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The Talleyrand Maxim

by J. S. Fletcher · English · Gutenberg #9834 · 426,384 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Talleyrand Maxim

Author: J. S. Fletcher


        
Release date: February 1, 2006 [eBook #9834]
                Most recently updated: December 26, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9834

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALLEYRAND MAXIM ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.










THE TALLEYRAND MAXIM


BY J. S. FLETCHER


1920




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I DEATH BRINGS OPPORTUNITY

II IN TRUST

III THE SHOP-BOY

IV THE FORTUNATE POSSESSORS

V POINT-BLANK

VI THE UNEXPECTED

VII THE SUPREME INDUCEMENT

VIII TERMS

IX UNTIL NEXT SPRING

X THE FOOT-BRIDGE

XI THE PREVALENT ATMOSPHERE

XII THE POWER OF ATTORNEY

XIII THE FIRST TRICK

XIV CARDS ON THE TABLE

XV PRATT OFFERS A HAND

XVI A HEADQUARTERS CONFERENCE

XVII ADVERTISEMENT

XVIII THE CONFIDING LANDLORD

XIX THE EYE-WITNESS

XX THE _Green Man_

XXI THE DIRECT CHARGE

XXII THE CAT'SPAW

XXIII SMOOTH FACE AND ANXIOUS BRAIN

XXIV THE BETTER HALF

XXV DRY SHERRY

XXVI THE TELEPHONE MESSAGE

XXVII RESTORED TO ENERGY

XXVIII THE WOMAN IN BLACK






THE TALLEYRAND MAXIM




CHAPTER I


DEATH BRINGS OPPORTUNITY


Linford Pratt, senior clerk to Eldrick & Pascoe, solicitors, of Barford,
a young man who earnestly desired to get on in life, by hook or by
crook, with no objection whatever to crookedness, so long as it could be
performed in safety and secrecy, had once during one of his periodical
visits to the town Reference Library, lighted on a maxim of that other
unscrupulous person, Prince Talleyrand, which had pleased him greatly.
"With time and patience," said Talleyrand, "the mulberry leaf is turned
into satin." This seemed to Linford Pratt one of the finest and soundest
pieces of wisdom which he had ever known put into words.

A mulberry leaf is a very insignificant thing, but a piece of satin is a
highly marketable commodity, with money in it. Henceforth, he regarded
himself as a mulberry leaf which his own wit and skill must transform
into satin: at the same time he knew that there is another thing, in
addition to time and patience, which is valuable to young men of his
peculiar qualities, a thing also much beloved by Talleyrand--opportunity.
He could find the patience, and he had the time--but it would give him
great happiness if opportunity came along to help in the work. In
everyday language, Linford Pratt wanted a chance--he waited the arrival
of the tide in his affairs which would lead him on to fortune.

Leave him alone--he said to himself--to be sure to take it at the flood.
If Pratt had only known it, as he stood in the outer office of Eldrick &
Pascoe at the end of a certain winter afternoon, opportunity was slowly
climbing the staircase outside--not only opportunity, but temptation,
both assisted by the Devil. They came at the right moment, for Pratt was
alone; the partners had gone: the other clerks had gone: the office-boy
had gone: in another minute Pratt would have gone, too: he was only
looking round before locking up for the night. Then these things
came--combined in the person of an old man, Antony Bartle, who opened
the door, pushed in a queer, wrinkled face, and asked in a quavering
voice if anybody was in.

"I'm in, Mr. Bartle," answered Pratt, turning up a gas jet which he had
just lowered. "Come in, sir. What can I do for you?"

Antony Bartle came in, wheezing and coughing. He was a very, very old
man, feeble and bent, with little that looked alive about him but his
light, alert eyes. Everybody knew him--he was one of the institutions of
Barford--as well known as the Town Hall or the Parish Church. For fifty
years he had kept a second-hand bookshop in Quagg Alley, the narrow
passage-way which connected Market Street with Beck Street. It was not
by any means a common or ordinary second-hand bookshop: its proprietor
styled himself an "antiquarian bookseller"; and he had a reputation in
two Continents, and dealt with millionaire buyers and virtuosos in both.

Barford people sometimes marvelled at the news that Mr. Antony Bartle
had given two thousand guineas for a Book of Hours, and had sold a
Missal for twice that amount to some American collector; and they got a
hazy notion that the old man must be well-to-do--despite his snuffiness
and shabbiness, and that his queer old shop, in the window of which
there was rarely anything to be seen but a few ancient tomes, and two or
three rare engravings, contained much that he could turn at an hour's
notice into gold. All that was surmise--but Eldrick & Pascoe--which term
included Linford Pratt--knew all about Antony Bartle, being his
solicitors: his will was safely deposited in their keeping, and Pratt
had been one of the attesting witnesses.

The old man, having slowly walked into the outer office, leaned against
a table, panting a little. Pratt hastened to open an inner door.

"Come into Mr. Eldrick's room, Mr. Bartle," he said. "There's a nice
easy chair there--come and sit down in it. Those stairs are a bit
trying, aren't they? I often wish we were on the ground floor."

He lighted the gas in the senior partner's room, and turning back, took
hold of the visitor's arm, and helped him to the easy chair. Then,
having closed the doors, he sat down at Eldrick's desk, put his fingers
together and waited. Pratt knew from experience that old Antony Bartle
would not have come there except on business: he knew also, having been
at Eldrick & Pascoe's for many years, that the old man would confide in
him as readily as in either of his principals.

"There's a nasty fog coming on outside," said Bartle, after a fit of
coughing. "It gets on my lungs, and then it makes my heart bad. Mr.
Eldrick in?"

"Gone," replied Pratt. "All gone, Mr. Bartle--only me here."

"You'll do," answered the old bookseller. "You're as good as they are."
He leaned forward from the easy chair, and tapped the clerk's arm with a
long, claw-like finger. "I say," he continued, with a smile that was
something between a wink and a leer, and suggestive of a pleased
satisfaction. "I've had a find!"

"Oh!" responded Pratt. "One of your rare books, Mr. Bartle? Got
something for twopence that you'll sell for ten guineas? You're one of
the lucky ones, you know, you are!"

"Nothing of the sort!" chuckled Bartle. "And I had to pay for my
knowledge, young man, before I got it--we all have. No--but I've found
something: not half an hour ago. Came straight here with it. Matters for
lawyers, of course."

"Yes?" said Pratt inquiringly. "And--what may it be?" He was expecting
the visitor to produce something, but the old man again leaned forward,
and dug his finger once more into the clerk's sleeve.

"I say!" he whispered. "You remember John Mallathorpe and the affair
of--how long is it since?"

"Two years," answered Pratt promptly. "Of course I do. Couldn't very
well forget it, or him."

He let his mind go back for the moment to an affair which had provided
Barford and the neighbourhood with a nine days' sensation. One winter
morning, just two years previously, Mr. John Mallathorpe, one of the
best-known manufacturers and richest men of the town, had been killed by
the falling of his own mill-chimney. The condition of the chimney had
been doubtful for some little time; experts had been examining it for
several days: at the moment of the catastrophe, Mallathorpe himself,
some of his principal managers, and a couple of professional
steeple-jacks, were gathered at its base, consulting on a report. The
great hundred-foot structure above them had collapsed without the
slightest warning:  Mallathorpe, his principal manager, and his cashier,
had been killed on the spot: two other bystanders had subsequently died
from injuries received. No such accident had occurred in Barford, nor in
the surrounding manufacturing district, for many years, and there had
been much interest in it, for according to the expert's conclusions the
chimney was in no immediate danger.

Other mill-owners then began to examine their chimneys, and for many
weeks Barford folk had talked of little else than the danger of living
in the shadows of these great masses of masonry.

But there had soon been something else to talk of. It sprang out of the
accident--and it was of particular interest to persons who, like Linford
Pratt, were of the legal profession. John Mallathorpe, so far as anybody
knew or could ascertain, had died intestate. No solicitor in the town
had ever made a will for him. No solicitor elsewhere had ever made a
will for him. No one had ever heard that he had made a will for himself.
There was no will. Drastic search of his safes, his desks, his drawers
revealed nothing--not even a memorandum. No friend of his had ever heard
him mention a will. He had always been something of a queer man. He was
a confirmed bachelor. The only relation he had in the world was his
sister-in-law, the widow of his deceased younger brother, and her two
children--a son and a daughter. And as soon as he was dead, and it was
plain that he had died intestate, they put in their claim to his
property.

John Mallathorpe had left a handsome property. He had been making money
all his life. His business was a considerable one--he employed two
thousand workpeople. His average annual profit from his mills was
reckoned in thousands--four or five thousands at least. And some years
before his death, he had bought one of the finest estates in the
neighbourhood, Normandale Grange, a beautiful old house, set amidst
charming and romantic scenery in a valley, which, though within twelve
miles of Barford, might have been in the heart of the Highlands.
Therefore, it was no small thing that Mrs. Richard Mallathorpe and her
two children laid claim to. Up to the time of John Mallathorpe's death,
they had lived in very humble fashion--lived, indeed, on an allowance
from their well-to-do kinsman--for Richard Mallathorpe had been as much
of a waster as his brother had been of a money-getter. And there was no
withstanding their claim when it was finally decided that John
Mallathorpe had died intestate--no withstanding that, at any rate, of
the nephew and niece. The nephew had taken all the real estate: he and
his sister had shared the personal property. And for some months they
and their mother had been safely installed at Normandale Grange, and in
full possession of the dead man's wealth and business.

All this flashed through Linford Pratt's mind in a few seconds--he knew
all the story: he had often thought of the extraordinary good fortune of
those young people. To be living on charity one week--and the next to be
legal possessors of thousands a year!--oh, if only such luck would come
his way!

"Of course!" he repeated, looking thoughtfully at the old bookseller.
"Not the sort of thing one does forget in a hurry, Mr. Bartle. What of
it?"

Antony Bartle leaned back in his easy chair and chuckled--something,
some idea, seemed to be affording him amusement.

"I'm eighty years old," he remarked. "No, I'm more, to be exact. I shall
be eighty-two come February. When you've lived as long as that, young
Mr. Pratt, you'll know that this life is a game of topsy-turvy--to some
folks, at any rate. Just so!"

"You didn't come here to tell me that, Mr. Bartle," said Pratt. He was
an essentially practical young man who dined at half-past six every
evening, having lunched on no more than bread-and-cheese and a glass of
ale, and he also had his evenings well mapped out. "I know that already,
sir."

"Aye, aye, but you'll know more of it later on," replied Bartle.
"Well--you know, too, no doubt, that the late John Mallathorpe was a
bit--only a bit--of a book-collector; collected books and pamphlets
relating to this district?"

"I've heard of it," answered the clerk.

"He had that collection in his private room at the mill," continued the
old bookseller, "and when the new folks took hold, I persuaded them to
sell it to me. There wasn't such a lot--maybe a hundred volumes
altogether--but I wanted what there was. And as they were of no interest
to them, they sold 'em. That's some months ago. I put all the books in a
corner--and I never really examined them until this very afternoon.
Then--by this afternoon's post--I got a letter from a Barford man who's
now out in America. He wanted to know if I could supply him with a nice
copy of Hopkinson's _History of Barford_. I knew there was one in that
Mallathorpe collection, so I got it out, and examined it. And in the
pocket inside, in which there's a map, I found--what d'ye think?"

"Couldn't say," replied Pratt. He was still thinking of his dinner, and
of an important engagement to follow it, and he had not the least idea
that old Antony Bartle was going to tell him anything very important.
"Letters? Bank-notes? Something of that sort?"

The old bookseller leaned nearer, across the corner of the desk, until
his queer, wrinkled face was almost close to Pratt's sharp, youthful
one. Again he lifted the claw-like finger: again he tapped the clerk's
arm.

"I found John Mallathorpe's will!" he whispered. "His--will!"

Linford Pratt jumped out of his chair. For a second he stared in
speechless amazement at the old man; then he plunged his hands deep into
his trousers' pockets, opened his mouth, and let out a sudden
exclamation.

"No!" he said. "No! John Mallathorpe's--will? His--will!"

"Made the very day on which he died," answered Bartle, nodding
emphatically.

"Queer, wasn't it? He might have had some--premonition, eh?"

Pratt sat down again.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"Here in my pocket," replied the old bookseller, tapping his rusty coat.
"Oh, it's all right, I assure you. All duly made out, signed, and
witnessed. Everything in order, I know!--because a long, a very long
time ago, I was like you, an attorney's clerk. I've drafted many a will,
and witnessed many a will, in my time. I've read this, every word of
it--it's all right. Nothing can upset it."

"Let's see it," said Pratt, eagerly.

"Well--I've no objection--I know you, of course," answered Bartle, "but
I'd rather show it first to Mr. Eldrick. Couldn't you telephone up to
his house and ask him to run back here?"

