Henry Dunbar: A NovelBraddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Henry Dunbar: A Novel
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
Fiction
This operation lasted for several hours. The candles were burnt down,
and the flames flickered slowly out in the silver sockets. Mr. Dunbar
went to one of the windows, drew back the green-cloth curtain, unbarred
the heavy shutters, and let the grey morning light into the room. But
he still went on with his work: reading faded documents, tying up old
papers, making notes upon the backs of letters, and other notes in his
own memorandum-book: very much as he had done at the Winchester Hotel.
The broad sunlight streamed in upon the sombre colours of the Turkey
carpet, the sound of wheels was in the street below, when the banker's
work was finished. By that time he had arranged all the papers with
unusual precision, and replaced them in one of the portmanteaus: but he
left the clothes in a careless heap upon the floor, just as they had
fallen when he first threw them out of the boxes.
Mr. Dunbar did one thing more before he left the room. Amongst the
papers which he had arranged upon the writing-table, there was a small
square morocco case, containing a photograph done upon glass. He took
this picture out of the case, dropped it upon the polished oaken floor
beyond the margin of the carpet, and ground the glass into atoms with
the heavy heel of his boot. But even then he was not content with his
work of destruction, for he stamped upon the tiny fragments until there
was nothing left of the picture but a handful of sparkling dust. He
scattered this about with his foot, dropped the empty morocco case into
his pocket, and went up-stairs in the morning sunlight.
It was past six o'clock, and Mr. Dunbar heard the voices of the
women-servants upon the back staircase as he went to his room. He threw
himself, dressed as he was, upon the bed, and fell into a heavy
slumber.
At three o'clock the same day Mr. Dunbar left London for Maudesley
Abbey, accompanied by his daughter, Dora Macmahon, and Arthur Lovell.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THREE WHO SUSPECT.
No further discovery was made respecting the murder that had been
committed in the grove between Winchester and St. Cross. The police
made every effort to find the murderer, but without result. A large
reward was offered by the government for the apprehension of the guilty
man; and a still larger reward was offered by Mr. Dunbar, who declared
that his own honour and good name were in a manner involved in the
discovery of the real murderer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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