CHAPTER XXI.

GIVEN INTO CUSTODY.

They sat at the well-spread dessert-table in Grosvenor Square, those two gentlemen, the sole partners of almost the wealthiest house in London; keen, honourable, first-rate men of business, yet presenting somewhat of a contrast in themselves. He at the table head, Francis Grubb, was fine and stately, wearing in his countenance, in its expression of form and feature, the impress of true nobility--nature's nobility, not that of the peerage--and young yet. James Howard, who might be called the chief partner, so far as work and constant, regular attendance in the City went, though he did not receive anything like an equal share of the profits, was an elderly man, high-shouldered, his face hard and stern, his hair iron-grey, and his black coat rusty. Mr. Howard had walked up from his house in Russell Square this evening to confer with his chief upon some matter of business. It a little surprised Mr. Grubb: for, with them, business discussions were always confined to their legitimate province--the City.

The Lady Adela, Mr. Grubb's rebellious but very charming wife, quitted the room speedily, leaving them to the discussion that Mr. Howard had intimated he wished for. But Mr. Howard did not show himself in any haste to enter upon it. He sat on, surveying abstractedly the glittering table before him, with its rich cut glass, its silver, its china, and its sweet flowers, talking--abstractedly also--of the passing topics of the day, more particularly of a political meeting which had taken place that afternoon. Mr. Grubb was a Conservative; he a Liberal; or, as it was more often styled in those days, Tory and Whig.

"What news is it that you have brought me, Howard?" began Mr. Grubb, at last, breaking a pause of silence.

"Ay--my news," returned Mr. Howard, as though recalled to the thought. "Did you draw a cheque on Saturday morning, before leaving home, in favour of self, and get it cashed at Glyn's?"

Mr. Grubb threw his thoughts back on Saturday morning. The reminiscence was unpleasant. The scene which had taken place with his wife was painful to him, disgraceful to her. He had drawn no cheque.

"No," he answered, thinking a great deal more of that scene than of Mr. Howard's question.

"A cheque for five hundred pounds, in favour of self?" continued Mr. Howard, slowly sipping his port wine.

"I don't draw at Glyn's in favour of self. You know that, Howard, as well as I do." Messrs. Glyn and Co. were the bankers of the firm; Coutts and Co. the private bankers of Mr. Grubb.

"Just so. Therefore, upon the fact coming to our notice this afternoon that such a cheque had been drawn and paid, I stepped over to Glyn's and made inquiries."

"How did it come to your notice?"

"This way. John Strasfield had all the cheques drawn last week sent to him for the usual purpose of verification--he has his own ways of doing his business, you know. In looking over them he was rather struck with this cheque, because it was drawn to self. Self, too; not selves. After regarding it for a minute or two, another thought struck him--that the signature was not quite like yours. So he brought the cheque to me. I don't think you signed it."

Mr. Grubb rose and closed the door, which he had left ajar after opening it for Lady Adela, the evening being very warm. John Strasfield was their confidential cashier in Leadenhall Street.

"If it is your signature, your hand must have been nervous when you wrote it," continued Mr. Howard, "rendering the letters less decided than usual."

That Mr. Grubb had been nervous on Saturday morning he was quite conscious of; though not, he believed, to the extent of making his hand unsteady. But he had not drawn any cheque.

"It was drawn in favour of self, you say. Was it signed with my private signature, Francis C. C. Grubb?"

"No; with the firm's signature, Grubb and Howard. Glyn's people suspected nothing wrong, and cashed it."

"Who presented the cheque?"

"Charles Cleveland. And he received the money."

"Charles Cleveland!" repeated Mr. Grubb, in surprise, his whole attention fully aroused now. "There is some mystery about this."

"So it seemed to me," answered the elder man. "Cleveland stayed out of town today--by your leave, I think you said."

"Yes, he asked me on Saturday to let him have today; he was going down to Netherleigh: his elder brother, Captain Cleveland, meant to run down there to say good-bye, Charles will be back tonight, I suppose. But--I don't understand about this cheque."