"Certainly," replied Pratt. "He mayn't be there, though. But I can try.
You haven't shown it to anybody else?"

"Neither shown it to anybody, nor mentioned it to a soul," said Bartle.
"I tell you it's not much more than half an hour since I found it. It's
not a long document. Do you know how it is that it's never come out?" he
went on, turning eagerly to Pratt, who had risen again. "It's easily
explained. The will's witnessed by those two men who were killed at the
same time as John Mallathorpe! So, of course, there was nobody to say
that it was in evidence. My notion is that he and those two
men--Gaukrodger and Marshall, his manager and cashier--had signed it not
long before the accident, and that Mallathorpe had popped it into the
pocket of that book before going out into the yard. Eh? But see if you
can get Mr. Eldrick down here, and we'll read it together. And I
say--this office seems uncommonly stuffy--can you open the window a bit
or something?--I feel oppressed, like."

Pratt opened a window which looked out on the street. He glanced at the
old man for a moment and saw that his face, always pallid, was even
paler than usual.

"You've been talking too much," he said. "Rest yourself, Mr. Bartle,
while I ring up Mr. Eldrick's house. If he isn't there, I'll try his
club--he often turns in there for an hour before going home."

He went out by a private door to the telephone box, which stood in a
lobby used by various occupants of the building. And when he had rung up
Eldrick's private house and was waiting for the answer, he asked himself
what this discovery would mean to the present holders of the Mallathorpe
property, and his curiosity--a strongly developed quality in him--became
more and more excited. If Eldrick was not at home, if he could not get
in touch with him, he would persuade old Bartle to let him see his
find--he would cheerfully go late to his dinner if he could only get a
peep at this strangely discovered document. Romance! Why, this indeed
was romance; and it might be--what else? Old Bartle had already chuckled
about topsy-turvydom: did that mean that--

The telephone bell rang: Eldrick had not yet reached his house. Pratt
got on to the club: Eldrick had not been there. He rang off, and went
back to the private room.

"Can't get hold of him, Mr. Bartle," he began, as he closed the door.
"He's not at home, and he's not at the club. I say!--you might as well
let me have a look at----"

Pratt suddenly stopped. There was a strange silence in the room: the old
man's wheezy breathing was no longer heard. And the clerk moved forward
quickly and looked round the high back of the easy chair....

He knew at once what had happened--knew that old Bartle was dead before
he laid a finger on the wasted hand which had dropped helplessly at his
side. He had evidently died without a sound or a movement--died as
quietly as he would have gone to sleep. Indeed, he looked as if he had
just laid his old head against the padding of the chair and dropped
asleep, and Pratt, who had seen death before, knew that he would never
wake again. He waited a moment, listening in the silence. Once he
touched the old man's hand; once, he bent nearer, still listening. And
then, without hesitation, and with fingers that remained as steady as if
nothing had happened, he unbuttoned Antony Bartle's coat, and drew a
folded paper from the inner pocket.




CHAPTER II


IN TRUST


As quietly and composedly as if he were discharging the most ordinary of
his daily duties, Pratt unfolded the document, and went close to the
solitary gas jet above Eldrick's desk. What he held in his hand was a
half-sheet of ruled foolscap paper, closely covered with writing, which
he at once recognized as that of the late John Mallathorpe. He was
familiar with that writing--he had often seen it. It was an
old-fashioned writing--clear, distinct, with every letter well and fully
formed.

"Made it himself!" muttered Pratt. "Um!--looks as if he wanted to keep
the terms secret. Well----"

He read the will through--rapidly, but with care, murmuring the
phraseology half aloud.

"This is the last will of me, John Mallathorpe, of Normandale Grange, in
the parish of Normandale, in the West Riding of the County of York. I
appoint Martin William Charlesworth, manufacturer, of Holly Lodge,
Barford, and Arthur James Wyatt, chartered accountant, of 65, Beck
Street, Barford, executors and trustees of this my will. I give and
devise all my estate and effects real and personal of which I may die
possessed or entitled to unto the said Martin William Charlesworth and
Arthur James Wyatt upon trust for the following purposes to be carried
out by them under the following instructions, namely:--As soon after my
death as is conveniently possible they will sell all my real estate,
either by private treaty or by public auction; they shall sell all my
personal property of any nature whatsoever; they shall sell my business
at Mallathorpe's mill in Barford as a going concern to any private
purchaser or to any company already in existence or formed for the
purpose of acquiring it; and they shall collect all debts and moneys due
to me. And having sold and disposed of all my property, real and
personal, and brought all the proceeds of such sales and of such
collection of debts and moneys into one common fund they shall first pay
all debts owing by me and all legal duties and expenses arising out of
my death and this disposition of my property and shall then distribute
my estate as follows, namely: to each of themselves, Martin William
Charlesworth and Arthur James Wyatt, they shall pay the sum of five
thousand pounds; to my sister-in-law, Ann Mallathorpe, they shall pay
the sum of ten thousand pounds; to my nephew, Harper John Mallathorpe,
they shall pay the sum of ten thousand pounds; to my niece, Nesta
Mallathorpe, they shall pay the sum of ten thousand pounds. And as to
the whole of the remaining residue they shall pay it in one sum to the
Mayor and Corporation of the borough of Barford in the County of York to
be applied by the said Mayor and Corporation at their own absolute
discretion and in any manner which seems good to them to the
establishment, furtherance and development of technical and commercial
education in the said borough of Barford. Dated this sixteenth day of
November, 1906.

  Signed by the testator in
  the presence of us both
  present at the same
  time who in his presence       } JOHN MALLATHORPE
  and in the presence
  of each other
  have hereunto set our
  names as witnesses.

  HENRY GAUKRODGER, 16, Florence Street,
  Barford, Mill Manager.

  CHARLES WATSON MARSHALL, 56, Laburnum Terrace,
  Barford, Cashier."

As the last word left his lips Pratt carefully folded up the will,
slipped it into an inner pocket of his coat, and firmly buttoned the
coat across his chest. Then, without as much as a glance at the dead
man, he left the room, and again visited the telephone box. He was
engaged in it for a few minutes. When he came out he heard steps coming
up the staircase, and looking over the banisters he saw the senior
partner, Eldrick, a middle-aged man. Eldrick looked up, and saw Pratt.

"I hear you've been ringing me up at the club, Pratt," he said. "What is
it?"

Pratt waited until Eldrick had come up to the landing. Then he pointed
to the door of the private room, and shook his head.

"It's old Mr. Bartle, sir," he whispered. "He's in your room
there--dead!"

"Dead?" exclaimed Eldrick. "Dead!"

Pratt shook his head again.

"He came up not so long after you'd gone, sir," he said. "Everybody had
gone but me--I was just going. Wanted to see you about something I don't
know what. He was very tottery when he came in--complained of the stairs
and the fog. I took him into your room, to sit down in the easy chair.
And--he died straight off. Just," concluded Pratt, "just as if he was
going quietly to sleep!"

"You're sure he is dead?--not fainting?" asked Eldrick.

"He's dead, sir--quite dead," replied Pratt. "I've rung up Dr.
Melrose--he'll be here in a minute or two--and the Town Hall--the
police--as well. Will you look at him, sir?"

Eldrick silently motioned his clerk to open the door; together they
walked into the room. And Eldrick looked at his quiet figure and wan
face, and knew that Pratt was right.

"Poor old chap!" he murmured, touching one of the thin hands. "He was a
fine man in his time, Pratt; clever man! And he was very, very old--one
of the oldest men in Barford. Well, we must wire to his grandson, Mr.
Bartle Collingwood. You'll find his address in the book. He's the only
relation the old fellow had."

"Come in for everything, doesn't he, sir?" asked Pratt, as he took an
address book from the desk, and picked up a sheaf of telegram forms.

"Every penny!" murmured Eldrick. "Nice little fortune, too--a fine thing
for a young fellow who's just been called to the Bar. As a matter of
fact, he'll be fairly well independent, even if he never sees a brief in
his life."

"He has been called, has he, sir?" asked Pratt, laying a telegram form
on Eldrick's writing pad and handing him a pen. "I wasn't aware of
that."

"Called this term--quite recently--at Gray's Inn," replied Eldrick, as
he sat down. "Very promising, clever young man. Look here!--we'd better
send two wires, one to his private address, and one to his chambers.
They're both in that book. It's six o'clock, isn't it?--he might be at
his chambers yet, but he may have gone home. I'll write both
messages--you put the addresses on, and get the wire off--we must have
him down here as soon as possible."

"One address is 53x, Pump Court; the other's 96, Cloburn Square,"
remarked Pratt consulting the book. "There's an express from King's
Cross at 8.15 which gets here midnight."

"Oh, it would do if he came down first thing in the morning--leave it to
him," said Eldrick. "I say, Pratt, do you think an inquest will be
necessary?"

Pratt had not thought of that--he began to think. And while he was
thinking, the doctor whom he had summoned came in. He looked at the dead
man, asked the clerk a few questions, and was apparently satisfied. "I
don't think there's any need for an inquest," he said in reply to
Eldrick. "I knew the old man very well--he was much feebler than he
would admit. The exertion of coming up these stairs of yours, and the
coughing brought on by the fog outside--that was quite enough. Of
course, the death will have to be reported in the usual way, but I have
no hesitation in giving a certificate. You've let the Town Hall people
know? Well, the body had better be removed to his rooms--we must send
over and tell his housekeeper. He'd no relations in the town, had he?"

"Only one in the world that he ever mentioned--his grandson--a young
barrister in London," answered Eldrick. "We've just been wiring to him.
Here, Pratt, you take these messages now, and get them off. Then we'll
see about making all arrangements. By-the-by," he added, as Pratt moved
towards the door, "you don't know what--what he came to see me about?"

"Haven't the remotest idea, sir," answered Pratt, readily and glibly.
"He died--just as I've told you--before he could tell me anything."

He went downstairs, and out into the street, and away to the General
Post Office, only conscious of one thing, only concerned about one
thing--that he was now the sole possessor of a great secret. The
opportunity which he had so often longed for had come. And as he hurried
along through the gathering fog he repeated and repeated a fragment of
the recent conversation between the man who was now dead, and
himself--who remained very much alive.

"You haven't shown it to anybody else?" Pratt had asked.

"Neither shown it to anybody, nor mentioned it to a soul," Antony Bartle
had answered. So, in all that great town of Barford, he, Linford Pratt,
he, alone out of a quarter of a million people, knew--what? The
magnitude of what he knew not only amazed but exhilarated him. There
were such possibilities for himself in that knowledge. He wanted to be
alone, to think out those possibilities; to reckon up what they came to.
Of one thing he was already certain--they should be, must be, turned to
his own advantage.

It was past eight o'clock before Pratt was able to go home to his
lodgings. His landlady, meeting him in the hall, hoped that his dinner
would not be spoiled: Pratt, who relied greatly on his dinner as his one
great meal of the day, replied that he fervently hoped it wasn't, but
that if it was it couldn't be helped, this time. For once he was
thinking of something else than his dinner--as for his engagement for
that evening, he had already thrown it over: he wanted to give all his
energies and thoughts and time to his secret. Nevertheless, it was
characteristic of him that he washed, changed his clothes, ate his
dinner, and even glanced over the evening newspaper before he turned to
the real business which was already deep in his brain. But at last, when
the maid had cleared away the dinner things, and he was alone in his
sitting-room, and had lighted his pipe, and mixed himself a drop of
whisky-and-water--the only indulgence in such things that he allowed
himself within the twenty-four hours--he drew John Mallathorpe's will
from his pocket, and read it carefully three times. And then he began to
think, closely and steadily.

First of all, the will was a good will. Nothing could upset it. It was
absolutely valid. It was not couched in the terms which a solicitor
would have employed, but it clearly and plainly expressed John
Mallathorpe's intentions and meanings in respect to the disposal of his
property. Nothing could be clearer. The properly appointed trustees were
to realize his estate. They were to distribute it according to his
specified instructions. It was all as plain as a pikestaff. Pratt, who
was a good lawyer, knew what the Probate Court would say to that will if
it were ever brought up before it, as he did, a quite satisfactory will.
And it was validly executed. Hundreds of people, competent to do so,
could swear to John Mallathorpe's signature; hundreds to Gaukrodger's;
thousands to Marshall's--who as cashier was always sending his signature
broadcast. No, there was nothing to do but to put that into the hands of
the trustees named in it, and then....

