Adventures of Martin Hewitt by Arthur Morrison Page A

“And now,” he said, “I think we’ll go and
take a look at Mr. Geldard’s office, if we may. Of course I shall follow him
up now.” Hewitt made a sign to me, which I interpreted as asking whether I
would care to accompany him. I assented with a nod, for the case seemed
likely to be interesting.
    I omit most of Mrs. Geldard’s talk by the way, which was almost ceaseless,
mostly compounded of useless repetition, and very tiresome.
    The office was on a third floor in a large building in Finsbury Pavement.
The caretaker made no difficulty in admitting us. There were two rooms,
neither very large, and one of them at the back very small indeed. In this
was a small locked door.
    “That leads on to the small staircase, sir,” the caretaker said in
response to Hewitt’s inquiry. “The staircase leads down to the basement, and
it ain’t used much ‘cept by the cleaners.”
    “If I went down this back staircase,” Hewitt pursued, “I suppose I should
have no difficulty in gaining the street?”
    “Not a bit, sir. You’d have to go a little way round to get into Finsbury
Pavement, but there’s a passage leads straight from the bottom of the stairs
out to Moorfields behind.”
    “Yes,” remarked Mrs. Geldard bitterly, when the caretaker had left the
room, “that’s the way he’s been leaving the office every day, and in
disguise, too.” She pointed to the cupboard where her husband’s clothes lay.
“Pretty plain proof that he was ashamed of his doings, whatever they
were.”
    “Come, come,” Hewitt answered deprecatingly, “we’ll hope there’s nothing
to be ashamed of—at any rate till there’s proof of it. There’s no proof
as yet that your husband has been disguising. A great many men who rent
offices, I believe, keep dress clothes at them—I do it myself—for
convenience in case of an unexpected invitation, or such other eventuality.
We may find that he returned here last night, put on his evening dress and
went somewhere dining. Illness, or fifty accidents, may have kept him from
home.”
    But Mrs. Geldard was not to be softened by any such suggestion, which I
could see Hewitt bad chiefly thrown out by way of pacifying the lady, and
allaying her bitterness as far as he could, in view of a possible
reconciliation when things were cleared up.
    “ That isn’t very likely,” she said. “If he kept a dress suit here
openly I should know of it, and if he kept it here unknown to me, what did he
want it for? If he went out in dress clothes last night, who did he go with?
Who do you suppose, after seeing those envelopes and that piece of the
letter?”
    “Well, well, we shall see,” Hewitt replied. “May I turn out the pockets of
these clothes?”
    “Certainly; there’s nothing in them of importance,” Mrs. Geldard said. “I
looked before I came to you.”
    Nevertheless Hewitt turned them out. “Here is a cheque-book with a number
of cheques remaining. No counterfoils filled in, which is awkward. Bankers,
the London Amalgamated. We will call there presently. An ivory pocket
paper-knife. A sovereign purse—empty.” Hewitt placed the articles on
the table as he named them. “Gold pencil case, ivory folding rule,
russia-leather card-case.” He turned to Mrs. Geldard. “There is no
pocket-book,” he said, “no pocket-knife and no watch, and there are no keys.
Did Mr. Geldard usually carry any of these things?”
    “Yes,” Mrs. Geldard replied, “he carried all four.” Hewitt’s simple
methodical calmness, and his plain disregard of her former volubility,
appeared by this to have disciplined Mrs. Geldard into a businesslike brevity
and directness of utterance.
    “As to the watch now. Can you describe it?”
    “Oh, it was only a cheap one. He had a gold one stolen—or at any
rate he told me so—and since then he has only carried a very common
sort of silver one, without a chain.”
    “The keys?”
    “I only know there was a bunch of