"I'm sure I don't," said Mr. Howard. "Except that Charles Cleveland got it cashed."

"Where did Charles Cleveland procure the cheque?" asked Mr. Grubb, his head all in a puzzle. "Who drew the cheque? Where's the money? Howard, there must be some mistake in your information."

"It was Saturday morning that you left the cheque-book at home, and sent Cleveland for it, if you remember," said Mr. Howard, quietly.

"Ah, to be sure it was; I do remember. A long while he was gone."

"You asked him what made him so long: I chanced to be in your room at the moment: and he said he had been doing a little errand for himself. Well, during the period of his absence, that is, somewhere between ten and half-past eleven, the cheque was presented by him at Glyn's, and cashed. What does it all say?" concluded Mr. Howard.

Francis Grubb looked a little bewildered. No clear idea upon the point was suggesting itself to his mind.

"I thought young Cleveland was given to improvident habits," resumed Mr. Howard, "but I never suspected he was one to help himself to money in this way; to----"

"He _cannot_ have done it," interrupted Mr. Grubb, earnestly decisive. "It is quite impossible. Charles Cleveland is foolish and silly enough, just as boys will be, for he is no better than a boy; but he is honest and honourable."

"Are you aware that he spends a great deal of money?"

"I think he does. I said so to him last week. It was that pouring wet day, Wednesday I think, and I told him he might go down to Leadenhall Street with me in the carriage, if he liked. I took the opportunity of speaking to him about his expenditure, telling him it was a great deal easier to get into debt than to get out of it."

"Which he had found out for himself, I expect," grumbled Mr. Howard. "How did he receive it?"

"As ingenuously as you could wish. Blushed like a school-girl. He confessed that he had been spending too much money lately, and laid it chiefly to the score of his brother's being in London. Captain Cleveland's comrades are rather an extravagant set; the allowance that he gets from his uncle is good; and Charles has been led into expense through mixing with them. The very moment his brother left, he said, he should draw in and spend next to nothing."

Mr. Howard smiled grimly. "One evening, strolling out after my dinner, I chanced to meet my young gentleman, came full upon him as he was turning out of a florist's, a big bouquet of white flowers in his hand. 'You must have given a guinea for that, young sir,' I said to him, and he did not deny it; just leaped into a cab and was off. I don't suppose those flowers were presented to Captain Cleveland or to any of his comrades."

Mr. Grubb knitted his brow. He had not the slightest doubt they were intended for his wife. What a silly fellow that Charley was!

"He may get into debt; I feel sure he is in debt; but he would not commit forgery--or help himself to money that was not his. I tell you, Howard, the thing is impossible."

"He presented the cheque and received the money," dryly remarked Mr. Howard. "What has he done with it?"

"But no one, not oven a madman, would go to work in this barefaced way," contended his more generous-minded partner, "conscious that it must bring immediate detection and punishment upon his head."

"Detection, yes; punishment does not necessarily follow. That, he may be already safe from."

"How do you mean?"

"Suppose you inquire what clothes he took with him," suggested Mr. Howard. "My impression is that he's off. Gone. The Netherleigh tale may have been only a blind."

Mr. Grubb rose and rang the bell, staggered nearly out of his senses; and, until it was answered, not another word was spoken. Each gentleman was busy with his own thoughts.

"Richard," began the master to his servant, "when Mr. Charles Cleveland left for the country yesterday morning, did he take much luggage with him?"

"I don't think he took any, sir; unless it was his small portmanteau."

"Did you happen to hear him say whether he intended to make a long stay?"

"I did not hear him say anything, sir: he went out early, to catch the first train. But Mr. Cleveland is back."

"Back!" echoed Mr. Howard, surprised into the interference.

"Yes, sir, just now, and went out again as soon as he had dressed. He is gone to dine at the Army and Navy."

"Then no elucidation can now take place until morning," observed Mr. Grubb, as the servant withdrew. "When he has gone out lately on these dining bouts he does not get home till late, sometimes not at all. But rely upon it, Howard, this matter will be cleared up satisfactorily, so far as he is concerned. Though what the mystery attending the cheque can be, I am not able to imagine."

