“Found lying on the sands. But was that all--was that all? For God’s sake, man, speak out, whatever you have to say.”
Martin excused Mr. Wedderburn’s hastiness with a slight wave of his hand, and said all there was to say. It was very little: Mr. Dalyell, a man very well known, had been seen to arrive at the station, and had been met by various people on his way to the sea. He was not in the habit of using the bathing machines, as indeed few gentlemen were. There was no special danger about the spot, and it was a calm day, and he was a good swimmer. Of course the place was a little out of the way, and east of the sands, as was indispensable when gentlemen bathed without any machine; but nothing out of the ordinary--many men did the same, and Mr. Dalyell did it constantly. No cry of distress had been heard, nor any other signs of a catastrophe. This little mound of clothes, flung down with the conviction of perfect security, the watch in the pocket, a shilling or two dropped on the sands as the things were moved--this was all. “The body,” Martin said, dropping his already subdued voice, “had not been found.”
The body! Surely it was premature still to talk of that.
“He might have been carried along by the current further east and got to land there.”
“A naked man, sir--without any clothes! There would soon have been word of such a wonder as that--and somebody sent on for the things. We took all that into consideration.”
“I must go down myself at once,” said the lawyer.
“What’s Gibson to me?” said Mr. Wedderburn, with a sort of roar of trouble, anger, and misery combined. “I must go myself.”
“There are a number of letters,” said Martin, “that might want answering.”
“Letters! when Bob Dalyell’s lying somewhere dead or dying.”
“Oh, sir,” said Martin, “in the midst of life we are in death. If it’s poor Mr. D’yell--and there’s no reasonable doubt on the subject--he’s dead long, long before now.”
Wedderburn made a dash through the air with his clenched fist, as if he had been knocking down a too sympathetic clerk, and took his hat, and darted away.
“Old Pat’s in one of his grandest tempers,” a young clerk permitted himself to say in Mr. Martin’s hearing, as the door closed with a violent swing behind their employer.