Ruth (54 page)

As it happened, the answer from the Insurance Company (directed to
the firm) was given to Mr Bradshaw along with the other business
letters. It was to the effect that Mr Benson's shares had been sold
and transferred above a twelvemonth ago, which sufficiently accounted
for the circumstance that no notification of the bonus had been sent
to him.

Mr Bradshaw tossed the letter on one side, not displeased to have
a good reason for feeling a little contempt at the unbusiness-like
forgetfulness of Mr Benson, at whose instance some one had evidently
been writing to the Insurance Company. On Mr Farquhar's entrance he
expressed this feeling to him.

"Really," he said, "these Dissenting ministers have no more notion of
exactitude in their affairs than a child! The idea of forgetting that
he has sold his shares, and applying for the bonus, when it seems he
has transferred them only a year ago!"

Mr Farquhar was reading the letter while Mr Bradshaw spoke.

"I don't quite understand it," said he. "Mr Benson was quite clear
about it. He could not have received his half-yearly dividends unless
he had been possessed of these shares; and I don't suppose Dissenting
ministers, with all their ignorance of business, are unlike other men
in knowing whether or not they receive the money that they believe to
be owing to them."

"I should not wonder if they were—if Benson was, at any rate. Why,
I never knew his watch to be right in all my life—it was always too
fast or too slow; it must have been a daily discomfort to him. It
ought to have been. Depend upon it, his money matters are just in the
same irregular state; no accounts kept, I'll be bound."

"I don't see that that follows," said Mr Farquhar, half amused.
"That watch of his is a very curious one—belonged to his father and
grandfather, I don't know how far back."

"And the sentimental feelings which he is guided by prompt him to
keep it, to the inconvenience of himself and every one else."

Mr Farquhar gave up the subject of the watch as hopeless.

"But about this letter. I wrote, at Mr Benson's desire, to the
Insurance Office, and I am not satisfied with this answer. All the
transaction has passed through our hands. I do not think it is likely
Mr Benson would write and sell the shares without, at any rate,
informing us at the time, even though he forgot all about it
afterwards."

"Probably he told Richard, or Mr Watson."

"We can ask Mr Watson at once. I am afraid we must wait till Richard
comes home, for I don't know where a letter would catch him."

Mr Bradshaw pulled the bell that rang into the head-clerk's room,
saying as he did so,

"You may depend upon it, Farquhar, the blunder lies with
Benson himself. He is just the man to muddle away his money in
indiscriminate charity, and then to wonder what has become of it."

Mr Farquhar was discreet enough to hold his tongue.

"Mr Watson," said Mr Bradshaw, as the old clerk made his appearance,
"here is some mistake about those Insurance shares we purchased for
Benson ten or a dozen years ago. He spoke to Mr Farquhar about some
bonus they are paying to the shareholders, it seems; and, in reply to
Mr Farquhar's letter, the Insurance Company say the shares were sold
twelve months since. Have you any knowledge of the transaction? Has
the transfer passed through your hands? By the way" (turning to Mr
Farquhar), "who kept the certificates? Did Benson or we?"

"I really don't know," said Mr Farquhar. "Perhaps Mr Watson can tell
us."

Mr Watson meanwhile was studying the letter. When he had ended it, he
took off his spectacles, wiped them, and replacing them, he read it
again.

"It seems very strange, sir," he said at length, with his trembling,
aged voice, "for I paid Mr Benson the account of the dividends myself
last June, and got a receipt in form, and that is since the date of
the alleged transfer."

"Pretty nearly twelve months after it took place," said Mr Farquhar.

"How did you receive the dividends? An order on the Bank, along with
old Mrs Cranmer's?" asked Mr Bradshaw, sharply.

"I don't know how they came. Mr Richard gave me the money, and
desired me to get the receipt."

"It's unlucky Richard is from home," said Mr Bradshaw. "He could have
cleared up this mystery for us."

Mr Farquhar was silent.

"Do you know where the certificates were kept, Mr Watson?" said he.

"I'll not be sure, but I think they were with Mrs Cranmer's papers
and deeds in box A, 24."