Pratt thought next of the two trustees. They were well-known men in the
town. They were comparatively young men--about forty. They were men of
great energy. Their chief interests were in educational matters--that,
no doubt, was why John Mallathorpe had appointed them trustees. Wyatt
had been plaguing the town for two years to start commercial schools:
Charlesworth was a devoted champion of technical schools. Pratt knew how
the hearts of both would leap, if he suddenly told them that enormous
funds were at their disposal for the furtherance of their schemes. And
he also knew something else--that neither Charlesworth nor Wyatt had the
faintest, remotest notion or suspicion that John Mallathorpe had ever
made such a will, or they would have moved heaven and earth, pulled down
Normandale Grange and Mallathorpe's Mill, in their efforts to find it.

But the effect--the effect of producing the will--now? Pratt, like
everybody else, had been deeply interested in the Mallathorpe affair.
There was so little doubt that John Mallathorpe had died intestate, such
absolute certainty that his only living relations were his deceased
brother's two children and their mother, that the necessary proceedings
for putting Harper Mallathorpe and his sister Nesta in possession of the
property, real and personal, had been comparatively simple and speedy.
But--what was it worth? What would the two trustees have been able to
hand over to the Mayor and Corporation of Barford, if the will had been
found as soon as John Mallathorpe died? Pratt, from what he remembered
of the bulk and calculations at the time, made a rapid estimate. As near
as he could reckon, the Mayor and Corporation would have got about
£300,000.

That, then--and this was what he wanted to get at--was what these young
people would lose if he produced the will. Nay!--on second thoughts, it
would be much more, very much more in some time; for the manufacturing
business was being carried on by them, and was apparently doing as well
as ever. It was really an enormous amount which they would lose--and
they would get--what? Ten thousand apiece and their mother a like sum.
Thirty thousand pounds in all--in comparison with hundreds of thousands.
But they would have no choice in the matter. Nothing could upset that
will.

He began to think of the three people whom the production of this will
would dispossess. He knew little of them beyond what common gossip had
related at the time of John Mallathorpe's sudden death. They had lived
in very quiet fashion, somewhere on the outskirts of the town, until
this change in their fortunes. Once or twice Pratt had seen Mrs.
Mallathorpe in her carriage in the Barford streets--somebody had pointed
her out to him, and had observed sneeringly that folk can soon adapt
themselves to circumstances, and that Mrs. Mallathorpe now gave herself
all the airs of a duchess, though she had been no more than a hospital
nurse before she married Richard Mallathorpe. And Pratt had also seen
young Harper Mallathorpe now and then in the town--since the good
fortune arrived--and had envied him: he had also thought what a strange
thing it was that money went to young fellows who seemed to have no
particular endowments of brain or energy. Harper was a very ordinary
young man, not over intelligent in appearance, who, Pratt had heard, was
often seen lounging about the one or two fashionable hotels of the
place. As for the daughter, Pratt did not remember having ever set eyes
on her--but he had heard that up to the time of John Mallathorpe's death
she had earned her own living as a governess, or a nurse, or something
of that sort.

He turned from thinking of these three people to thoughts about himself.
Pratt often thought about himself, and always in one direction--the
direction of self-advancement. He was always wanting to get on. He had
nobody to help him. He had kept himself since he was seventeen. His
father and mother were dead; he had no brothers or sisters--the only
relations he had, uncles and aunts, lived--some in London, some in
Canada. He was now twenty-eight, and earning four pounds a week. He had
immense confidence in himself, but he had never seen much chance of
escaping from drudgery. He had often thought of asking Eldrick & Pascoe
to give him his articles--but he had a shrewd idea that his request
would be refused. No--it was difficult to get out of a rut. And yet--he
was a clever fellow, a good-looking fellow, a sharp, shrewd, able--and
here was a chance, such a chance as scarcely ever comes to a man. He
would be a fool if he did not take it, and use it to his own best and
lasting advantage.

And so he locked up the will in a safe place, and went to bed, resolved
to take a bold step towards fortune on the morrow.




CHAPTER III


THE SHOP-BOY


When Pratt arrived at Eldrick & Pascoe's office at his usual hour of
nine next morning, he found the senior partner already there. And with
him was a young man whom the clerk at once set down as Mr. Bartle
Collingwood, and looked at with considerable interest and curiosity. He
had often heard of Mr. Bartle Collingwood, but had never seen him. He
knew that he was the only son of old Antony Bartle's only child--a
daughter who had married a London man; he knew, too, that Collingwood's
parents were both dead, and that the old bookseller had left their son
everything he possessed--a very nice little fortune, as Eldrick had
observed last night. And since last night he had known that Collingwood
had just been called to the Bar, and was on the threshold of what
Eldrick, who evidently knew all about it, believed to be a promising
career. Well, there he was in the flesh; and Pratt, who was a born
observer of men and events, took a good look at him as he stood just
within the private room, talking to Eldrick.

A good-looking fellow; what most folk would call handsome; dark,
clean-shaven, tall, with a certain air of reserve about his well-cut
features, firm lips, and steady eyes that suggested strength and
determination. He would look very well in wig and gown, decided Pratt,
viewing matters from a professional standpoint; he was just the sort
that clients would feel a natural confidence in, and that juries would
listen to. Another of the lucky ones, too; for Pratt knew the contents
of Antony Bartle's will, and that the young man at whom he was looking
had succeeded to a cool five-and-twenty thousand pounds, at least,
through his grandfather's death.

"Here is Pratt," said Eldrick, glancing into the outer office as the
clerk entered it. "Pratt, come in here--here is Mr. Bartle Collingwood,
He would like you to tell him the facts about Mr. Bartle's death."

Pratt walked in--armed and prepared. He was a clever hand at foreseeing
things, and he had known all along that he would have to answer
questions about the event of the previous night.

"There's very little to tell, sir," he said, with a polite
acknowledgment of Collingwood's greeting. "Mr. Bartle came up here just
as I was leaving--everybody else had left. He wanted to see Mr. Eldrick.
Why, he didn't say. He was coughing a good deal when he came in, and he
complained of the fog outside, and of the stairs. He said
something--just a mere mention--about his heart being bad. I lighted the
gas in here, and helped him into the chair. He just sat down, laid his
head back, and died."

"Without saying anything further?" asked Collingwood.

"Not a word more, Mr. Collingwood," answered Pratt. "He--well, it was
just as if he had dropped off to sleep. Of course, at first I thought
he'd fainted, but I soon saw what it was--it so happens that I've seen a
death just as sudden as that, once before--my landlady's husband died in
a very similar fashion, in my presence. There was nothing I could do,
Mr. Collingwood--except ring up Mr. Eldrick, and the doctor, and the
police."

"Mr. Pratt made himself very useful last night in making arrangements,"
remarked Eldrick, looking at Collingwood. "As it is, there is very
little to do. There will be no need for any inquest; Melrose has given
his certificate. So--there are only the funeral arrangements. We can
help you with that matter, of course. But first you'd no doubt like to
go to your grandfather's place and look through his papers? We have his
will here, you know--and I've already told you its effect."

"I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Pratt," said Collingwood, turning to the
clerk. He turned again to Eldrick. "All right," he went on. "I'll go
over to Quagg Alley. Bye-the-bye, Mr. Pratt--my grandfather didn't tell
you anything of the reason of his call here?"

"Not a word, sir," replied Pratt. "Merely said he wanted Mr. Eldrick."

"Had he any legal business in process?" asked Collingwood.

Eldrick and his clerk both shook their heads. No, Mr. Bartle had no
business of that sort that they knew of. Nothing--but there again Pratt
was prepared.

"It might have been about the lease of that property in Horsebridge
Land, sir," he said, glancing at his principal. "He did mention that,
you know, when he was in here a few weeks ago."

"Just so," agreed Eldrick. "Well, you'll let me know if we can be of
use," he went on, as Collingwood turned away. "Pratt can be at your
disposal, any time."

Collingwood thanked him and went off. He had travelled down from London
by the earliest morning train, and leaving his portmanteau at the hotel
of the Barford terminus, had gone straight to Eldrick & Pascoe's office;
accordingly this was his first visit to the shop in Quagg Alley. But he
knew the shop and its surroundings well enough, though he had not been
in Barford for some time; he also knew Antony Bartle's old housekeeper,
Mrs. Clough, a rough and ready Yorkshirewoman, who had looked after the
old man as long as he, Collingwood, could remember. She received him as
calmly as if he had merely stepped across the street to inquire after
his grandfather's health.

"I thowt ye'd be down here first thing, Mestur Collingwood," she said,
as he walked into the parlor at the back of the shop. "Of course,
there's naught to be done except to see after yer grandfather's burying.
I don't know if ye were surprised or no when t' lawyers tellygraphed to
yer last night? I weren't surprised to hear what had happened. I'd been
expecting summat o' that sort this last month or two."

"You mean--he was failing?" asked Collingwood.

"He were gettin' feebler and feebler every day," said the housekeeper.
"But nobody dare say so to him, and he wouldn't admit it his-self. He
were that theer high-spirited 'at he did things same as if he were a
young man. But I knew how it 'ud be in the end--and so it has been--I
knew he'd go off all of a sudden. And of course I had all in
readiness--when they brought him back last night there was naught to do
but lay him out. Me and Mrs. Thompson next door, did it, i' no time.
Wheer will you be for buryin' him, Mestur Collingwood?"

"We must think that over," answered Collingwood.

"Well, an' theer's all ready for that, too," responded Mrs. Clough.
"He's had his grave all ready i' the cemetery this three year--I
remember when he bowt it--it's under a yew-tree, and he told me 'at he'd
ordered his monnyment an' all. So yer an' t' lawyers'll have no great
trouble about them matters. Mestur Eldrick, he gev' orders for t' coffin
last night."

Collingwood left these gruesome details--highly pleasing to their
narrator--and went up to look at his dead grandfather. He had never seen
much of him, but they had kept up a regular correspondence, and always
been on terms of affection, and he was sorry that he had not been with
the old man at the last. He remained looking at the queer, quiet, old
face for a while; when he went down again, Mrs. Clough was talking to a
sharp-looking lad, of apparently sixteen or seventeen years, who stood
at the door leading into the shop, and who glanced at Collingwood with
keen interest and speculation.

"Here's Jabey Naylor wants to know if he's to do aught, Mestur," said
the housekeeper. "Of course, I've telled him 'at we can't have the shop
open till the burying's over--so I don't know what theer is that he can
do."

"Oh, well, let him come into the shop with me," answered Collingwood. He
motioned the lad to follow him out of the parlour. "So you were Mr.
Bartle's assistant, eh?" he asked. "Had he anybody else?"

"Nobody but me, sir," replied the lad. "I've been with him a year."

"And your name's what?" inquired Collingwood.

"Jabez Naylor, sir, but everybody call me Jabey."

"I see--Jabey for short, eh?" said Collingwood good-humouredly. He
walked into the shop, followed by the boy, and closed the door. The
outer door into Quagg Alley was locked: a light blind was drawn over the
one window; the books and engravings on the shelves and in the presses
were veiled in a half-gloom. "Well, as Mrs. Clough says, we can't do any
business for a few days, Jabey--after that we must see what can be done.
You shall have your wages just the same, of course, and you may look in
every day to see if there's anything you can do. You were here
yesterday, of course? Were you in the shop when Mr. Bartle went out?"

"Yes, sir," replied the lad. "I'd been in with him all the afternoon. I
was here when he went out--and here when they came to say he'd died at
Mr. Eldrick's."

Collingwood sat down in his grandfather's chair, at a big table, piled
high with books and papers, which stood in the middle of the floor.

"Did my grandfather seem at all unwell when he went out?" he asked.

"No, sir. He had been coughing a bit more than usual--that was all.
There was a fog came on about five o'clock, and he said it bothered
him."

"What had he been doing during the afternoon? Anything particular?"

"Nothing at all particular before half-past four or so, sir."

Collingwood took a closer look at Jabez Naylor. He saw that he was an
observant lad, evidently of superior intelligence--a good specimen of
the sharp town lad, well trained in a modern elementary school.

"Oh?" he said. "Nothing particular before half-past four, eh? Did he do
something particular after half-past four?"

"There was a post came in just about then, sir," answered Jabey. "There
was an American letter--that's it, sir--just in front of you. Mr. Bartle
read it, and asked me if we'd got a good clear copy of Hopkinson's
_History of Barford_. I reminded him that there was a copy amongst the
books that had been bought from Mallathorpe's Mill some time ago."

"Books that had belonged to Mr. John Mallathorpe, who was killed?" asked
Collingwood, who was fully acquainted with the chimney accident.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Bartle bought a lot of books that Mr. Mallathorpe had at
the Mill--local books. They're there in that corner: they were put there
when I fetched them, and he'd never looked over them since,
particularly."

"Well--and this _History of Barford_? You reminded him of it?"

"I got it out for him, sir. He sat down--where you're sitting--and began
to examine it. He said something about it being a nice copy, and he'd
get it off that night--that's it, sir: I didn't read it, of course. And
then he took some papers out of a pocket that's inside it, and I heard
him say 'Bless my soul--who'd have thought it!'"

