changed.”

“Yes, as aforesaid.”

“Well, sir. What is it you want with me?” said the manager coldly.

“What do I want with you, eh? Oh, come, that’s rich! You’re a lucky one, you are. I go to prison, and you get made manager down here. Ah! you see I know all about it.”

“I do not understand you, sir.”

“Then I’ll tell you, my fine fellow. Some men never get found out, some do; that’s the difference between us two. I’ve gone to the wall – inside it,” he added, with a sickly grin. “You’ve got to be quite the gentleman. But they’ll find you out some day.”

“Well, sir, what is this to lead up to?” said Hallam.

“Oh, I say though, Rob Hallam, this is too rich. Manager here, and going, they say, to marry the prettiest girl in the place.” Hallam started in spite of his self-command. “And I suppose I shall be asked to the wedding, shan’t I?”

“Will you be so good as to explain what is the object of this visit?” said Hallam coldly.

“Why, can’t you see? I’ve come to the bank because I want some money. There, you need not look like that, my lad. It’s my turn now, and you’ve got to put things a bit straight for me after what I suffered sooner than speak.”

“Do you mean you have come here to insult me and make me send for a constable?” cried Hallam.

“Yes, if you like,” said the young man, leaning forward, and gazing full in the manager’s face; “send for one if you like. But you don’t like, Robert Hallam. There, I’m a man of few words. I’ve suffered a deal just through being true to my mate, and now you’ve got to make it up to me.”

“You scoun – ”

“Sh! That’ll do. Just please yourself, my fine fellow; only, if you don’t play fair towards the man who let things go against him without a word, I shall just go round the town and say – ”

“Silence, you scoundrel!” cried Hallam fiercely; and he caught his unpleasant visitor by the arm.

Just then James Thickens entered, as quietly as a shadow, taking everything in at a glance, but without evincing any surprise.

“Think yourself lucky, sir,” continued Hallam aloud, “that I do not have you locked up. Mr Thickens, see this man off the premises.”

Then, in a whisper that his visitor alone could hear, and with a meaning look:

“Be quiet and go. Come to my rooms to-night.”

“I think that’s all, Mr Hallam, sir,” said Mrs Pinet, looking plump, smiling, and contented, as she ran her eyes over the tea-table in the bank manager’s comfortably-furnished room – “tea-pot, cream, salt, pepper, butter, bread,” – she ran on below her breath in rapid enumeration, “why, bless my heart, I didn’t bring the sauce!”