"I wish old Cranmer would have made any other man his executor. She,
too, is always coming with some unreasonable request or other."

"Mr Benson's inquiry about his bonus is perfectly reasonable, at any
rate."

Mr Watson, who was dwelling in the slow fashion of age on what had
been said before, now spoke:

"I'll not be sure, but I am almost certain, Mr Benson said, when I
paid him last June, that he thought he ought to give the receipt on
a stamp, and had spoken about it to Mr Richard the time before, but
that Mr Richard said it was of no consequence. Yes," continued he,
gathering up his memory as he went on, "he did—I remember now—and
I thought to myself that Mr Richard was but a young man. Mr Richard
will know all about it."

"Yes," said Mr Farquhar, gravely.

"I shan't wait till Richard's return," said Mr Bradshaw. "We can soon
see if the certificates are in the box Watson points out; if they are
there, the Insurance people are no more fit to manage their concern
than that cat, and I shall tell them so. If they are not there (as
I suspect will prove to be the case), it is just forgetfulness on
Benson's part, as I have said from the first."

"You forget the payment of the dividends," said Mr Farquhar, in a low
voice.

"Well, sir! what then?" said Mr Bradshaw, abruptly. While he
spoke—while his eye met Mr Farquhar's—the hinted meaning of the
latter flashed through his mind; but he was only made angry to find
that such a suspicion could pass through any one's imagination.

"I suppose I may go, sir," said Watson, respectfully, an uneasy
consciousness of what was in Mr Farquhar's thoughts troubling the
faithful old clerk.

"Yes. Go. What do you mean about the dividends?" asked Mr Bradshaw,
impetuously of Mr Farquhar.

"Simply, that I think there can have been no forgetfulness—no
mistake on Mr Benson's part," said Mr Farquhar, unwilling to put his
dim suspicion into words.

"Then of course it is some blunder of that confounded Insurance
Company. I will write to them to-day, and make them a little brisker
and more correct in their statements."

"Don't you think it would be better to wait till Richard's return? He
may be able to explain it."

"No, sir!" said Mr Bradshaw, sharply. "I do not think it would be
better. It has not been my way of doing business to spare any one,
or any company, the consequences of their own carelessness; nor to
obtain information second-hand when I could have it direct from the
source. I shall write to the Insurance Office by the next post."

Mr Farquhar saw that any further remonstrance on his part would
only aggravate his partner's obstinacy; and, besides, it was but a
suspicion—an uncomfortable suspicion. It was possible that some of
the clerks at the Insurance Office might have made a mistake. Watson
was not sure, after all, that the certificates had been deposited in
box A, 24; and when he and Mr Farquhar could not find them there,
the old man drew more and yet more back from his first assertion of
belief that they had been placed there.

Mr Bradshaw wrote an angry and indignant reproach of carelessness to
the Insurance Company. By the next mail one of their clerks came down
to Eccleston; and having leisurely refreshed himself at the inn, and
ordered his dinner with care, he walked up to the great warehouse of
Bradshaw and Co., and sent in his card, with a pencil notification,
"On the part of the Star Insurance Company," to Mr Bradshaw himself.

Mr Bradshaw held the card in his hand for a minute or two without
raising his eyes. Then he spoke out loud and firm:

"Desire the gentleman to walk up. Stay! I will ring my bell in a
minute or two, and then show him upstairs."

When the errand-boy had closed the door, Mr Bradshaw went to a
cupboard where he usually kept a glass and a bottle of wine (of which
he very seldom partook, for he was an abstemious man). He intended
now to take a glass, but the bottle was empty; and though there was
plenty more to be had for ringing, or even simply going into another
room, he would not allow himself to do this. He stood and lectured
himself in thought.

"After all, I am a fool for once in my life. If the certificates are
in no box which I have yet examined, that does not imply they may not
be in some one which I have not had time to search. Farquhar would
stay so late last night! And even if they are in none of the boxes
here, that does not prove—" He gave the bell a jerking ring, and it
was yet sounding when Mr Smith, the insurance clerk, entered.