Collingwood picked up the book which the boy indicated--a thick,
substantially bound volume, inside one cover of which was a linen
pocket, wherein were some loose maps and plans of Barford.

"These what he took out?" he asked, holding them up.

"Yes, sir, but there was another paper, with writing on it--a biggish
sheet of paper--written all over."

"Did you see what the writing was? Did you see any of it?"

"No, sir--only that it was writing, I was dusting those shelves out,
over there; when I heard Mr. Bartle say what he did. I just looked
round, over my shoulder--that was all."

"Was he reading this paper that you speak of?"

"Yes, sir--he was holding it up to the gas, reading it."

"Do you know what he did with it?"

"Yes, sir--he folded it up and put it in his pocket."

"Did he say any more--make any remark?"

"No, sir. He wrote a letter then."

"At once?"

"Yes, sir--straight off. But he wasn't more than a minute writing it.
Then he sent me to post it at the pillar-box, at the end of the Alley."

"Did you read the address?"

The lad turned to a book which stood with others in a rack over the
chimney-piece, and tapped it with his finger.

"Yes, sir--because Mr. Bartle gave orders when I first came here that a
register of every letter sent out was to be kept--I've always entered
them in this book."

"And this letter you're talking about--to whom was it addressed?"

"Miss Mallathorpe, Normandale Grange, sir."

"You went and posted it at once?"

"That very minute, sir."

"Was it soon afterwards that Mr. Bartle went out?"

"He went out as soon as I came back, sir."

"And you never saw him again?"

Jabey shook his head.

"Not alive, sir," he answered. "I saw him when they brought him back."

"How long had he been out when you heard he was dead?"

"About an hour, sir--just after six it was when they told Mrs. Clough
and me. He went out at ten minutes past five."

Collingwood got up. He gave the lad's shoulder a friendly squeeze.

"All right!" he said. "Now you seem a smart, intelligent lad--don't
mention a word to any one of what we've been talking about. You have not
mentioned it before, I suppose? Not a word? That's right--don't. Come in
again tomorrow morning to see if I want you to be here as usual. I'm
going to put a manager into this shop."

When the boy had gone Collingwood locked up the shop from the house
side, put the key in his pocket, and went into the kitchen.

"Mrs. Clough," he said. "I want to see the clothes which my grandfather
was wearing when he was brought home last night. Where are they?"

"They're in that little room aside of his bed-chamber, Mestur
Collingwood," replied the housekeeper. "I laid 'em all there, on the
clothes-press, just as they were taken off of him, by Lawyer Eldrick's
orders--he said they hadn't been examined, and wasn't to be, till you
came. Nobody whatever's touched 'em since."

Collingwood went upstairs and into the little room--a sort of box-room
opening out of that in which the old man lay. There were the clothes; he
went through the pockets of every garment. He found such things as keys,
a purse, loose money, a memorandum book, a bookseller's catalogue or
two, two or three letters of a business sort--but there was no big
folded paper, covered with writing, such as Jabey Naylor had described.

The mention of that paper had excited Collingwood's curiosity. He
rapidly summed up what he had learned. His grandfather had found a
paper, closely written upon, in a book which had been the property of
John Mallathorpe, deceased. The discovery had surprised him, for he had
given voice to an exclamation of what was evidently astonishment. He had
put the paper in his pocket. Then he had written a letter--to Mrs.
Mallathorpe of Normandale Grange. When his shop-boy had posted that
letter, he himself had gone out--to his solicitor. What, asked
Collingwood, was the reasonable presumption? The old man had gone to
Eldrick to show him the paper which he had found.

He lingered in the little room for a few minutes, thinking. No one but
Pratt had been with Antony Bartle at the time of his seizure and sudden
death. What sort of a fellow was Pratt? Was he honest? Was his word to
be trusted? Had he told the precise truth about the old man's death? He
was evidently a suave, polite, obliging sort of fellow, this clerk, but
it was a curious thing that if Antony Bartle had that paper, whatever it
was--in his pocket when he went to Eldrick's office it should not be in
his pocket still--if his clothing had really remained untouched. Already
suspicion was in Collingwood's mind--vague and indefinable, but there.

He was half inclined to go straight back to Eldrick & Pascoe's and tell
Eldrick what Jabey Naylor had just told him. But he reflected that while
Naylor went out to post the letter, the old bookseller might have put
the paper elsewhere; locked it up in his safe, perhaps. One thing,
however, he, Collingwood, could do at once--he could ask Mrs.
Mallathorpe if the letter referred to the paper. He was fully acquainted
with all the facts of the Mallathorpe history; old Bartle, knowing they
would interest his grandson, had sent him the local newspaper accounts
of its various episodes. It was only twelve miles to Normandale
Grange--a motor-car would carry him there within the hour. He glanced at
his watch--just ten o 'clock.

An hour later, Collingwood found himself standing in a fine oak-panelled
room, the windows of which looked out on a romantic valley whose thickly
wooded sides were still bright with the red and yellow tints of autumn.
A door opened--he turned, expecting to see Mrs. Mallathorpe. Instead, he
found himself looking at a girl, who glanced inquiringly at him, and
from him to the card which he had sent in on his arrival.




CHAPTER IV


THE FORTUNATE POSSESSORS


Collingwood at once realized that he was in the presence of one of the
two fortunate young people who had succeeded so suddenly--and, according
to popular opinion, so unexpectedly--to John Mallathorpe's wealth. This
was evidently Miss Nesta Mallathorpe, of whom he had heard, but whom he
had never seen. She, however, was looking at him as if she knew him, and
she smiled a little as she acknowledged his bow.

"My mother is out in the grounds, with my brother," she said, motioning
Collingwood towards a chair. "Won't you sit down, please?--I've sent for
her; she will be here in a few minutes."

Collingwood sat down; Nesta Mallathorpe sat down, too, and as they
looked at each other she smiled again.

"I have seen you before, Mr. Collingwood," she said. "I knew it must be
you when they brought up your card."

Collingwood used his glance of polite inquiry to make a closer
inspection of his hostess. He decided that Nesta Mallathorpe was not so
much pretty as eminently attractive--a tall, well-developed,
warm-coloured young woman, whose clear grey eyes and red lips and
general bearing indicated the possession of good health and spirits. And
he was quite certain that if he had ever seen her before he would not
have forgotten it.

"Where have you seen me?" he asked, smiling back at her.

"Have you forgotten the mock-trial--year before last?" she asked.

Collingwood remembered what she was alluding to. He had taken part, in
company with various other law students, in a mock-trial, a breach of
promise case, for the benefit of a certain London hospital, to him had
fallen one of the principal parts, that of counsel for the plaintiff.
"When I saw your name, I remembered it at once," she went on. "I was
there--I was a probationer at St. Chad's Hospital at that time."

"Dear me!" said Collingwood, "I should have thought our histrionic
efforts would have been forgotten. I'm afraid I don't remember much
about them, except that we had a lot of fun out of the affair. So you
were at St. Chad's?" he continued, with a reminiscence of the
surroundings of the institution they were talking of. "Very different to
Normandale!"

"Yes," she replied. "Very--very different to Normandale. But when I was
at St. Chad's, I didn't know that I--that we should ever come to
Normandale."

"And now that you are here?" he asked.

The girl looked out through the big window on the valley which lay in
front of the old house, and she shook her head a little.

"It's very beautiful," she answered, "but I sometimes wish I was back at
St. Chad's--with something to do. Here--there's nothing to do but to do
nothing." Collingwood realized that this was not the complaint of the
well-to-do young woman who finds time hang heavy--it was rather
indicative of a desire for action.

"I understand!" he said. "I think I should feel like that. One wants--I
suppose--is it action, movement, what is it?"

"Better call it occupation--that's a plain term," she answered. "We're
both suffering from lack of occupation here, my brother and I. And it's
bad for us--especially for him."

Before Collingwood could think of any suitable reply to this remarkably
fresh and candid statement, the door opened, and Mrs. Mallathorpe came
in, followed by her son. And the visitor suddenly and immediately
noticed the force and meaning of Nesta Mallathorpe's last remark. Harper
Mallathorpe, a good-looking, but not remarkably intelligent appearing
young man, of about Collingwood's own age, gave him the instant
impression of being bored to death; the lack-lustre eye, the aimless
lounge, the hands thrust into the pockets of his Norfolk jacket as if
they took refuge there from sheer idleness--all these things told their
tale. Here, thought Collingwood, was a fine example of how riches can be
a curse--relieved of the necessity of having to earn his daily bread by
labour, Harper Mallathorpe was finding life itself laborious.

But there was nothing of aimlessness, idleness, or lack of vigour in
Mrs. Mallathorpe. She was a woman of character, energy, of
brains--Collingwood saw all that at one glance. A little, neat-figured,
compact sort of woman, still very good-looking, still on the right side
of fifty, with quick movements and sharp glances out of a pair of shrewd
eyes: this, he thought, was one of those women who will readily
undertake the control and management of big affairs. He felt, as Mrs.
Mallathorpe turned inquiring looks on him, that as long as she was in
charge of them the Mallathorpe family fortunes would be safe.

"Mother," said Nesta, handing Collingwood's card to Mrs. Mallathorpe,
"this gentleman is Mr. Bartle Collingwood. He's--aren't you?--yes, a
barrister. He wants to see you. Why, I don't know. I have seen Mr.
Collingwood before--but he didn't remember me. Now he'll tell you what
he wants to see you about."

"If you'll allow me to explain why I called on you, Mrs. Mallathorpe,"
said Collingwood, "I don't suppose you ever heard of me--but you know,
at any rate, the name of my grandfather, Mr. Antony Bartle, the
bookseller, of Barford? My grandfather is dead--he died very suddenly
last night."

Mrs. Mallathorpe and Nesta murmured words of polite sympathy. Harper
suddenly spoke--as if mere words were some relief to his obvious
boredom.

"I heard that, this morning," he said, turning to his mother. "Hopkins
told me--he was in town last night. I meant to tell you."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Mallathorpe, glancing at some letters which
stood on a rack above the mantelpiece. "Why--I had a letter from Mr.
Bartle this very morning!"

"It is that letter that I have come to see you about," said Collingwood.
"I only got down here from London at half-past eight this morning, and
of course, I have made some inquiries about the circumstances of my
grandfather's sudden death. He died very suddenly indeed at Mr.
Eldrick's office. He had gone there on some business about which nobody
knows nothing--he died before he could mention it. And according to his
shop-boy, Jabey Naylor, the last thing he did was to write a letter to
you. Now--I have reason for asking--would you mind telling me, Mrs.
Mallathorpe, what that letter was about?" Mrs. Mallathorpe moved over to
the hearth, and took an envelope from the rack. She handed it to
Collingwood, indicating that he could open it. And Collingwood drew out
one of old Bartle's memorandum forms, and saw a couple of lines in the
familiar crabbed handwriting:

    "MRS. MALLATHORPE, Normandale Grange.

    "Madam,--If you should drive into town tomorrow, will you kindly
    give me a call? I want to see you particularly.

    "Respectfully, A. BARTLE."

Collingwood handed back the letter.

"Have you any idea to what that refers?" he asked.

"Well, I think I have--perhaps," answered Mrs. Mallathorpe. "Mr. Bartle
persuaded us to sell him some books--local books--which my late
brother-in-law had at his office in the mill. And since then he has been
very anxious to buy more local books and pamphlets about this
neighbourhood, and he had some which Mr. Bartle was very anxious indeed
to get hold of. I suppose he wanted to see me about that." Collingwood
made no remarks for the moment. He was wondering whether or not to tell
what Jabey Naylor had told him about this paper taken from the linen
pocket inside the _History of Barford_. But Mrs. Mallathorpe's ready
explanation had given him a new idea, and he rose from his chair.

"Thank you," he said. "I suppose that's it. You may think it odd that I
wanted to know what he'd written about, but as it was certainly the last
letter he wrote----"

"Oh, I'm quite sure it must have been that!" exclaimed Mrs. Mallathorpe.
"And as I am going into Barford this afternoon, in any case, I meant to
call at Mr. Bartle's. I'm sorry to hear of his death, poor old
gentleman! But he was very old indeed, wasn't he?"

"He was well over eighty," replied Collingwood. "Well, thank you
again--and good-bye--I have a motorcar waiting outside there, and I have
much to do in Barford when I get back."

The two young people accompanied Collingwood into the hall. And Harper
suddenly brightened.

"I say!" he said. "Have a drink before you go. It's a long way in and
out. Come into the dining-room."

But Collingwood caught Nesta's eye, and he was quick to read a signal in
it.

"No, thanks awfully!" he answered. "I won't really--I must get
back--I've such a lot of things to attend to. This is a very beautiful
place of yours," he went on, as Harper, whose face had fallen at the
visitor's refusal, followed with his sister to where the motor-car
waited. "It might be a hundred miles from anywhere."

