“If I am not mistaken in the identity, my wife’s relative, Mr. Toogood?” said Mr. Crawley, stepping down from his humble desk.
“Just so, my friend,” said Toogood, with his hand extended, “just so; and there’s another gentleman outside who wants to have a word with you also. Perhaps you won’t mind stepping out. These are the young Hogglestockians; are they?”
The young Hogglestockians stared at him, and so did Jane. Jane, who had before heard of him, did not like him at first sight, seeing that her father was clearly displeased by the tone of the visitor’s address. Mr. Crawley was displeased. There was a familiarity about Mr. Toogood which made him sore, as having been exhibited before his pupils.
“If you will be pleased to step out, sir, I will follow you,” he said, waving his hand towards the door. “Jane, my dear, if you will remain with the children, I will return to you presently. Bobby Studge has failed in saying his Belief. You had better set him on again from the beginning. Now, Mr. Toogood.” And again he waved with his hand towards the door.
“So that’s my young cousin, is it?” said Toogood, stretching over and just managing to touch Jane’s fingers—of which act of touching Jane was very chary. Then he went forth, and Mr. Crawley followed him. There was the major standing in the road, and Toogood was anxious to be the first to communicate the good news. It was the only reward he had proposed to himself for the money he had expended and the time he had lost and the trouble he had taken. “It’s all right, old fellow,” he said, clapping his hand on Crawley’s shoulder. “We’ve got the right sow by the ear at last. We know all about it.” Mr. Crawley could hardly remember the time when he had been called an old fellow last, and now he did not like it; nor, in the confusion of his mind, could he understand the allusion to the right sow. He supposed that Mr. Toogood had come to him about his trial, but it did not occur to him that the lawyer might be bringing him news which might make the trial altogether unnecessary.
“If my eyes are not mistaken, there is my friend, Major Grantly,” said Mr. Crawley.
“There he is, as large as life,” said Toogood. “But stop a moment before you go to him, and give me your hand. I must have the first shake of it.” Hereupon Crawley extended his hand. “That’s right. And now let me tell you we know all about the cheque—Soames’s cheque. We know where you got it. We know who stole it. We know how it came to the person who gave it to you. It’s all very well talking, but when you’re in trouble always go to a lawyer.”
By this time Mr. Crawley was looking full into Mr. Toogood’s face, and seeing that his cousin’s eyes were streaming with tears, began to get some insight into the man’s character, and also some very dim insight into the facts which the man intended to communicate to himself. “I do not as yet fully understand you, sir,” said he, “being perhaps in such matters somewhat dull of intellect, but it seemeth to me that you are a messenger of glad tidings, whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains.”
“Beautiful!” said Toogood. “By George, I should think they are beautiful! Don’t you hear me tell you that we have found out all about the cheque, and that you’re as right as a trivet?” They were still on the little causeway leading from the school up to the road, and Henry Grantly was waiting for them at the small wicket-gate.
“Mr. Crawley,” said the major, “I congratulate you with all my heart. I could not but accompany my friend, Mr. Toogood, when he brought you this good news.”
“I do not even yet altogether comprehend what has been told to me,” said Crawley, now standing out on the road between the other two men. “I am doubtless dull—very dull. May I beg some clearer word of explanation before I ask you to go with me to my wife?”
“The cheque was given to you by my aunt Eleanor.”
“Your aunt Eleanor!” said Crawley, now altogether in the clouds. Who was the major’s aunt Eleanor? Though he had, no doubt, at different times heard all the circumstances of the connection, he had never realized the fact that his daughter’s lover was the nephew of his old friend, Arabin.
“Yes; by my aunt, Mrs. Arabin.”
“She put it into the envelope with the notes,” said Toogood;—“slipped it in without saying a word to anyone. I never heard of a woman doing such a mad thing in my life before. If she had died, or if we hadn’t caught her, where should we all have been? Not but what I think I should have run Dan Stringer to ground too, and worked it out of him.”
“Then, after all, it was given to me by the dean?” said Crawley, drawing himself up.
“It was in the envelope, but the dean did not know it,” said the major.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Crawley, “I was sure of it. I knew it. Weak as my mind may be—and at times it is very weak—I was certain that I could not have erred in such a matter. The more I struggled with my memory, the more fixed with me became the fact—which I had forgotten but for a moment—that the document had formed a part of that small packet handed to me by the dean. But look you, sirs—bear with me yet for a moment. I said that it was so, and the dean denied it.”
“The dean did not know it, man,” said Toogood, almost in a passion.
“Bear with me yet awhile. So far
