The cashier bowed and opened the door. The banker pa.s.sed across the threshold, which he had not crossed for five-and-thirty years until to-day.
But as Mr. Dunbar went towards the familiar parlour at the back of the banking-house, he stopped for a minute, and looked at the cashier.
Clement Austin was scarcely less pale than Henry Dunbar himself. He had heard of the banker"s intended visit to St. Gundolph Lane, and had looked forward with strange anxiety to a meeting with the man whom Margaret Wilmot declared to be the murderer of her father. Now that the meeting had come to pa.s.s, he looked at Henry Dunbar with an earnest, scrutinizing gaze, as if he would fain have discovered the secret of the man"s guilt or innocence in his countenance.
The banker"s face was pale, and grave, and stern; but Clement Austin knew that for Henry Dunbar there were very humiliating and unpleasant circ.u.mstances connected with the offices in St. Gundolph Lane, and it was scarcely to be expected that a man would come smiling into a place out of which he had gone five-and-thirty years before a disgraced and degraded creature.
For a few moments the two men paused in the pa.s.sage between the public offices and the private parlour, looking at each other.
The banker"s gaze never flinched during that encounter. It is taken as a strong proof of a man"s innocence that he should look you full in the face with a steadfast gaze when you look at him with suspicion plainly visible in your eyes; but would he not be the poorest villain if he shirked that encounter of glances when he knows full surely that he is in that moment put to the test? It is rather innocence whose eyelids drop when you peer too closely into its eyes, for innocence is appalled by the stern, accusing glances which it is unprepared to meet. Guilt stares you boldly in the face, for guilt is hardened and defiant, and has this one grand superiority over innocence--that it is _prepared for the worst_.
Clement Austin opened the door of Mr. Balderby"s parlour; Mr. Dunbar went in unannounced. The cashier closed the parlour-door and returned to his desk in the public office.
The junior partner was sitting at an office table near the fire writing, but he rose as the banker entered the room, and went forward to meet him.
"You are very punctual, Mr. Dunbar," he said.
"Yes, I am generally punctual."
The two men shook hands, and Mr. Balderby wheeled forward a morocco-covered arm-chair for his senior partner, and then took his seat opposite to him, with only the small office table between them.
"It may seem late in the day to bid you welcome to the bank, Mr.
Dunbar," said the junior partner, "but I do so, nevertheless--most heartily!"
There was a flatness in the accent in which these two last words were spoken, which was like the sound of a false coin when it falls dead upon a counter and proclaims itself spurious.
Henry Dunbar did not return his partner"s greeting. He was looking round the room, and remembering the day upon which he had last seen it. There was very little alteration in the appearance of the dismal city chamber.
There was the same wire-blind before the window, the same solitary tree, leafless, in the narrow courtyard without. The morocco-covered arm-chairs had been re-covered, perhaps, during that five-and-thirty years; but if so, the covering had grown shabby again. Even the Turkey carpet was in the very stage of dusky dinginess that had distinguished the carpet on which Henry Dunbar had stood five-and-thirty years before.
"I received your letter announcing your journey to London, and your desire for a private interview, on Sat.u.r.day afternoon," Mr. Balderby said, after a pause. "I have made arrangements to a.s.sure our being undisturbed so long as you may remain here. If you wish to make any investigation of the affairs of the house, I----"
Mr. Dunbar waved his hand with a deprecatory air.
"Nothing is farther from my thoughts than any such design," he said.
"No, Mr. Balderby, I have only been a man of business because all chance of another career, which I infinitely preferred, was closed upon me five-and-thirty years ago. I am quite content to be a sleeping-partner in the house of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby. For ten years prior to my father"s death he took no active part in the business. The house got on very well without his aid; it will get on equally well without mine. The business that brings me to London is an entirely personal matter. I am a rich man, but I don"t exactly know how rich I am, and I want to realize rather a large sum of money."
Mr. Balderby bowed, but his eyebrows went up a little, as if he found it impossible to control some slight evidence of his surprise.