"It's a thousand miles from anywhere!" muttered Harper. "Nothing to do
here!"

"No hunting, shooting, fishing?" asked Collingwood. "Get tired of 'em?
Well, why not make a private golf-links in your park? You'd get a fine
sporting course round there."

"That's a good notion, Harper," observed Nesta, with some eagerness.
"You could have it laid out this winter."

Harper suddenly looked at Collingwood.

"Going to stop in Barford?" he asked.

"Till I settle my grandfather's affairs--yes," answered Collingwood.

"Come and see us again," said Harper. "Come for the night--we've got a
jolly good billiard table."

"Do!" added Nesta heartily.

"Since you're so kind, I will, then," replied Collingwood. "But not for
a few days."

He drove off--to wonder why he had visited Normandale Grange at all. For
Mrs. Mallathorpe's explanation of the letter was doubtless the right
one: Collingwood, little as he had seen of Antony Bartle, knew what a
veritable sleuth-hound the old man was where rare books or engravings
were concerned. Yet--why the sudden exclamation on finding that paper?
Why the immediate writing of the letter to Mrs. Mallathorpe? Why the
setting off to Eldrick & Pascoe's office as soon as the letter was
written? It all looked as if the old man had found some document, the
contents of which related to the Mallathorpe family, and was anxious to
communicate its nature to Mrs. Mallathorpe, and to his own solicitor, as
soon as possible.

"But that's probably only my fancy," he mused, as he sped back to
Barford; "the real explanation is doubtless that suggested by Mrs.
Mallathorpe. Something made the old man think of the collection of local
books at Normandale Grange--and he immediately wrote off to ask her to
see him, with the idea of persuading her to let him have them. That's
all there is in it--what a suspicious sort of party I must be getting!
And suspicious of whom--and of what? Anyhow, I'm glad I went out
there--and I'll certainly go again."

On his way back to Barford he thought a good deal of the two young
people he had just left. There was something of the irony of fate about
their situation. There they were, in possession of money and luxury and
youth--and already bored because they had nothing to do. He felt what
closely approached a contemptuous pity for Harper--why didn't he turn to
some occupation? There was their own business--why didn't he put in so
many hours a day there, instead of leaving it to managers? Why didn't he
interest himself in local affairs?--work at something? Already he had
all the appearance of a man who is inclined to slackness--and in that
case, mused Collingwood, his money would do him positive harm. But he
had no thoughts of that sort about Nesta Mallathorpe: he had seen that
she was of a different temperament.

"She'll not stick there--idling," he said. "She'll break out and do
something or other. What did she say? 'Suffering from lack of
occupation'? A bad thing to suffer from, too--glad I'm not similarly
afflicted!"

There was immediate occupation for Collingwood himself when he reached
the town. He had already made up his mind as to his future plans. He
would sell his grandfather's business as soon as he could find a
buyer--the old man had left a provision in his will, the gist of which
Eldrick had already communicated to Collingwood, to the effect that his
grandson could either carry on the business with the help of a competent
manager until the stock was sold out, or could dispose of it as a going
concern--Collingwood decided to sell it outright, and at once. But first
it was necessary for him to look round the collection of valuable books
and prints, and get an idea of what it was that he was about to sell.
And when he had reached Barford again, and had lunched at his hotel, he
went to Quagg Alley, and shut himself in the shop, and made a careful
inspection of the treasures which old Bartle had raked up from many
quarters.

Within ten minutes of beginning his task Collingwood knew that he had
gone out to Normandale Grange about a mere nothing. Picking up the
_History of Barford_ which Jabey Naylor had spoken of, and turning over
its leaves, two papers dropped out; one a half sheet of foolscap,
folded; the other, a letter from some correspondent in the United
States. Collingwood read the letter first--it was evidently that which
Naylor had referred to as having been delivered the previous afternoon.
It asked for a good, clear copy of Hopkinson's _History of Barford_--and
then it went on, "If you should come across a copy of what is, I
believe, a very rare tract or pamphlet, _Customs of the Court Leet of
the Manor of Barford_, published, I think, about 1720, I should be glad
to pay you any price you like to ask for it--in reason." So much for the
letter--Collingwood turned from it to the folded paper. It was headed
"List of Barford Tracts and Pamphlets in my box marked B.P. in the
library at N Grange," and it was initialled at the foot J.M. Then
followed the titles of some twenty-five or thirty works--amongst them
was the very tract for which the American correspondent had inquired.
And now Collingwood had what he believed to be a clear vision of what
had puzzled him--his grandfather having just read the American buyer's
request had found the list of these pamphlets inside the _History of
Barford_, and in it the entry of the particular one he wanted, and at
once he had written to Mrs. Mallathorpe in the hope of persuading her to
sell what his American correspondent desired to buy. It was all quite
plain--and the old man's visit to Eldrick & Pascoe's had nothing to do
with the letter to Mrs. Mallathorpe. Nor had he carried the folded paper
in his pocket to Eldrick's--when Jabey Naylor went out to post the
letter, Antony had placed the folded paper and the American letter
together in the book and left them there. Quite, quite simple!--he had
had his run to Normandale Grange and back all about nothing, and for
nothing--except that he had met Nesta Mallathorpe, whom he was already
sufficiently interested in to desire to see again. But having arrived at
an explanation of what had puzzled him and made him suspicious, he
dismissed that matter from his mind and thought no more of it.

But across the street, all unknown to Collingwood, Linford Pratt was
thinking a good deal. Collingwood had taken his car from a rank
immediately opposite Eldrick & Pascoe's windows; Pratt, whose desk
looked on to the street, had seen him drive away soon after ten o'clock
and return about half-past twelve. Pratt, who knew everybody in the
business centre of the town, knew the man who had driven Collingwood,
and when he went out to his lunch he asked him where he had been that
morning. The man, who knew no reason for secrecy, told him--and Pratt
went off to eat his bread and cheese and drink his one glass of ale and
to wonder why young Collingwood had been to Normandale Grange. He became
slightly anxious and uneasy. He knew that Collingwood must have made
some slight examination of old Bartle's papers. Was it--could it be
possible that the old man, before going to Eldrick's, had left some
memorandum of his discovery in his desk--or in a diary? He had said that
he had not shown the will, nor mentioned the will, to a soul--but he
might;--old men were so fussy about things--he might have set down in
his diary that he had found it on such a day, and under such-and-such
circumstances.

However, there was one person who could definitely inform him of the
reason of Collingwood's visit to Normandale Grange--Mrs. Mallathorpe. He
would see her at once, and learn if he had any grounds for fear. And so
it came about that at nine o'clock that evening, Mrs. Mallathorpe, for
the second time that day, found herself asked to see a limb of the law.




CHAPTER V


POINT-BLANK


Mrs. Mallathorpe was alone when Pratt's card was taken to her. Harper
and Nesta were playing billiards in a distant part of the big house.
Dinner had been over for an hour; Mrs. Mallathorpe, who had known what
hard work and plenty of it was, in her time, was trifling over the
newspapers--rest, comfort, and luxury were by no means boring to her.
She looked at the card doubtfully--Pratt had pencilled a word or two on
it: "Private and important business." Then she glanced at the butler--an
elderly man who had been with John Mallathorpe many years before the
catastrophe occurred.

"Who is he, Dickenson?" she asked. "Do you know him?"

"Clerk at Eldrick & Pascoe's, in the town, ma'am," replied the butler.
"I know the young man by sight."

"Where is he?" inquired Mrs. Mallathorpe.

"In the little morning room, at present, ma'am," said Dickenson.

"Take him into the study," commanded Mrs. Mallathorpe. "I'll come to him
presently." She was utterly at a loss to understand Pratt's presence
there. Eldrick & Pascoe were not her solicitors, and she had no business
of a legal nature in which they could be in any way concerned. But it
suddenly struck her that that was the second time she had heard
Eldrick's name mentioned that day--young Mr. Collingwood had said that
his grandfather's death had taken place at Eldrick & Pascoe's office.
Had this clerk come to see her about that?--and if so, what had she to
do with it? Before she reached the room in which Pratt was waiting for
her, Mrs. Mallathorpe was filled with curiosity. But in that curiosity
there was not a trace of apprehension; nothing suggested to her that her
visitor had called on any matter actually relating to herself or her
family.

The room into which Pratt had been taken was a small apartment opening
out of the library--John Mallathorpe, when he bought Normandale Grange,
had it altered and fitted to suit his own tastes, and Pratt, as soon as
he entered it, saw that it was a place in which privacy and silence
could be ensured. He noticed that it had double doors, and that there
were heavy curtains before the window. And during the few minutes which
elapsed between his entrance and Mrs. Mallathorpe's, he took the
precaution to look behind those curtains, and to survey his
surroundings--what he had to say was not to be overheard, if he could
help it.

Mrs. Mallathorpe looked her curiosity as soon as she came in. She did
not remember that she had ever seen this young man before, but she
recognized at once that he was a shrewd and sharp person, and she knew
from his manner that he had news of importance to give her. She quietly
acknowledged Pratt's somewhat elaborate bow, and motioned him to take a
chair at the side of the big desk which stood before the fireplace--she
herself sat down at the desk itself, in John Mallathorpe's old
elbow-chair. And Pratt thought to himself that however much young Harper
John Mallathorpe might be nominal master of Normandale Grange, the real
master was there, in the self-evident, quiet-looking woman who turned to
him in business-like fashion.

"You want to see me?" said Mrs. Mallathorpe. "What is it?"

"Business, Mrs. Mallathorpe," replied Pratt. "As I said on my card--of a
private and important sort."

"To do with me?" she asked.

"With you--and with your family," said Pratt. "And before we go any
further, not a soul knows of it but--me."

Mrs. Mallathorpe took another searching look at her visitor. Pratt was
leaning over the corner of the desk, towards her; already he had lowered
his tones to the mysterious and confidential note.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "Go on."

Pratt bent a little nearer.

"A question or two first, if you please, Mrs. Mallathorpe. And--answer
them! They're for your own good. Young Mr. Collingwood called on you
today."

"Well--and what of it?"

"What did he want?"

Mrs. Mallathorpe hesitated and frowned a little. And Pratt hastened to
reassure her. "I'm using no idle words, Mrs. Mallathorpe, when I say
it's for your own good. It is! What did he come for?"

"He came to ask what there was in a letter which his grandfather wrote
to me yesterday afternoon."

"Antony Bartle had written to you, had he? And what did he say, Mrs.
Mallathorpe? For that is important!"

"No more than that he wanted me to call on him today, if I happened to
be in Barford."

"Nothing more?"

"Nothing more--not a word."

"Nothing as to--why he wanted to see you?"

"No! I thought that he probably wanted to see me about buying some books
of the late Mr. Mallathorpe's."

"Did you tell Collingwood that?" asked Pratt, eagerly.

"Yes--of course."

"Did it satisfy him?"

Mrs. Mallathorpe frowned again.

"Why shouldn't I?" she demanded. "It was the only explanation I could
possibly give him. How do I know what the old man really wanted?"

Pratt drew his chair still nearer to the desk. His voice dropped to a
whisper and his eyes were full of meaning.

"I'll tell you what he wanted!" he said speaking very slowly. "It's what
I've come for. Listen! Antony Bartle came to our office soon after five
yesterday afternoon. I was alone--everybody else had gone. I took him
into Eldrick's room. He told me that in turning over one of the books
which he had bought from Mallathorpe Mill, some short time ago, he had
found--what do you think?"

Mrs. Mallathorpe's cheek had flushed at the mention of the books from
the Mill. Now, at Pratt's question, and under his searching eye, she
turned very pale, and the clerk saw her fingers tighten on the arms of
her chair.

"What?" she asked. "What?"

"John Mallathorpe's will!" he answered. "Do you understand? His--will!"

The woman glanced quickly about her--at the doors, the uncurtained
window.

"Safe enough here," whispered Pratt. "I made sure of that. Don't be
afraid--no one knows--but me."

But Mrs. Mallathorpe seemed to find some difficulty in speaking, and
when she at last got out a word her voice sounded hoarse.

"Impossible!"

"It's a fact!" said Pratt. "Nothing was ever more a fact as you'll see.
But let me finish my story. The old man told me how he'd found the
will--only half an hour before--and he asked me to ring up Eldrick, so
that we might all read it together. I went to the telephone--when I came
back, Bartle was dead--just dead. And--I took the will out of his
pocket."

Mrs. Mallathorpe made an involuntary gesture with her right hand. And
Pratt smiled, craftily, and shook his head.

