Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/672

 he opened the front door as the postman was about to ring at it.

The letter was from his father; he saw that by the handwriting; and the postman had turned back and was going out at the gate again when Mr. Carlton remembered something he wished to ask, called to him, and followed him to the gate, speaking.

“Rodney, have you made any inquiry about that overcharge in the books sent to me the other morning?”

“We have had to write up about it, sir; it wasn’t the fault of the office here,” was the man’s answer. “The answer will be down most likely to-morrow.”

“I shan’t pay it, you know.”

“Very good, sir. If it’s a wrong charge they’ll take it off.”

The surgeon had turned his attention to the letter, when a sound of carriage wheels was heard, and he stepped outside the gate, thinking it might be his wife, driving up. It was not. The carriage, however, contained two ladies whom Mr. Carlton knew, and he saluted them as they passed. The next moment there came in view the inspector, Medler, walking along with rapid strides. Had he been in pursuit of some runaway forger, he could scarcely have been advancing more eagerly. Catching the eye of Mr. Carlton, he made a sign to him, and increased his pace to a run.

“What now, I wonder?” muttered the surgeon to himself aloud: and the tone of his voice betrayed unconscious irritation.

“Haven’t they had enough of the matter yet?”

Mr. Carlton alluded to the very unsatisfactory matter of the death in Palace Street. Mr. Medler had not provod more clever in pursuing it than the inspector be had superseded, and he was fain to give it up for the present as an unfathomable job. It was a warm day, for summer was in, and the inspector, a stout man, took off his hat to wipe his brows as he reached Mr. Carlton.

“We want you to be so good as make the examination, sir, of a poor woman that’s gone off her head, so as to give the necessary certificate, and Mr. John Grey will sign it with you,” began the inspector, rather incoherent in his haste and heat. “We can’t move her until we’ve got it. It’s the blacksmith’s wife down Great Wennock Road.”

“Very well,” said the surgeon. “What has sent her off her head?”

“It’s an old thing with her, I hear. Mr. Grey tells me she was obliged to be placed in confinement some years ago. Anyway, she’s very violent now. You’ll see her, then, sir, sometime this evening, and we’ll get her moved the first thing in the morning? I ordered one of my men to come down to you before I left the station, but as I’ve seen you myself it’s all the same. What glorious weather this is! "

“Very. We shall have a fine haymaking.”

“By the way, Mr. Carlton, that affair seems completely to baffle us,” resumed the inspector, halting again as he was about to continue his way.

“What affair?” asked Mr. Carlton.

About that Mrs. Crane. I’m afraid it’s going to turn out one of those crimes that are never unearthed—there have been a few such. The fact is, if a thing is not properly followed up at the time of occurrence, it’s not of much use to reopen it afterwards; I have often found it so.”

“I suppose you have given this up, then?”

“Yes, I have. There seemed no use in keeping it open. Not but that in one sense it always is open, for if anything fresh concerning it should come to our ears, we are ready for it. It may come yet, you know, sir.”

Mr. Carlton nodded assent, and the inspector, with all the speed of which his two legs were capable, set off again in pursuit of his errand, whatever that might be. Mr. Carlton went indoors, turned into the dining-room and broke open his letter. A dark frown gathered on his brow as he read it. Let us peep over his shoulder.

",—I will thank you not to trouble me with any more begging letters: you know that I never tolerated them. I advised you to marry, you say: true; but I did not advise you to marry a nobleman’s daughter, and I never should have thought you foolish enough to do so. These unequal matches bring dissatisfaction in a hundred ways, as you will find—but that of course is your own and the lady’s look out. It is not my intention to give you any more money at all—and whether I shall leave you any at my death depends upon yourself. I am quite well again and am stronger than I have been for years.

Mr. Carlton crushed the letter in his hand with an iron pressure. He knew what that hint of the after inheritance meant—that if he asked for any again he would never touch a farthing of it.

“He has ever been a bad father to me!” he passionately cried; “a bad, cruel father.”

The sight of his wife’s hired carriage at the door interrupted him. He thrust the letter into one of his pockets and hastened out.