"Previous to my daughter"s marriage I settled upon her the house in Portland Place and the Yorkshire property. She will have all my money when I die; and, as Sir Philip Jocelyn is a rich man, she will perhaps be one of the wealthiest women in England. So far so good. Neither Laura nor her husband will have any reason for dissatisfaction. But this is not quite enough, Mr. Balderby. I am not a demonstrative man, and I have never made any great fuss about my love for my daughter; but I do love her, nevertheless."
Mr. Dunbar spoke very slowly here, and stopped once or twice to pa.s.s his handkerchief across his forehead, as he had done in the hotel at Winchester.
"We Anglo-Indians have rather a magnificent way of doing things, Mr.
Balderby" he continued, "when we take it into our heads to do them at all. I want to give my daughter a diamond-necklace as a wedding present, and I want it to be such as an Eastern prince or a Rothschild might offer to his only child. You understand?"
"Oh, perfectly," answered Mr. Balderby; "I shall be most happy to be of any use to you in the matter."
"All I want is a large sum of money at my command. I may go rather recklessly to work and make a large investment in this necklace; it will be something for Lady Jocelyn to bequeath to her children. You and John Lovell, of Shorncliffe, were the executors to my father"s will. You signed an order for the transfer of my father"s money to my account some time in last September."
"I did, in concurrence with Mr. Lovell."
"Precisely; Lovell wrote me a letter to that effect. My father kept two accounts here, I believe--a deposit and a drawing account?"
"He did."
"And those two accounts have gone on since my return in the same manner as during his lifetime?"
"Precisely. The income which Mr. Percival Dunbar set aside for his own use was seven thousand a year. He rarely, spent as much as that; sometimes he spent less than half. The balance of this income, and his double share in the profits of the business, went to the credit of his deposit account, and various sums have been withdrawn from time to time, and duly invested under his order."
"Perhaps you can let me see the ledgers containing those two accounts?"
"Most certainly."
Mr. Balderby touched the spring of a handbell upon his table.
"Ask Mr. Austin to bring the daily balance and deposit accounts ledgers," he said to the person who answered his summons.
Clement Austin appeared five minutes afterwards, carrying two ponderous morocco-bound volumes.
Mr. Balderby opened both ledgers, and placed them before his senior partner. Henry Dunbar looked at the deposit account. His eyes ran eagerly down the long row of figures before him until they came to the sum total. Then his chest heaved, and he drew a long breath, like a man who feels almost stifled by some internal oppression.
The last figures in the page were these:
_137,926l. 17s. 2d._
One hundred and thirty-seven thousand nine hundred and twenty-six pounds seventeen shillings and twopence. The twopence seemed a ridiculous anti-climax; but business-men are necessarily as exact in figures as calculating-machines.
"How is this money invested?" asked Henry Dunbar, pointing to the page.
His fingers trembled a little as he did so, and he dropped his hand suddenly upon the ledger.
"There"s fifty thousand in India stock," Mr. Balderby answered, as indifferently as if fifty thousand pounds more or less was scarcely worth speaking of; "and there"s five-and-twenty in railway debentures, Great Western. Most of the remainder is floating in Exchequer bills."
"Then you can realize the Exchequer bills?"
Mr. Balderby winced as if some one had trodden upon one of his corns. He was a banker heart and soul, and he did not at all relish the idea of any withdrawal of the bank"s resources, however firm that establishment might stand.
"It"s rather a large amount of capital to withdraw from the business,"
he said, rubbing his chin, thoughtfully.
"I suppose the bank can afford it!" Mr. Dunbar exclaimed, with a tone of surprise.
"Oh, yes; the bank can afford it well enough. Our calls are sometimes heavy. Lord Yarsfield--a very old customer--talks of buying an estate in Wales; he may come down upon us at any moment for a very stiff sum of money. However, the capital is yours, Mr. Dunbar; and you"ve a right to dispose of it as you please. The Exchequer bills shall be realized immediately."
"Good; and if you can dispose of the railway bonds to advantage, you may do so."
"You think of spending----"
"I think of reinvesting the money. I have an offer of an estate north of the metropolis, which I think will realize cent per cent a few years hence: but that is an after consideration. At present we have only to do with the diamond-necklace for my daughter. I shall buy the diamonds myself, direct from the merchant-importers. You will hold yourself ready after Wednesday, we"ll say, to cash some very heavy cheques on my account?"