"Much too valuable to carry about, Mrs. Mallathorpe," he said. "I've got
it--all safe--under lock and key. But as I've said--nobody knows of it
but myself. Not a living soul. No one has any idea! No one can have any
idea. I was a bit alarmed when I heard that young Collingwood had been
to you, for I thought that the old man, though he didn't tell me of any
such thing, might have dropped you a line saying what he'd found. But as
he didn't--well, not one living soul knows that the will's in
existence, except me--and you!"

Mrs. Mallathorpe was regaining her self-possession. She had had a great
shock, but the worst of it was over. Already she knew, from Pratt's
manner, insidious and suggesting, that the will was of a nature that
would dispossess her and hers of this recently acquired wealth--the
clerk had made that evident by look and tone. So--there was nothing but
to face things.

"What--what does it--say?" she asked, with an effort.

Pratt unbuttoned his overcoat, plunged a hand into the inner pocket,
drew out a sheet of paper, unfolded it and laid it on the desk.

"An exact copy," he said tersely. "Read it for yourself."

In spite of the determined effort which she made to be calm, Mrs.
Mallathorpe's fingers still trembled as she took up the sheet on which
Pratt had made a fair copy of the will. The clerk watched her narrowly
as she read. He knew that presently there would be a tussle between
them: he knew, too, that she was a woman who would fight hard in defence
of her own interest, and for the interests of her children.

Always keeping his ears open to local gossip, especially where money was
concerned, Pratt had long since heard that Mrs. Mallathorpe was a keen
and sharp business woman. And now he was not surprised when, having
slowly and carefully read the copy of the will from beginning to end,
she laid it down, and turned to him with a business-like question.

"The effect of that?" she asked. "What would it be--curtly?"

"Precisely what it says," answered Pratt. "Couldn't be clearer!"

"We--should lose all?" she demanded, almost angrily. "All?"

"All--except what he says--there," agreed Pratt.

"And that," she went on, drumming her fingers on the paper, "that--would
stand?"

"What it's a copy of would stand," said Pratt. "Oh, yes, don't you make
any mistake about it, Mrs. Mallathorpe! Nothing can upset that will. It
is plain as a pikestaff how it came to be made. Your late brother-in-law
evidently wrote his will out--it's all in his own handwriting--and took
it down to the Mill with him the very day of the chimney accident. Just
as evidently he signed it in the presence of his manager, Gaukrodger,
and his cashier, Marshall--they signed at the same time, as it says,
there. Now I take it that very soon after that, Mr. Mallathorpe went out
into his mill yard to have a look at the chimney--Gaukrodger and
Marshall went with him. Before he went, he popped the will into the
book, where old Bartle found it yesterday--such things are easily done.
Perhaps he was reading the book--perhaps it lay handy--he slipped the
will inside, anyway. And then--he was killed--and, what's more the two
witnesses were killed with him. So there wasn't a man left who could
tell of that will! But--there's half Barford could testify to these
three signatures! Mrs. Mallathorpe, there's not a chance for you if I
put that will into the hands of the two trustees!"

He leaned back in his chair after that--nodding confidently, watching
keenly. And now he saw that the trembling fingers were interlacing each
other, twisting the rings on each other, and that Mrs. Mallathorpe was
thinking as she had most likely never thought in her life. After a
moment's pause Pratt went on. "Perhaps you didn't understand," he said.
"I mean, you don't know the effect. Those two trustees--Charlesworth &
Wyatt--could turn you all clean out of this--tomorrow, in a way of
speaking. Everything's theirs! They can demand an account of every penny
that you've all had out of the estate and the business--from the time
you all took hold. If anything's been saved, put aside, they can demand
that. You're entitled to nothing but the three amounts of ten thousand
each. Of course, thirty thousand is thirty thousand--it means, at five
per cent., fifteen hundred a year--if you could get five per cent.
safely. But--I should say your son and daughter are getting a few
thousand a year each, aren't they, Mrs. Mallathorpe? It would be a nice
come-down! Five hundred a year apiece--at the outside. A small house
instead of Normandale Grange. Genteel poverty--comparatively
speaking--instead of riches. That is--if I hand over the will to
Charlesworth & Wyatt."

Mrs. Mallathorpe slowly turned her eyes on Pratt. And Pratt suddenly
felt a little afraid--there was anger in those eyes; anger of a curious
sort. It might be against fate--against circumstance: it might not--why
should it?--be against him personally, but it was there, and it was
malign and almost evil, and it made him uncomfortable.

"Where is the will!" she asked.

"Safe! In my keeping," answered Pratt.

She looked him all over--surmisingly.

"You'll sell it to me?" she suggested. "You'll hand it over--and let me
burn it--destroy it?"

"No!" answered Pratt. "I shall not!"

He saw that his answer produced personal anger at last. Mrs. Mallathorpe
gave him a look which would have warned a much less observant man than
Pratt. But he gave her back a look that was just as resolute.

"I say no--and I mean no!" he continued. "I won't sell--but I'll
bargain. Let's be plain with each other. You don't want that will to be
handed over to the trustees named in it, Charlesworth & Wyatt?"

"Do you think I'm a fool--man!" she flashed out.

"I should be a fool myself if I did," replied Pratt calmly. "And I'm not
a fool. Very well--then you'll square me. You'll buy me. Come to terms
with me, and nobody shall ever know. I repeat to you what I've said
before--not a soul knows now, no nor suspects! It's utterly impossible
for anybody to find out. The testator's dead. The attesting witnesses
are dead. The man who found this will is dead. No one but you and myself
ever need know a word about all this. If--you make terms with me, Mrs.
Mallathorpe."

"What do you want?" she asked sullenly. "You forget--I've nothing of my
own. I didn't come into anything."

"I've a pretty good notion who's real master here--and at Mallathorpe
Mill, too," retorted Pratt. "I should say you're still in full control
of your children, Mrs. Mallathorpe, and that you can do pretty well what
you like with them."

"With one of them perhaps," she said, still angry and sullen. "But--I
tell you, for you may as well know--if my daughter knew of what you've
told me, she'd go straight to these trustees and tell! That's a fact
that you'd better realize. I can't control her."

"Oh!" remarked Pratt. "Um!--then we must take care that she doesn't
know. But we don't intend that anybody should know but you and me, Mrs.
Mallathorpe. You needn't tell a soul--not even your son. You mustn't
tell! Listen, now--I've thought out a good scheme which'll profit me,
and make you safe. Do you know what you want on this estate?"

She stared at him as if wondering what this question had to do with the
matter which was of such infinite importance. And Pratt smiled, and
hastened to enlighten her.

"You want--a steward," he said. "A steward and estate agent. John
Mallathorpe managed everything for himself, but your son can't, and
pardon me if I say that you can't--properly. You need a man--you need
me. You can persuade your son to that effect. Give me the job of steward
here. I'll suggest to you how to do it in such a fashion that it'll
arouse no suspicion, and look just like an ordinary--very
ordinary--business job--at a salary and on conditions to be arranged,
and--you're safe! Safe, Mrs. Mallathorpe--you know what that means!"

Mrs. Mallathorpe suddenly rose from her chair.

"I know this!" she said. "I'll discuss nothing, and do nothing, till
I've seen that will!"

Pratt rose, too, nodding his head as if quite satisfied. He took up the
copy, tore it in two pieces, and carefully dropped them into the glowing
fire.

"I shall be at my lodgings at any time after five-thirty tomorrow
evening," he answered quietly. "Call there. You have the address. And
you can then read the will with your own eyes. I shan't bring it here.
The game's in my hands, Mrs. Mallathorpe."

Within a few minutes he was out in the park again, and making his way to
the little railway station in the valley below. He felt triumphant--he
knew that the woman he had just left was at his mercy and would accede
to his terms. And all the way back to town, and through the town to his
lodgings, he considered and perfected the scheme he was going to suggest
to Mrs. Mallathorpe on the morrow.

Pratt lived in a little hamlet of old houses on the very outskirts of
Barford--on the edge of a stretch of Country honeycombed by
stone-quarries, some in use, some already worked out. It was a lonely
neighbourhood, approached from the nearest tramway route by a narrow,
high-walled lane. He was half-way along that lane when a stealthy foot
stole to his side, and a hand was laid on his arm--just as stealthily
came the voice of one of his fellow-clerks at Eldrick & Pascoe's.

"A moment, Pratt! I've been waiting for you. I want--a word or two--in
private!"




CHAPTER VI


THE UNEXPECTED


Pratt started when he heard that voice and felt the arresting hand. He
knew well enough to whom they belonged--they were those of one James
Parrawhite, a little, weedy, dissolute chap who had been in Eldrick &
Pascoe's employ for about a year. It had always been a mystery to him
and the other clerks that Parrawhite had been there at all, and that
being there he was allowed to stop. He was not a Barford man. Nobody
knew anything whatever about him, though his occasional references to it
seemed to indicate that he knew London pretty thoroughly. Pratt shrewdly
suspected that he was a man whom Eldrick had known in other days,
possibly a solicitor who had been struck off the rolls, and to whom
Eldrick, for old times' sake, was disposed to extend a helping hand.

All that any of them knew was that one morning some fifteen months
previously, Parrawhite, a complete stranger, had walked into the office,
asked to see Eldrick, had remained closeted with him half an hour, and
had been given a job at two pounds a week, there and then. That he was a
clever and useful clerk no one denied, but no one liked him.

He was always borrowing half-crowns. He smelt of rum. He was altogether
undesirable. It was plain to the clerks that Pascoe disliked him. But he
was evidently under Eldrick's protection, and he did his work and did it
well, and there was no doubt that he knew more law than either of the
partners, and was better up in practice than Pratt himself. But--he was
not desirable  ... and Pratt never desired him less than on this
occasion.

"What are you after--coming on a man like that!" growled Pratt.

"You," replied Parrawhite. "I knew you'd got to come up this lane, so I
waited for you. I've something to say."

"Get it said, then!" retorted Pratt.

"Not here," answered Parrawhite. "Come down by the quarry--nobody about
there."

"And suppose I don't?" asked Pratt.

"Then you'll be very sorry for yourself--tomorrow," replied Parrawhite.
"That's all!"

Pratt had already realized that this fellow knew something. Parrawhite's
manner was not only threatening but confident. He spoke as a man speaks
who has got the whip hand. And so, still growling, and inwardly raging
and anxious, he turned off with his companion into a track which lay
amongst the stone quarries. It was a desolate, lonely place; no house
was near; they were as much alone as if they had been in the middle of
one of the great moors outside the town, the lights of which they could
see in the valley below them. In the grey sky above, a waning moon gave
them just sufficient light to see their immediate surroundings--a
grass-covered track, no longer used, and the yawning mouths of the old
quarries, no longer worked, the edges of which were thick with gorse and
bramble. It was the very place for secret work, and Pratt was certain
that secret work was at hand.

"Now then!" he said, when they had walked well into the wilderness.
"What is it? And no nonsense!"

"You'll get no nonsense from me," sneered Parrawhite. "I'm not that
sort. This is what I want to say. I was in Eldrick's office last night
all the time you were there with old Bartle."

This swift answer went straight through Pratt's defences. He was
prepared to hear something unpleasant and disconcerting, but not that.
And he voiced the first thought that occurred to him.

"That's a lie!" he exclaimed. "There was nobody there!"

"No lie," replied Parrawhite. "I was there. I was behind the curtain of
that recess--you know. And since I know what you did, I don't mind
telling you--we're in the same boat, my lad!--what I was going to do.
You thought I'd gone--with the others. But I hadn't. I'd merely done
what I've done several times without being found out--slipped in
there--to wait until you'd gone. Why? Because friend Eldrick, as you
know, is culpably careless about leaving loose cash in the unlocked
drawer of his desk, culpably careless, too, about never counting it.
And--a stray sovereign or half-sovereign is useful to a man who only
gets two quid a week. Understand?"

"So you're a thief?" said Pratt bitterly.

"I'm precisely what you are--a thief!" retorted Parrawhite. "You stole
John Mallathorpe's will last night. I heard everything, I tell you!--and
saw everything. I heard the whole business--what the old man said--what
you, later, said to Eldrick. I saw old Bartle die--I saw you take the
will from his pocket, read it, and put it in your pocket. I know
all!--except the terms of the will. But--I've a pretty good idea of what
those terms are. Do you know why? Because I watched you set off to
Normandale by the eight-twenty train tonight!"

"Hang you for a dirty sneak!" growled Pratt.

Parrawhite laughed, and flourished a heavy stick which he carried.

"Not a bit of it!" he said, almost pleasantly. "I thought you were more
of a philosopher--I fancied I'd seen gleams--mere gleams--of philosophy
in you at times. Fortunes of war, my boy! Come now--you've seen enough
of me to know I'm an adventurer. This is an adventure of the sort I
love. Go into it heart and soul, man! Own up!--you've found out that the
will leaves the property away from the present holders, and you've been
to Normandale to--bargain? Come, now!"

"What then!" demanded Pratt.