"I'm sure I am not, looking at it from your point of view," returned the elder man. "See here: you come down to Leadenhall Street on Saturday morning, and find you have left the cheque-book of the firm at home here. You send Charles Cleveland for it, telling him to take a cab and to make haste. After being away three or four times as long as he need be, he comes back with the cheque-book, having found it, he says, where you had told him it probably would be found--in the room where you breakfasted. He does not account for his delay, except by the excuse that he was doing an errand for himself, and begs pardon for it. Well and good. Today we find that a cheque has been abstracted from that same cheque-book, filled in for five hundred pounds, and was cashed by Cleveland himself; all during this same interval on Saturday morning when he declines to account for his time. What do you make of it?"

Put thus plainly before him, Mr. Grubb did not know what to make of it, and his faith in Charles Cleveland began to waver. The most confiding mind cannot fight altogether against palpable facts. Mr. Howard opened his pocketbook, took the cheque in question from it, and laid it, open, before his senior partner.

"This is not Cleveland's writing," remarked Mr. Grubb.

"Of course not. It is an imitation of yours. That is, not his ordinary handwriting. He has done it pretty cleverly. Glyn's were deceived. Not but that I consider Glyn's clerk was incautious not to see the difference between 'self' and 'selves.' He says he did not notice the word at all: but he ought to have noticed it."

"It is a singular affair altogether," observed Mr. Grubb, in a musing tone. "To begin with, my bringing home the cheque-book at all was singular. You were not in the City on Friday, you know, Howard, and----"

"I couldn't come when I was ill," grunted out Mr. Howard.

"My dear, good old friend, do you suppose I thought you could?" answered Mr. Grubb, checking a laugh. "I was going to say that, as you were absent, I signed the cheques on Friday, and the book lay on my desk. It happened that my private cheque-book also lay there. When I left, I put the firm's cheque-book in my pocket by mistake, and locked up the other; meaning, of course, to do just the contrary. But for this carelessness on my part, Charles Cleveland would not have had the opportunity of--Good Heavens! what a blow this will be for his father! We must hush it up!"

"Hush it up!" cried out the other and sterner man of business. "Not if I know it. That's just like you, Francis Grubb! Your uncle Francis, my many years' friend, used to accuse you, you know, of having a soft place in your heart."

"I am thinking of that good man, with his many cares, the Rector of Netherleigh."

"And I am thinking of his son's bold, barefaced iniquity. Be you very sure of one thing, sir--Glyn's won't hush it up; they are the wrong people to do it. Neither must you. A pretty example it would be! No, thank you, no more wine! I have had my quantum."

"Well, well, we shall see, Howard. I cannot understand it yet."

When Mr. Grubb got upstairs that night, he found his wife gone out, leaving no message for him. She never did leave any. Darvy thought her lady had gone to the opera. Mr. Grubb followed, and found her there. The box was full, and there was little room for him. He said nothing to her of what had occurred: he meant to keep it from her if he could, to save her pain; and from all others, for the Honourable and Reverend Mr. Cleveland's sake.

Mr. Grubb sat down to breakfast the next morning alone. Lady Adela had not risen; Charles Cleveland did not make his appearance.

"Does Mr. Charles Cleveland know I am at breakfast, Hilson?" he inquired of the butler, who was in attendance.

"Mr. Charles Cleveland left word--I beg your pardon, sir, I forgot to mention it--that he has gone out to breakfast with his brother, Captain Cleveland, who sails today for India. He went out between six and seven."

"He came home last night, then?"

"Yes, sir; about one o'clock."

Mr. Grubb glanced over the letters waiting beside his plate, some for himself, some for Lady Adela. Amidst the former was one from his sister, written the previous day. Her mother (who had been seriously ill for some time) was much worse, she said, and she begged her brother to come down, if possible, in the morning.

It chanced that Mr. Grubb had made one or two appointments for people to see him that morning at his house; so that it was eleven o'clock when he reached Leadenhall Street.

"Well, where is he?" began Mr. Howard, without ceremony of greeting.