The manager of the Insurance Company had been considerably nettled at
the tone of Mr Bradshaw's letter; and had instructed the clerk to
assume some dignity at first in vindicating (as it was well in his
power to do) the character of the proceedings of the Company, but
at the same time he was not to go too far, for the firm of Bradshaw
and Co. was daily looming larger in the commercial world, and if any
reasonable explanation could be given it was to be received, and
bygones be bygones.

"Sit down, sir!" said Mr Bradshaw.

"You are aware, sir, I presume, that I come on the part of Mr
Dennison, the manager of the Star Insurance Company, to reply in
person to a letter of yours, of the 29th, addressed to him?"

Mr Bradshaw bowed. "A very careless piece of business," he said,
stiffly.

"Mr Dennison does not think you will consider it as such when you
have seen the deed of transfer, which I am commissioned to show you."

Mr Bradshaw took the deed with a steady hand. He wiped his spectacles
quietly, without delay, and without hurry, and adjusted them on his
nose. It is possible that he was rather long in looking over the
document—at least, the clerk had just begun to wonder if he was
reading through the whole of it, instead of merely looking at the
signature, when Mr Bradshaw said: "It is possible that it may be—of
course, you will allow me to take this paper to Mr Benson, to—to
inquire if this be his signature?"

"There can be no doubt of it, I think, sir," said the clerk, calmly
smiling, for he knew Mr Benson's signature well.

"I don't know, sir—I don't know." (He was speaking as if the
pronunciation of every word required a separate effort of will, like
a man who has received a slight paralytic stroke.)

"You have heard, sir, of such a thing as forgery—forgery, sir?" said
he, repeating the last word very distinctly; for he feared that the
first time he had said it, it was rather slurred over.

"Oh, sir! there is no room for imagining such a thing, I assure you.
In our affairs we become aware of curious forgetfulness on the part
of those who are not of business habits."

"Still I should like to show it Mr Benson, to prove to him his
forgetfulness, you know. I believe, on my soul, it is some of his
careless forgetfulness—I do, sir," said he. Now he spoke very
quickly. "It must have been. Allow me to convince myself. You shall
have it back to-night, or the first thing in the morning."

The clerk did not quite like to relinquish the deed, nor yet did
he like to refuse Mr Bradshaw. If that very uncomfortable idea of
forgery should have any foundation in truth—and he had given up
the writing! There were a thousand chances to one against its being
anything but a stupid blunder; the risk was more imminent of
offending one of the directors.

As he hesitated, Mr Bradshaw spoke, very calmly, and almost with
a smile on his face. He had regained his self-command. "You are
afraid, I see. I assure you, you may trust me. If there has been any
fraud—if I have the slightest suspicion of the truth of the surmise
I threw out just now,"—he could not quite speak the bare naked word
that was chilling his heart—"I will not fail to aid the ends of
justice, even though the culprit should be my own son."

He ended, as he began, with a smile—such a smile!—the stiff lips
refused to relax and cover the teeth. But all the time he kept saying
to himself:

"I don't believe it—I don't believe it. I'm convinced it's a blunder
of that old fool Benson."

But when he had dismissed the clerk, and secured the piece of paper,
he went and locked the door, and laid his head on his desk, and
moaned aloud.

He had lingered in the office for the two previous nights; at first,
occupying himself in searching for the certificates of the Insurance
shares; but, when all the boxes and other repositories for papers had
been ransacked, the thought took hold of him that they might be in
Richard's private desk; and, with the determination which overlooks
the means to get at the end, he had first tried all his own keys on
the complicated lock, and then broken it open with two decided blows
of a poker, the instrument nearest at hand. He did not find the
certificates. Richard had always considered himself careful in
destroying any dangerous or tell-tale papers; but the stern father
found enough, in what remained, to convince him that his pattern
son—more even than his pattern son, his beloved pride—was far other
than what he seemed.

Mr Bradshaw did not skip or miss a word. He did not shrink while he
read. He folded up letter by letter; he snuffed the candle just when
its light began to wane, and no sooner; but he did not miss or omit
one paper—he read every word. Then, leaving the letters in a heap
upon the table, and the broken desk to tell its own tale, he locked
the door of the room which was appropriated to his son as junior
partner, and carried the key away with him.