"Then, of course, I come in at the bargaining," answered Parrawhite.
"I'm going to have my share. That's a certainty. You'd better take my
advice. Because you're absolutely in my power. I've nothing to do but to
tell Eldrick tomorrow morning."

"Suppose I tell Eldrick tomorrow morning of what you've told me?"
interjected Pratt.

"Eldrick will believe me before you," retorted Parrawhite,
imperturbably. "I'm a much cleverer, more plausible man than you are, my
friend--I've had an experience of the world which you haven't, I can
easily invent a fine excuse for being in that room. For two pins I'll
incriminate you! See? Be reasonable--for if it comes to a contest of
brains, you haven't a rabbit's chance against a fox. Tell me all about
the will--and what you've done. You've got to--for, by the Lord
Harry!--I'm going to have my share. Come, now!"

Pratt stood, in a little hollow wherein they had paused, and thought,
rapidly and angrily. There was no doubt about it--he was trapped. This
fearful scoundrel at his side, who boasted of his cleverness, would
stick to him like a leach--he would have to share. All his own smart
schemes for exploiting Mrs. Mallathorpe, for ensuring himself a
competence for life, were knocked on the head. There was no helping
it--he would have to tell--and to share. And so, sullenly, resentfully,
he told.

Parrawhite listened in silence, taking in every point. Pratt, knowing
that concealment was useless, told the truth about everything,
concisely, but omitting nothing.

"All right!" remarked Parrawhite at the end, "Now, then, what terms do
you mean to insist on?"

"What's the good of going into that?" growled Pratt. "Now that you've
stuck your foot in it, what do my terms matter?"

"Quite right," agreed Parrawhite, "They don't. What matter is--our
terms. Now let me suggest--no, insist on--what they must be. Cash! Do
you know why I insist on that? No? Then I'll tell you. Because this
young barrister chap, Collingwood, has evidently got some suspicion
of--something."

"I can't see it," said Pratt uneasily. "He was only curious to know what
that letter was about."

"Never mind," continued Parrawhite. "He had some suspicion--or he
wouldn't have gone out there almost as soon as he reached Barford after
his grandfather's death. And even if suspicion is put to sleep for
awhile, it can easily be reawakened, so--cash! We must profit at
once--before any future risk arises. But--what terms were you thinking
of?"

"Stewardship of this estate for life," muttered Pratt gloomily.

"With the risk of some discovery being made, some time, any time!"
sneered Parrawhite. "Where are your brains, man? The old fellow, John
Mallathorpe, probably made a draft or two of that will before he did his
fair copy--he may have left those drafts among his papers."

"If he did, Mrs. Mallathorpe 'ud find 'em," said Pratt slowly. "I don't
believe there's the slightest risk. I've figured everything out. I don't
believe there's any danger from Collingwood or from anybody--it's
impossible! And if we take cash now--we're selling for a penny what we
ought to get pounds for."

"The present is much more important than the future, my friend,"
answered Parrawhite. "To me, at any rate. Now, then, this is my
proposal. I'll be with you when this lady calls at your place tomorrow
evening. We'll offer her the will, to do what she likes with, for ten
thousand pounds. She can find that--quickly. When she pays--as she
will!--we share, equally, and then--well, you can go to the devil! I
shall go--somewhere else. So that's settled."

"No!" said Pratt.

Parrawhite turned sharply, and Pratt saw a sinister gleam in his eyes.

"Did you say no?" he asked.

"I said--no!" replied Pratt. "I'm not going to take five thousand pounds
for a chance that's worth fifty thousand. Hang you!--if you hadn't been
a black sneak-thief, as you are, I'd have had the whole thing to myself!
And I don't know that I will give way to you. If it comes to it, my
word's as good as yours--and I don't believe Eldrick would believe you
before me. Pascoe wouldn't anyway. You've got a past!--in quod, I should
think--my past's all right. I've a jolly good mind to let you do your
worst--after all, I've got the will. And by george! now I come to think
of it, you can do your worst! Tell what you like tomorrow morning. I
shall tell 'em what you are--a scoundrel."

He turned away at that--and as he turned, Parrawhite, with a queer cry
of rage that might have come from some animal which saw its prey
escaping, struck out at him with the heavy stick. The blow missed
Pratt's head, but it grazed the tip of his ear, and fell slantingly on
his left shoulder. And then the anger that had been boiling in Pratt
ever since the touch on his arm in the dark lane, burst out in activity,
and he turned on his assailant, gripped him by the throat before
Parrawhite could move, and after choking and shaking him until his teeth
rattled and his breath came in jerking sobs, flung him violently against
the masses of stone by which they had been standing.

Pratt was of considerable physical strength. He played cricket and
football; he visited a gymnasium thrice a week. His hands had the grip
of a blacksmith; his muscles were those of a prize-fighter. He had put
more strength than he was aware of into his fierce grip on Parrawhite's
throat; he had exerted far more force than he knew he was exerting, when
he flung him away. He heard a queer cracking sound as the man struck
something, and for the moment he took no notice of it--the pain of that
glancing blow on his shoulder was growing acute, and he began to rub it
with his free hand and to curse its giver.

"Get up, you fool, and I'll give you some more!" he growled. "I'll teach
you to----"

He suddenly noticed the curiously still fashion in which Parrawhite was
lying where he had flung him--noticed, too, as a cloud passed the moon
and left it unveiled, how strangely white the man's face was. And just
as suddenly Pratt forgot his own injury, and dropped on his knees beside
his assailant. An instant later, and he knew that he was once more
confronting death. For Parrawhite was as dead as Antony Bartle--violent
contact of his head with a rock had finished what Pratt had nearly
completed with that vicious grip. There was no questioning it, no
denying it--Pratt was there in that lonely place, staring half
consciously, half in terror, at a dead man.

He stood up at last, cursing Parrawhite with the anger of despair. He
had not one scrap of pity for him. All his pity was for himself. That he
should have been brought into this!--that this vile little beast,
perfect scum that he was, should have led him to what might be the utter
ruin of his career!--it was shameful, it was abominable, it was cruel!
He felt as if he could cheerfully tear Parrawhite's dead body to pieces.
But even as these thoughts came, others of a more important nature
crowded on them. For--there lay a dead man, who was not to be put in
one's pocket, like a will. It was necessary to hide that thing from the
light--ever that light. Within a few hours, morning would break, and
lonely and deserted as that place was nowadays, some one might pass that
way. Out of sight with him, then!--and quickly.

Pratt was very well acquainted with the spot at which he stood. Those
old quarries had a certain picturesqueness. They had become grass-grown;
ivy, shrubs, trees had clustered about them--the people who lived in the
few houses half a mile away, sometimes walked around them; the children
made a playground of the place: Pratt himself had often gone into some
quiet corner to read and smoke. And now his quick mind immediately
suggested a safe hiding place for this thing that he could not carry
away with him, and dare not leave to the morning sun--close by was a
pit, formerly used for some quarrying purpose, which was filled, always
filled, with water. It was evidently of considerable depth; the water
was black in it; the mouth was partly obscured by a maze of shrub and
bramble. It had been like that ever since Pratt came to lodge in that
part of the district--ten or twelve years before; it would probably
remain like that for many a long year to come. That bit of land was
absolutely useless and therefore neglected, and as long as rain fell and
water drained, that pit would always be filled to its brim.

He remembered something else: also close by where he stood--a heap of
old iron things--broken and disused picks, smashed rails, fragments
thrown aside when the last of the limestone had been torn out of the
quarries. Once more luck was playing into his hands--those odds and ends
might have been put there for the very purpose to which he now meant to
turn them. And being certain that he was alone, and secure, Pratt
proceeded to go about his unpleasant task skilfully and methodically. He
fetched a quantity of the iron, fastened it to the dead man's clothing,
drew the body, thus weighted, to the edge of the pit, and prepared to
slide it into the black water. But there an idea struck him. While he
made these preparations he had had hosts of ideas as to his operations
next morning--this idea was supplementary to them. Quickly and
methodically he removed the contents of Parrawhite's pockets to his
own--everything: money, watch and chain, even a ring which the dead man
had been evidently vain of. Then he let Parrawhite glide into the
water--and after him he sent the heavy stick, carefully fastened to a
bar of iron.

Five minutes later, the surface of the water in that pit was as calm and
unruffled as ever--not a ripple showed that it had been disturbed. And
Pratt made his way out of the wilderness, swearing that he would never
enter it again.




CHAPTER VII


THE SUPREME INDUCEMENT


Pratt was in Eldrick & Pascoe's office soon after half-past eight next
morning, and for nearly forty minutes he had the place entirely to
himself. But it took only a few of those minutes for him to do what he
had carefully planned before he went to bed the previous night. Shutting
himself into Eldrick's private room, and making sure that he was alone
that time, he immediately opened the drawer in the senior partner's
desk, wherein Eldrick, culpably enough, as Parrawhite had sneeringly
remarked, was accustomed to put loose money. Eldrick was strangely
careless in that way: he would throw money into that drawer in presence
of his clerks--notes, gold, silver. If it happened to occur to him, he
would take the money out at the end of the afternoon and hand it to
Pratt to lock up in the safe; but as often as not, it did not occur.
Pratt had more than once ventured on a hint which was almost a
remonstrance, and Eldrick had paid no attention to him. He was a
careless, easy-going man in many respects, Eldrick, and liked to do
things in his own way. And after all, as Pratt had decided, when he
found that his hints were not listened to, it was Eldrick's own affair
if he liked to leave the money lying about.

There was money lying about in that drawer when Pratt drew it open; it
was never locked, day or night, or, if it was, the key was left in it.
As soon as he opened it, he saw gold--two or three sovereigns--and
silver--a little pile of it. And, under a letter weight, four banknotes
of ten pounds each. But this was precisely what Pratt had expected to
see; he himself had handed banknotes, gold, and silver to Eldrick the
previous evening, just after receiving them from a client who had called
to pay his bill. And he had seen Eldrick place them in the drawer, as
usual, and soon afterwards Eldrick had walked out, saying he was going
to the club, and he had never returned.

What Pratt now did was done as the result of careful thought and
deliberation. There was a cheque-book lying on top of some papers in the
drawer; he took it up and tore three cheques out of it. Then he picked
up the bank-notes, tore them and the abstracted blank cheques into
pieces, and dropped the pieces in the fire recently lighted by the
caretaker. He watched these fragments burn, and then he put the gold and
silver in his hip-pocket, where he already carried a good deal of his
own, and walked out.

Nine o'clock brought the office-boy; a quarter-past nine brought the
clerks; at ten o'clock Eldrick walked in. According to custom, Pratt
went into Eldrick's room with the letters, and went through them with
him. One of them contained a legal document over which the solicitor
frowned a little.

"Ask Parrawhite's opinion about that," he said presently, indicating a
marked paragraph.

"Parrawhite has not come in this morning, sir," observed Pratt,
gathering up letters and papers. "I'll draw his attention to it when he
arrives."

He went into the outer office, only to be summoned back to Eldrick a few
minutes later. The senior partner was standing by his desk, looking a
little concerned, and, thought Pratt, decidedly uncomfortable. He
motioned the clerk to close the door.

"Has Parrawhite come?" he asked.

"No," replied Pratt, "Not yet, Mr. Eldrick."

"Is--is he usually late?" inquired Eldrick.

"Usually quite punctual--half-past nine," said Pratt.

Eldrick glanced at his watch; then at his clerk.

"Didn't you give me some cash last night?" he asked.

"Forty-three pounds nine," answered Pratt. "Thompson's bill of costs--he
paid it yesterday afternoon."

Eldrick looked more uncomfortable than ever.

"Well--the fact is," he said, "I--I meant to hand it to you to put in
the safe, Pratt, but I didn't come back from the club. And--it's gone!"

Pratt simulated concern--but not astonishment. And Eldrick pulled open
the drawer, and waved a hand over it.

"I put it down there," he said. "Very careless of me, no doubt--but
nothing of this sort has ever happened before, and--however, there's the
unpleasant fact, Pratt. The money's gone!"

Pratt, who had hastily turned over the papers and other contents of the
drawer, shook his head and used his privilege as an old and confidential
servant. "I've always said, sir, that it was a great mistake to leave
loose money lying about," he remarked mournfully. "If there'd only been
a practice of letting me lock anything of that sort up in the safe every
night--and this chequebook, too, sir--then----"

"I know--I know!" said Eldrick. "Very reprehensible on my part--I'm
afraid I am careless--no doubt of it. But----"

He in his turn was interrupted by Pratt, who was turning over the
cheque-book.

"Some cheque forms have been taken out of this," he said. "Three! at the
end. Look there, sir!"

Eldrick uttered an exclamation of intense annoyance and disgust. He
looked at the despoiled cheque-book, and flung it into the drawer.

