EVENTS succeeded each other rapidly, after the memorable day to Isabel of the luncheon at the farm.
On the next day (the ninth of the month) Lady Lydiard sent for her steward, and requested him to explain his conduct in repeatedly leaving the house without assigning any reason for his absence. She did not dispute his claims to a freedom of action which would not be permitted to an ordinary servant. Her objection to his present course of proceeding related entirely to the mystery in which it was involved, and to the uncertainty in which the household was left as to the hour of his return. On those grounds, she thought herself entitled to an explanation. Moody’s habitual reserve—strengthened, on this occasion, by his dread of ridicule, if his efforts to serve Isabel ended in failure—disinclined him to take Lady Lydiard into his confidence, while his inquiries were still beset with obstacles and doubts. He respectfully entreated her Ladyship to grant him a delay of a few weeks before he entered on his explanation. Lady Lydiard’s quick temper resented his request. She told Moody plainly that he was guilty of an act of presumption in making his own conditions with his employer. He received the reproof with exemplary resignation; but he held to his conditions nevertheless. From that moment the result of the interview was no longer in doubt. Moody was directed to send in his accounts. The accounts having been examined, and found to be scrupulously correct, he declined accepting the balance of salary that was offered to him. The next day he left Lady Lydiard’s service.
On the tenth of the month her Ladyship received a letter from her nephew.
The health of Felix had not improved. He had made up his mind to go abroad again towards the end of the month. In the meantime, he had written to his friend in Paris, and he had the pleasure of forwarding an answer. The letter inclosed announced that the lost five-hundred-pound note had been made the subject of careful inquiry in Paris. It had not been traced. The French police offered to send to London one of their best men, well acquainted with the English language, if Lady Lydiard was desirous of employing him. He would be perfectly willing to act with an English officer in conducting the investigation, should it be thought necessary. Mr. Troy being consulted as to the expediency of accepting this proposal, objected to the pecuniary terms demanded as being extravagantly high. He suggested waiting a little before any reply was sent to Paris; and he engaged meanwhile to consult a London solicitor who had great experience in cases of theft, and whose advice might enable them to dispense entirely with the services of the French police.
Being now a free man again, Moody was able to follow his own inclinations in regard to the instructions which he had received from Old Sharon.
The course that had been recommended to him was repellent to the self-respect and the sense of delicacy which were among the inbred virtues of Moody’s character. He shrank from forcing himself as a friend on Hardyman’s valet: he recoiled from the idea of tempting the man to steal a specimen of his master’s handwriting. After some consideration, he decided on applying to the agent who collected the rents at Hardyman’s London chambers. Being an old acquaintance of Moody’s, this person would certainly not hesitate to communicate the address of Hardyman’s bankers, if he knew it. The experiment, tried under these favoring circumstances, proved perfectly successful. Moody proceeded to Sharon’s lodgings the same day, with the address of the bankers in his pocketbook. The old vagabond, greatly amused by Moody’s scruples, saw plainly enough that, so long as he wrote the supposed letter from Hardyman in the third person, it mattered little what handwriting was employed, seeing that no signature would be necessary. The letter was at once composed, on the model which Sharon had already suggested to Moody, and a respectable messenger (so far as outward appearances went) was employed to take it to the bank. In half an hour the answer came back. It added one more to the difficulties which beset the inquiry after the lost money. No such sum as five hundred pounds had been paid, within the dates mentioned, to the credit of Hardyman’s account.
Old Sharon was not in the least discomposed by this fresh check. “Give my love to the dear young lady,” he said with his customary impudence; “and tell her we are one degree nearer to finding the thief.”
Moody looked at him, doubting whether he was in jest or in earnest.
“Must I squeeze a little more information into that thick head of yours?” asked Sharon. With this question he produced a weekly newspaper, and pointed to a paragraph which reported, among the items of sporting news, Hardyman’s recent visit to a sale of horses at a town in the north of France. “We know he didn’t pay the bank-note in to his account,” Sharon remarked. “What else did he do with it? Took it to pay for the horses that he bought in France! Do you see your way a little plainer now? Very good. Let’s try next if your money holds out. Somebody must cross the Channel in search of the note. Which of us two is to sit in the steam-boat with a white basin on his lap? Old Sharon, of course!” He stopped to count the money still left, out of the sum deposited by Moody to defray the cost of the inquiry. “All right!” he went on. “I’ve got enough to pay my expenses there and back. Don’t stir out of London till you hear from me. I can’t tell how soon I may not want you. If there’s any difficulty in tracing the note, your hand will have to go into your pocket again. Can’t you get the lawyer to join you? Lord! how I should enjoy squandering his money! It’s a downright disgrace to me to have only got one guinea out of him. I could tear my flesh off my bones when I think of it.”
The same night Old Sharon started for France, by way of Dover and Calais.
Two days elapsed, and brought no news from Moody’s agent. On the third day, he received some information relating to Sharon—not from the man himself, but in a letter from Isabel Miller.
“For once, dear Robert,” she wrote, “my judgment has turned out to be sounder than yours. That hateful old man has confirmed my worst opinion of him. Pray have him punished. Take him before a magistrate and charge him with cheating you out of your money. I inclose the sealed letter which he gave me at the farmhouse. The week’s time before I was to open it expired yesterday. Was there ever anything so impudent and so inhuman? I am too vexed and angry about the money you have wasted on this old wretch to write more. Yours, gratefully and affectionately, Isabel.”
The letter in which Old Sharon had undertaken (by way of pacifying Isabel) to write the name of the thief, contained these lines:
“You are a charming girl, my dear; but you still want one thing to make you perfect—and that is a lesson in patience. I am proud and happy to teach you. The name of the thief remains, for the present, Mr. —— (Blank).”
From Moody’s point of view, there was but one thing to be said of this: it was just like Old Sharon! Isabel’s letter was of infinitely greater interest to him. He feasted his eyes on the words above the signature: she signed herself, “Yours gratefully and affectionately.” Did the last words mean that she was really beginning to be fond of him? After kissing the word, he wrote a comforting letter to her, in which he pledged himself to keep a watchful eye on Sharon, and to trust him with no more money until he had honestly earned it first.
A week passed. Moody (longing to see Isabel) still waited in vain for news from France. He had just decided to delay his visit to South Morden no longer, when the errand-boy employed by Sharon brought him this message: “The old ‘un’s at home, and waitin’ to see yer.”
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