THE FIRST ENTRY IN GEORGE HADDON'S NOTE BOOK 13 THE FOURTH ENTRY-PRINCE MICHAEL'S GIFT THE SECOND ENTRY-THE SECRET OF ALI THE NUBIAN 19 THE FIFTH ENTRY-THE RING RETURNED 41 widower, the same luck seemed to attend that the bank was broke! And yet there him. Although there was no lady to take were none of the usual signs of a house the position of hostess, Mr. Middleham's which has stopped payment, clerks went garden-parties, at his lovely villa, at in and out between the policemen, with Loddonford, on the Thames, were attended astonishment and dismay in their faces, by those persons whom the fashionable but depositing notes and bills in their world most delights to honour, and he had black leather pouches with customary the opportunity-of which he but seldom business regularity, and no written or took advantage-of intimacy at some of the printed notice of any kind was pasted on best houses. He was, in his later years at the open doors. The provision-merchant least, a quiet domestic little man, happiest could not make it out, and was himself in pottering about his fine grounds, and nearly frantic with curiosity; he flung giving directions to the gardeners (which himself into the crowd, and by dint of would have resulted in the complete stamping on feet, and twisting his elbows destruction of anything like beauty, and into stomachs and faces, struggled to the which the men received with humility doorstep, and was landed within the and never acted on) and in lying out in rescuing clutch of one of the constables, to his punt on the river, in the shade of the whom he was known, and to whom he overhanging trees, reading Horace. Occa- gaspingly addressed the question, "What's sionally, perhaps once or twice a month, the matter?" he would inhabit some rooms over the bank, which he had furnished when a bachelor, and which he still used when business matters detained him in town. One morning when the provision-merchant, who lived at Highbury, and invariably came into the city occupying the same seat on the same omnibus, descended at the corner of the lane, he found the narrow space usually taken up by his own vans occupied by a pushing surging mass of humanity, a crowd which ebbed and flowed, elbowed and fought, and was hoarse and mad with excitement. The provision-merchant's first idea was that his premises were on fire. That was the haunting demon of his life, ruining his rest at Highbury, and rendering all the pleasures and profit of enormous exports comparatively valueless. But when he looked up and saw the crane peacefully at work, and the firkins as usual dangling in mid-air; when-knowing full well that frizzling bacon and lard will smell-he sniffed, and found no answering odour; when he found no trace of smoke or flame, he was re-assured. It was round Middleham's premises that the crowd was fighting, and at Middleham's door were stationed two policemen. The provisionmerchant, whose healthy colour, startled by his first fright, had come back to his pendulous cheeks, turned pale again. He kept a tolerably heavy account at Middleham's, as his father and grandfather had done before him, and over and above the ordinary balance, there was a special sum of five thousand pounds, paid in last week and destined to be that day remitted to his Irish bacon-factors, and it was plain The officer, a full-fed personage, with a red face and gorgeous whiskers, whose tightly buttoned blue tunic seemed to fit him like a skin, paused a moment, in order that his hearer might be duly impressed, and then said, in a fat whisper, "Murder! "What?" shrieked the provisionmerchant, who would have fallen back had he not been propped up by the crowd. "Murder," repeated the policeman. "Mr. Middleham-up there!" and he jerked his thumb in the direction of the upper story. "Good Lord, how did it happen? Who did it? Have they caught him? Tell us all about it!" said the provision-merchant, essaying to steady himself against pressure by leaning on the sturdy blue breast before him. But the constable pushed him gently off, murmuring, "No time now, sir. They'll tell you all about it in your place, they know all the particulars there." Then in a louder tone he cried, making a rush at the crowd, "now, will you stand back, and let them as has business, come and do it? Will you move on there, I say! The news was true. Mr. Middleham had been up in town and at his business as usual on the previous day, and late in the afternoon had sent a message to the housekeeper, the only person who resided on the premises, announcing his intention of sleeping at the bank that night, and desiring that his rooms might be prepared. He left the bank shortly before the closing hour, and returned about nine in the evening. Where he had been in the interval was not precisely known, but he was believed to have walked to his club at the West-end, and to have dined there. This was his ordinary practice when he remained in town, and there was no reason to think he would have departed from it on the present occasion. At half-past ten the housekeeper, who had been for thirty years in the service of the family, took her master a jug of hot water, which, with the spirit-case and the sugar-basin, she placed by his side on the table at which he was working at accounts. With the freedom which such length of service gave her, the woman expressed her regret that her master should be engaged in business matters so late, and Mr. Middleham replied pleasantly, avowing that though work was little more irksome to him than when he started in life, he should not then be occupying himself but for the absence on a confidential mission on the Continent of Mr. Heath, the principal cashier. Mr. Heath, however, was expected back the next day, and Mr. Middleham laughingly assured the housekeeper that she should not see him for a long time, as he intended to pass his evenings regularly at Loddonford until the bad weather set in. The woman then wished him good-night and left him. That was the last time he was seen alive. There was seldom any occasion to waken Mr. Middleham. Amongst his country habits was one of early rising, and when he slept in London he was generally up by seven o'clock, and had a stroll to London Bridge to look at the shipping, or through Billingsgate or Leadenhall markets, before breakfast. When, therefore, on the next morning eight o'clock came and there were no signs of her master, the housekeeper fancied that, tired out with the previous night's work, he must have overslept himself, and, going to his room, tapped at the door. There was no reply, and, believing him to be still asleep, the woman went away, returning in half-an-hour's time, when she repeated her knocking, again without effect. By this time, Mr. Frodsham, the second clerk, who in the absence of Mr. Heath, the principal cashier, attended early to make preparations for the opening of the bank, had arrived, and the housekeeper, somewhat nervous, went downstairs, and