"Where's who?" asked Mr. Grubb.

"Charles Cleveland."

"What--is he not come yet?" returned Mr. Grubb, whose thoughts had been elsewhere.

"Not yet. I don't think he means to come."

To be late, or in any other way inattentive to his duties, had not been one of Charley's sins. Therefore his absence was the more remarkable. Mr. Grubb started for Blackheath, almost endorsing Mr. Howard's opinion that the delinquent had embarked with his brother for India; or for some other place not speedily accessible to officers of justice.

Twelve o'clock was striking by St. Paul's when Charley bustled in; hot, and out of breath. He was told that Mr. Howard wanted him.

"I beg your pardon, sir, for being so late," he panted, addressing himself to that gentleman, when he reached his private room, "especially after my holiday of yesterday. I went early this morning to Woolwich, and on board ship with my brother, intending to be back by business hours; but, what with one delay and another, I was unable to get up till now."

"It is not business-like at all, sir," growled the old merchant. "But--stay a bit, Mr. Cleveland; we have a few questions to put to you."

Charles glanced round. In his hurry, he had seen no one but Mr. Howard. His eye now fell on a little man, who sat in a corner. Charley knew him to be connected with Messrs. Glyn's house; and he knew that the time was at hand when he would have need of all his presence of mind and his energies. It chanced that this gentleman had just called to enquire if anything had come to light about the mysterious cheque.

"You presented a cheque for five hundred pounds at Glyn's on Saturday morning, and received the amount in notes," began Mr. Howard, to Charles. "From whom did you get that cheque?"

No reply.

"Purporting to be drawn and signed by Mr. Grubb. I ask from whom you received it?"

"I decline to answer," Charles said at length, speaking with hesitation, in spite of his preparation for firmness.

"Do you deny having presented the cheque?"

"No. I do not deny that."

"Do you deny having received the money for it?" interposed the gentleman from the bank.

"Nor that, either. I acknowledge to having received five hundred pounds. It would be worse than folly to deny it," continued Charles to him, in a sort of calm desperation, "since your clerk could prove the contrary."

"But did you know what you were laying yourself open to?" cried Mr. Howard, evidently in a marvel of astonishment, for he took these admissions of Charles's to be tantamount to an absolute acknowledgment of his guilt.

"I know now, sir."

"Will you refund the money?" asked Mr. Howard, dropping his voice; for that stern man of business had been going over the affair half the night as he lay in bed, and concluded to give the reckless young fellow a chance. Truth to say, Mr. Howard's bark was always worse than his bite. "Out of consideration for your family, connected, as it is, with that of the head of our firm, we are willing to be lenient; and if you will confess, and refund----"

"I cannot refund, and I must decline to answer any more questions," interrupted Charles, fast relapsing into agitation.

Mr. Howard stared at him. "Do you understand, young man, what it is that you would bring upon your head? In point of fact, we are laying ourselves open to, I hardly know what penalty of law, in making you this offer; but Mr. Grubb is anxious it should be hushed up for your father's sake--whom every one respects. If you decline it; if you set me at defiance, as it seems to me you wish to do; I shall have no resource but to give you into custody."

"I beg to state that the matter is not in our hands yet," spoke up the banker to Charles. "If it were, we could not make you any such offer. Though of course we can fully understand and appreciate the motives that actuate your principals, with whom the affair at present wholly rests. It would be a terrible blow to fall on the Cleveland family; and every one must wish to save them from it."

"I--I am very sorry," gasped Charles, feeling all this to his heart's core. "Unfortunately----"

"The matter is not known beyond ourselves," interposed Mr. Howard again, indicating himself and the banker; "and it need not be. But it is solely out of consideration for your family, you understand, that we offer to hush it up. Will you explain?"

"I cannot. Unfortunately, I cannot, sir. It is not in my power?"

"Then I give you in charge at once."

"I can't help it," said poor Charles, passing his hand over his hot brow.

Mr. Howard, very hard, very uncompromising when deliberately provoked, was as good as his word. And Charles Cleveland was given into custody for forgery.