The Chestermarke Instinct

all the other mornings of the week this question never occurred to him: on Sunday he never allowed a thought of the bank to cross his mind: from Sunday to Saturday he was firmly sett

re him. He would go to the bank at nine, and at the bank he would remain, more or less, until five. He would do that again on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday and on Friday, and on Saturday. One afternoon, strolling

h or his good looks. He glanced at his mirrored self without pride, but with due recognition of his good figure, his strong muscles, his handsome, boyish face, with its cluster of chestnut hair and steady grey eyes. All that, he knew, wanted life, animation, movement. At twenty-three he was longing for something to take him out of the treadmill round in which he had been fixed for five years. He had no taste for handing out money in exchange for cheques, in posting up ledgers, in writing dull, formal letters. He would have been much happier with an old flannel shirt

like a gentleman. Still, a hundred and fifty a year of sure and settled income was a fine thing, an uncommonly fine thing-all that was necessary was to supplement it. Therefore-a nice, quiet, genteel profession-banking, to wit. Light work, an honourable calling, an eminently respectable one. In a few years he would have another hundred and fifty a year: a few years more, and he would be a manager, with at least six hundred: he might, well before he was a middle-aged man, be commanding a salary of a thousand a year. Banking, by all means, cou

he muttered. "I'd r

ide of it; the other three sides were filled with gabled and half-timbered houses; the Market-Cross which stood in the middle of the open space had been erected there in Henry the Seventh's time. Amidst all the change and development of the nineteenth century, Scarnham had been left untouched: even the bank itself was a time-worn building, and the manager's house which flanked it was still ol

looked towards Finkleway-a narrow street which led to the railway station at the far end of the town. Now they looked towards Middlegate-a street which led into the open country, in the direction of Ellersdeane, where Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke, senior proprietor of the bank, resided. All that was unusual. If Patten, a mere boy, had been lounging there, Neale would not have noticed it. But it was Shirley's first duty, on arriving every morning, to get

n answer to Neale's inquiring look. "Mr. H

e!" asked Neale, mounting th

e's been week-ending. I've been looking out for him coming along from the station. But if he came in by the 8

nine-and the station was only eight minutes away at the most. He passed the two junior clerks, went down the hall

rty-two or three. Anyway, she was a fine, handsome woman-tall, perfectly shaped, with glossy black hair and dark eyes, and a firm, resolute mouth. It was rarely that Mrs. Carswell went out; when she did, she was easily the best-looking woman in Scarnham. Few Scarnham people, however, had the chance of culti

her within the hall. "Shirley says Mr. H

more than you do. I've been expecting him to come in by that 8.30 t

s late," sug

from my window, at the back. It was on t

s you said Mr. Horbury went off on Saturday. Didn't

rday night, and though he wasn't in then, I thought nothing of it, because, of course, he'd his latch-key. He was often out late at night, as you know, Mr. Neale. And when I found that he hadn't come back, as I did find out before breakfast yesterday, I thought nothing of that either-I

the manager's friends and acquaintances in the neighbourhood, and he shook his head as he came to th

"because of his going off for his holiday tomorrow. And Mi

ece-a young lady whom Neale remembered as a mere slip of

now that,"

er to go with him to Scotland on this holiday, but it wasn't settled. However, he got a wire from her, abo

ed him as the personification of everything that was precise, systematic, and regular. All things considered, it was most remarkable tha

ay he went, Mrs. Carswell?" he as

ion that way, of course. But I do know that he never said a word about going anywhere by train, and he'd no ba

a calling, he was punctilious about rules and observances, and it seemed to him somewhat indecorous that the staff of

ley," he said. "Patten, you go to t

alm youth of seventeen. "Tried that once before

anded Neale. "It doesn't look w

bury's got to come back by train from wherever he's gone to, he can't get here

an hour's over," said Neale. "On

sfaction. But he had only taken a turn or two when a quietly appointed one-horse coupé brougham came up to the open door,