besought him to accompany her to her master's door. Mr. Frodsham, a highly respectable but rather stupid elderly man, whose stupidity had caused him to be passed over in the bank, and whose chief idea was never to do anything beyond that for which he was engaged, at first declined, pleading that to arouse Mr. Middleham was no part of his duty; but being further persuaded, and, moreover, finding it necessary to obtain the key of the strong room, which was in Mr. Middleham's possession, he consented, and the two proceeded together to the chamber door. The woman knocked, and still there was no reply. Then Mr. Frodsham, feeling that he had committed himself by coming, and could only compromise himself a little more by taking part in the proceedings, tried his hand at rapping, and, finding it of no avail, touched the door-handle. To his surprise it turned within his grasp, and there was nothing to prove an obstacle to their entering the room. They entered accordingly. The chamber was dark, the Venetian blinds being down. Noiselessly they advanced a few steps; then halted. "Mr. Middleham!" said the clerk. keeper. No reply. No sound at all, save the ticking of the old-fashioned clock on the mantelpiece, where a battered old bronze Time was leaning on an hour-glass, that looked like a couple of inverted kettledrums, and aiming his dart in the direction of the closed curtains of the bed. "He sleeps heavily, ma'am, whispered Mr. Frodsham. "I'm afraid he's ill," said the housekeeper, in the same tone. "Such a regular gentleman and-will you mind pulling up the blind? This was clearly not in his engagement; but the old gentleman yielded, with a sigh. The blinds pulled up, the small table which usually stood by the bedside was discovered to be overturned, and the watch, pocket-book, and candlestick on the floor. When she saw this, the woman turned deadly pale and burst into tears. 'I'm sure he's ill!" she said, rushing to the bed and drawing back the curtains. The next moment she fell back with a scream; and the old clerk, bending forward, saw his master's body lying stiff and lifeless across the bed. "Life had been extinct some hours before the discovery of the body," said a young gentleman of three-and-twenty (vainly endeavouring, by the adoption of spectacles and a shaved forehead to make himself look like three-and-thirty), who was fetched from a neighbouring surgery, where he passed his time in eating Tolu lozenges, out of one of the drawers, and taking "pot-shots" at a plaster of Paris motive. And that," he added, after a horse, which stood in the window, with pause, "I don't at present see. It could corks which he picked out of another not be robbery, for here," stooping down drawer. "The cause? There was not and gathering the articles from the floor, much doubt about that!" And the young "here is deceased's watch and pocketgentleman pointed to the face of the book. If the object of the murderer had corpse, which was of a ghastly, livid hue, been robbery, he would not have left these and to the swollen throat, on which there behind! were blue marks, and scratches, and indentations. A horrible idea flashed across Mr. Frodsham's mind. At his first glance at the body he thought his master had had a fit, but he guessed the truth now, and called out in a voice quivering with emotion, "Good God! Mr. Middleham has been murdered!" "What about the bank?" cried Mr. Frodsham, growing impatient. "The bank!" said the sergeant, to whom the words conveyed an entirely new idea, but who, nevertheless, contrived to suppress any sign of surprise, "the bank! I was a-comin' to that, sir! We must see if they've been up to any of their games down-stairs." "Precisely!" said the young surgeon, We must take Mr. Middleham's keys who began to look upon the incident as a with us, if you please," said Mr. Frodgreat stroke of luck; to see his way to sham. "There's one on the bunch which being called as a witness on the inquest; opens the safe in the private office, where to getting his name into the papers, and the key of the strong-room is always perhaps to reaching that much-thought-of kept. I must have that at once, to give turning-point in his career, which, a few out the money, for it's close upon nine hours before, had seemed such a long way o'clock." off. "Oh!" cried the housekeeper, who, honestly and sincerely affected, was shedding tears copiously, was my poor master strangled, then, sir?" "Strangled is the ordinary word," said the surgeon, settling his spectacles, and concentrating all his energies into looking clever, we have another term in the profession, which-which, however, I need not enter upon just now. The police must be sent for," continued the young man, who knew the routine of these matters, from having been assistant to the divisional surgeon, "and there'll be an inquest and so on, at which, of course, I shall have to be present. I'll take the liberty of leaving my card upon the mantelpiece: I live quite handy here. Good day, for the present!" And as he went down-stairs, he had a pleasant word or two with an old acquaintance, the sergeant of police, who had been summoned. The police investigation was of the usual character. The sergeant, a type of his class, steady, sturdy and stupid, after a careful inspection of the body, made with a certain amount of decency and reverence, announced his conviction that "violence had been used," an opinion which seemed to be infinitely consoling to the two constables who accompanied him. "The crime being settled," prosed the worthy sergeant, looking round upon his little audience of four, we come to the But the bunch of keys was nowhere to be found. The housekeeper was almost positive she had noticed them at her master's elbow, when she took up the spirit-case on the previous night, and the dining-room, as well as the bed-room, was thoroughly searched, but without any result. What was to be done? The time was getting on and the bank must be opened. Then Mr. Frodsham suddenly recollected that young Danby, who acted as a kind of confidential clerk and private secretary to Mr. Middleham, had another key of the safe. Mr. Danby had probably arrived by that time; they had better go down. So they went down, leaving the weeping housekeeper to perform the last offices for the dead man whom she had served so long in life; the sergeant, who ever since he had heard of Mr. Danby's having a duplicate key of the safe, had been solemnly endeavouring to think, walking with a meditative air, and abstractedly feeling in the hind pocket of his coat for handcuffs. When they reached the bank, they found most of the clerks already arrived, gathered together in a cluster, and expressing their curiosity as to what could have happened, the only clue having been some mysterious words uttered by the office porter, who had seen the entrance of the constables, and who had concluded therefrom that something was "up." Mr. Danby, standing a little |