We will walk over after dinner, and if Freddy happens to be sober--he is about this time pleasantly, not stupidly, drunk, as a rule--he will tell us what he knows about his neighbour."
"I ought to see Elsie this evening, but this is more important."
"Much more. Send her a telegram. Waiter, we will take coffee here. So.
You have got the conduct of the case in your own hands. What has Checkley got?"
"Nothing. I believe he is jealous of me. I don"t know why. But it does not matter what an old man like that thinks."
"Even an old man can strike a match and light a fire. Checkley is a malignant old man. He is quite capable of charging you with the job. I wonder he hasn"t done it by this time. Remember my case, old man."
Athelstan"s face darkened at the recollection. "Dirt sticks sometimes.
Look at me. I am smirched all over."
"His manner was very odd this morning--insolent and strange. He began to talk mysteriously of the ingrat.i.tude of the forger."
"Why he"s actually going to do it! Don"t you see--he means that you are the forger?"
"Oh! does he? Very well, Athelstan"--George finished his coffee and got up--"the sooner we find out this mystery of this Edmund Gray the better.
Let us seek your tipsy Scholar."
They walked from Piccadilly to Holborn, turning the thing over and making a dozen surmises. Edmund Gray, twins: Edmund Gray, father and son--father wanting to destroy property, a Socialist; son wanting to steal property, individualist: Edmund Gray cousins--one the mild philosopher, rejoicing in the decay of wealth; the other a bandit, robber and conspirator: Edmund Gray, father and daughter--the young lady of the advanced type, who has not only thrown over her religion but her morals also: Edmund Gray, master and clerk: Edmund Gray under domination of a villain: there was in every situation a n.o.ble chance for the imagination. George showed a capacity unsuspected: he should have been a novelist. The hypothesis was always beautiful and admirable: but it wanted one thing--_vraisemblance_: one felt, even while advancing and defending one, that it was impossible.
They turned into the gateway of the Inn and walked down the pa.s.sage into the Square. "Look!" Athelstan caught his companion by the wrist. "Who is that?"
"Checkley himself. He is coming out of No 22!"
"Yes, out of 22. What is he doing there? Eh? What has he been doing there?"
It was Checkley. The old man walking feebly, with bent head, came out from the entrance of No. 22 and turned northward into Field Court. They waited, watching him, until he left the Square. "What is he doing there?" asked George again. "Come. Edmund Gray must be at home. Let us go up."
They found the outer door shut. They knocked with their sticks: there was no answer.
"What was he doing here?" asked Athelstan.
The Scholar"s door stood open. The Scholar himself was for once perfectly sober, and welcomed them joyously and boisterously.
"We are here on business, Freddy," said Athelstan.
"You are here to sit and talk and drink whisky-and-soda till midnight, till two o"clock in the morning. It is not until two in the morning that you can get the full flavour of the Inn. It is like a college then, monastic, shut off from the world, peaceful----"
"Business first, then. You know your neighbour, Mr. Edmund Gray?"
"Certainly. We exchange the compliments of the season and the news of the weather when we meet on the stairs. He has been in here, but not often. A man who drinks nothing is your true damper. That, believe me, and no other, was the veritable skeleton at the Feast."
"Our business concerns your neighbour, Mr. Edmund Gray. We want you to tell us what you know about him."
"Go on, then. Question, and I will answer, if I can."
"Does Mr. Edmund Gray live at these Chambers?"
"No. He may sometimes sleep in them, but I should say not often. He calls at irregular intervals. Sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes in the morning, sometimes not for several weeks together. He is most uncertain."
"Do many people call upon him?"
"No one ever calls upon him."
"Does he keep clerks? Does he carry on an extensive correspondence?"
"I have never heard the postman knock at his door."
"Has he a son or a brother or a partner or anything?"
"I don"t know. He may have these hindrances, but they are not apparent."
"What is his occupation or trade?"
"He is a Socialist. He is athirst for the destruction of property.
Meantime, I believe, he lives on his own. Perhaps his will be spared to the last. He is an old gentleman of pleasant manners and of benevolent aspect. The old women beg of him; the children ask him the time; the people who have lost their way apply to him. He dreams all the time: he lives in a world impossible. Oh! quite impossible. Why, in a world all Socialist, I myself should be impossible. They wouldn"t have me. My old friend told me the other day that I should not be tolerated. They would kill me. All because I do no work--or next to none."
George looked at Athelstan. "We are farther off than ever," he said.
"Mr. Edmund Gray believes that the Kingdom of Heaven is a kind of hive where everybody has got to work with enormous zeal, and where n.o.body owns anything. Also he thinks that it is close at hand, which makes him a very happy old gentleman."
"This can"t be Checkley," said George.
"It would seem not," Athelstan replied. "Did you ever see another old man up here--we saw him coming out just now--one Checkley, a lawyer"s clerk?"
"No; not up here. There is an elderly person--a Party--of the name, who uses the parlour of the _Salutation_, where I myself sometimes--one must relax--Porson loved a tavern; so did Johnson--I myself, I say, sometimes forget that I used to belong to the Combination room, and sit with Checkley and his companions. But I do not think he is a friend of Mr.
Gray. As well call the Verger the friend of the Bishop. Mr. Gray is a gentleman and a scholar; he is a man of generous instincts and culture.
He _could_ not be a friend of the man Checkley."
"Yet we saw Checkley coming out of this very staircase."
They talked of other things. They talked till midnight; when they came away the Scholar was at his best: one more gla.s.s--which he took after they left--would have turned the best into the worst.
"We are as far off as before," said George.
"No--we are so much the nearer that we know who Edmund Gray is not. He is not Checkley. He has no clerks. He has no visitors. He comes seldom.
George, this looks to me suspicious. We met Checkley stealing out of the door. Why does Edmund Gray keep these Chambers? No business done there: no letters brought there: no callers: the man does not live there. The Socialism may be--must be--a blind. Why does the man keep on these Chambers?"
Meantime at the _Salutation_ the usual company was a.s.sembled. "I fear,"
said the barrister, "that we shall not have our friend the Scholar here this evening. As I came down the stairs I saw him through his door receiving two gentlemen--young gentlemen. He will display his wonted hospitality upon them this evening instead." He sighed, and called for the gla.s.s of old and mild mixed, which was all he could afford. Had the Scholar been with them, certainly there would have been a n.o.bler and a costlier gla.s.s. He took up the morning paper and began to read it.
The conversation went on slowly and with jerks. A dull conversation: a conversation of men without ideas: a day-before-yesterday conversation: the slow exchange of short, solid sentences taken from the paper, or overheard and adopted. We sometimes praise the old tavern life, and we regret the tavern talk. We need not: it was dull, gross, ignorant, and flat: it was commonplace and conventional: because it was so dull, the men were fain to sing songs and to propose sentiments, and to drink more than was good for them. Why and when do men drink more than is good for them? First, when and because things are desperately dull: there is nothing to interest them: give them animation, thoughts, amus.e.m.e.nts, and they will not begin to drink. When they have begun, they will go on.
When they have arrived at a certain stage, let them drink as fast as they can, and so get out of the way, because they will never mend, and they only c.u.mber the earth. Here is, you see, a complete solution--a short solution--of the whole drink question. It will not be accepted, because people like a long solution--a three-column solution.