"Pratt!" he said, turning half appealingly, half confidentially to the
clerk. "Don't say a word of this--above all, don't mention it to Mr.
Pascoe. It's my fault and I must make the forty-three pounds good.
Pratt, I'm afraid this is Parrawhite's work. I--well, I may as well tell
you--he'd been in trouble before he came here. I gave him another
chance--I'd known him, years ago. I thought he'd go straight. But--I
fear he's been tempted. He may have seen me leave money about. Was he in
here last night?"

Pratt pointed to a document which lay on Eldrick's desk.

"He came in here to leave that for your perusal," he answered. "He was
in here--alone--a minute or two before he left."

All these lies came readily and naturally--and Eldrick swallowed each.
He shook his head.

"My fault--all my fault!" he said. "Look here--keep it quiet. But--do
you know where Parrawhite has lived--lodged?"

"No!" replied Pratt. "Some of the others may, though!"

"Try to find out--quickly," continued Eldrick; "Then, make some excuse
to go out--take papers somewhere, or something--and find if he's left
his lodgings! I--I don't want to set the police on him. He was a decent
fellow, once. See what you can make out, Pratt. In strict secrecy, you
know---I do not want this to go further."

Pratt could have danced for joy when he presently went out into the
town. There would be no hue-and-cry after Parrawhite--none! Eldrick
would accept the fact that Parrawhite had robbed him and flown--and
Parrawhite would never be heard of--never mentioned again. It was the
height of good luck for him. Already he had got rid of any small scraps
of regret or remorse about the killing of his fellow-clerk. Why should
he be sorry? The scoundrel had tried to murder him, thinking no doubt
that he had the will on him. And he had not meant to kill him--what he
had done, he had done in self-defence. No--everything was working most
admirably--Parrawhite's previous bad record, Eldrick's carelessness and
his desire to shut things up: it was all good. From that day forward,
Parrawhite would be as if he had never been. Pratt was not even afraid
of the body being discovered--though he believed that it would remain
where it was for ever--for the probability was that the authorities
would fill up that pit with earth and stones. But if it was brought to
light? Why, the explanation was simple.

Parrawhite, having robbed his employer, had been robbed himself,
possibly by men with whom he had been drinking, and had been murdered in
the bargain. No suspicion could attach to him, Pratt--he had nothing to
fear--nothing!

For the form of the thing, he called at the place whereat Parrawhite had
lodged--they had seen nothing of him since the previous morning. They
were poor, cheap lodgings in a mean street. The woman of the house said
that Parrawhite had gone out as usual the morning before, and had never
been in again. In order to find out all he could, Pratt asked if he had
left much behind him in the way of belongings, and--just as he had
expected--he learned that Parrawhite's personal property was remarkably
limited: he possessed only one suit of clothes and not over much
besides, said the landlady.

"Is there aught wrong?" she asked, when Pratt had finished his
questions. "Are you from where he worked?"

"That's it," answered Pratt, "And he hasn't turned up this morning, and
we think he's left the town. Owe you anything, missis?"

"Nay, nothing much," she replied. "Ten shillings 'ud cover it, mister."

Pratt gave her half a sovereign. It was not out of consideration for
her, nor as a concession to Parrawhite's memory: it was simply to stop
her from coming down to Eldrick & Pascoe's.

"Well, I don't think you'll see him again," he remarked. "And I dare say
you won't care if you don't."

He turned away then, but before he had gone far, the woman called him
back.

"What am I to do with his bits of things, mister, if he doesn't come
back?" she asked.

"Aught you please," answered Pratt, indifferently. "Throw 'em on the
dust-heap."

As he went back to the centre of the town, he occupied himself in
considering his attitude to Mrs. Mallathorpe when she called on him that
evening. In spite of his own previous notion, and of his
carefully-worked-out scheme about the stewardship, he had been impressed
by what Parrawhite has said as to the wisdom of selling the will for
cash. Pratt did not believe that there was anything in the Collingwood
suggestion--no doubt whatever, he had decided, that old Bartle had meant
to tell Mrs. Mallathorpe of his discovery when she called in answer to
his note, but as he had died before she could call, and as he had told
nobody but him, Pratt, what possible danger could there be from
Collingwood? And a stewardship for life appealed to him. He knew, from
observation of the world, what a fine thing it is to have a certainty.

Once he became steward and agent of the Normandale Grange estate, he
would stick there, until he had saved a tidy heap of money. Then he
would retire--with a pension and a handsome present--and enjoy himself.
To be provided for, for life!--what more could a wise man want? And
yet--there was something in what that devil Parrawhite had urged.

For there was a risk--however small--of discovery, and if discovery were
made, there would be a nice penalty to pay. It might, after all, be
better to sell the will outright--for as much ready money as ever he
could get, and to take his gains far away, and start out on a career
elsewhere. After all, there was much to be said for the old proverb. The
only question was--was the bird in hand worth the two; or the money,
which he believed he would net in the bush?

Pratt's doubts on this point were settled in a curious fashion. He had
reached the centre of the town in his return to Eldrick's, and there, in
the fashionable shopping street, he ran up against an acquaintance. He
and the acquaintance stopped and chatted--about nothing. And as they
lounged on the curb, a smart victoria drew up close by, and out of it,
alone, stepped a girl who immediately attracted Pratt's eyes. He watched
her across the pavement; he watched her into the shop. And his companion
laughed.

"That's the sort!" he remarked flippantly. "If you and I had one each,
old man--what?"

"Who is she?" demanded Pratt.

The acquaintance stared at him in surprise.

"What!" he exclaimed. "You don't know. That's Miss Mallathorpe."

"I didn't know," said Pratt. "Fact!"

He waited until Nesta Mallathorpe came out and drove away--so that he
could get another and a closer look at her. And when she was gone, he
went slowly back to the office, his mind made up. Risk or no risk, he
would carry out his original notion. Whatever Mrs. Mallathorpe might
offer, he would stick to his idea of close and intimate connection with
Normandale Grange.




CHAPTER VIII


TERMS


Mrs. Mallathorpe, left to face the situation which Pratt had revealed to
her in such sudden and startling fashion, had been quick to realize its
seriousness. It had not taken much to convince her that the clerk knew
what he was talking about. She had no doubt whatever that he was right
when he said that the production of John Mallathorpe's will would mean
dispossession to her children, and through them to herself. Nor had she
any doubt, either, of Pratt's intention to profit by his discovery. She
saw that he was a young man of determination, not at all scrupulous,
eager to seize on anything likely to turn to his own advantage. She was,
in short, at his mercy. And she had no one to turn to. Her son was weak,
purposeless, almost devoid of character; he cared for nothing beyond
ease and comfort, and left everything to her so long as he was allowed
to do what he liked. She dared not confide in him--he was not fit to be
entrusted with such a secret, nor endowed with the courage to carry it
boldly and unflinchingly. Nor dare she confide it to her daughter--Nesta
was as strong as her brother was weak: Mrs. Mallathorpe had only told
the plain truth when she said to Pratt that if her daughter knew of the
will she would go straight to the two trustees. No--she would have to do
everything herself. And she could do nothing save under Pratt's
dictation. So long as he had that will in his possession, he could make
her agree to whatever terms he liked to insist upon.

She spent a sleepless night, resolving all sorts of plans; she resolved
more plans and schemes during the day which followed. But they all ended
at the same point--Pratt. All the future depended upon--Pratt. And by
the end of the day it had come to this--she must make a determined
effort to buy Pratt clean out, so that she could get the will into her
own possession and destroy it. She knew that she could easily find the
necessary money--Harper Mallathorpe had such a natural dislike of all
business matters and was so little fitted to attend to them that he was
only too well content to leave everything relating to the estate and the
mill at Barford to his mother. Up to that time Mrs. Mallathorpe had
managed the affairs of both, and she had large sums at her disposal, out
of which she could pay Pratt without even Harper being aware that she
was paying him anything. And surely no young man in Pratt's position--a
mere clerk, earning a few pounds a week--would refuse a big sum of ready
money! It seemed incredible to her--and she went into Barford towards
evening hoping that by the time she returned the will would have been
burned to grey ashes.

Mrs. Mallathorpe used some ingenuity in making her visit to Pratt.
Giving out that she was going to see a friend in Barford, of whose
illness she had just heard, she drove into the town, and on arriving
near the Town Hall dismissed her carriage, with orders to the coachman
to put up his horses at a certain livery stable, and to meet her at the
same place at a specified time. Then she went away on foot, and drew a
thick veil over her face before hiring a cab in which she drove up to
the outskirt on which Pratt had his lodging. She was still veiled when
Pratt's landlady showed her into the clerk's sitting-room.

"Is it safe here?" she asked at once. "Is there no fear of anybody
hearing what we may say?"

"None!" answered Pratt reassuringly. "I know these folks--I've lived
here several years. And nobody could hear however much they put their
ears to the keyhole. Good thick old walls, these, Mrs. Mallathorpe, and
a solid door. We're as safe here as we were in your study last night."

Mrs. Mallathorpe sat down in the chair which Pratt politely drew near
his fire. She raised her veil and looked at him, and the clerk saw at
once how curious and eager she was.

"That--will!" she said, in a low voice. "Let me see it--first."

"One moment," answered Pratt. "First--you understand that I'm not going
to let you handle it. I'll hold it before you, so you can read it.
Second--you give me your promise--I'm trusting you--that you'll make no
attempt to seize it. It's not going out of my hands."

"I'm only a woman--and you're a strong man," she retorted sullenly.

"Quite so," said Pratt. "But women have a trick of snatching at things.
And--if you please--you'll do exactly what I tell you to do. Put your
hands behind you! If I see you make the least movement with them--back
goes the will into my pocket!"

If Pratt had looked more closely at her just then, he would have taken
warning from the sudden flash of hatred and resentment which swept
across Mrs. Mallathorpe's face--it would have told him that he was
dealing with a dangerous woman who would use her wits to circumvent and
beat him--if not now, then later. But he was moving the gas bracket over
the mantelpiece, and he did not see.

"Very well--but I had no intention of touching it," said Mrs.
Mallathorpe. "All I want is to see it--and read it."

She obediently followed out Pratt's instructions, and standing in front
of her he produced the will, unfolded it, and held it at a convenient
distance before her eyes. He watched her closely, as she read it, and he
saw her grow very pale.

"Take your time--read it over two or three times," he said quietly. "Get
it well into your mind, Mrs. Mallathorpe."

She nodded her head at last, and Pratt stepped back, folded up the will,
and turning to a heavy box which lay open on the table, placed it
within, under lock and key. And that done, he turned back and took a
chair, close to his visitor.

"Safe there, Mrs. Mallathorpe," he said with a glance that was both
reassuring and cunning. "But only for the night. I keep a few securities
of my own at one of the banks in the town--never mind which--and that
will shall be deposited with them tomorrow morning."

Mrs. Mallathorpe shook her head.

"No!" she said. "Because--you'll come to terms with me."

Pratt shook his head, too, and he laughed.

"Of course I shall come to terms with you," he answered. "But they'll be
my terms--and they don't include any giving up of that document. That's
flat, Mrs. Mallathorpe!"

"Not if I make it worth your while?" she asked. "Listen!--you don't know
what ready money I can command. Ready money, I tell you--cash down, on
the spot!"

"I've a pretty good notion," responded Pratt. "It's generally understood
in the town that your son's a mere figure-head, and that you're the real
boss of the whole show. I know that you're at the mill four times a
week, and that the managers are under your thumb. I know that you manage
everything connected with the estate. So, of course, I know you've lots
of ready money at your disposal."

"And I know that you don't earn more than four or five pounds a week, at
the outside," said Mrs. Mallathorpe quietly. "Come, now--just think what
a nice, convenient thing it would be to a young man of your age to
have--a capital. Capital! It would be the making of you. You could go
right away--to London, say, and start out on whatever you liked. Be
sensible--sell me that paper--and be done with the whole thing."

"No!" replied Pratt.

Mrs. Mallathorpe looked at him for a full moment. She was a shrewd judge
of character, and she felt that Pratt was one of those men who are hard
to stir from a position once adopted. But she had to make her
effort--and she made it in what she thought the most effective way.

"I'll give you five thousand pounds--cash--for it," she said. "Meet me
with it tomorrow--anywhere you like in the town--any time you like--and
I'll hand you the money--in notes."

"No!" said Pratt. "No!"

Once more she looked at him. And Pratt looked back--and smiled.

"When I say no, I mean no," he went on. "And I never meant 'No' more
firmly than I do now."

"I don't believe you," she answered, affecting a doubt which she
certainly did not feel. "You're only holding out for more money."

"If I were holding out for more money, Mrs. Mallathorpe," replied Pratt,
"if I meant to sell you that will for cash payment, I should have stated
my terms to you last night. I should have said precisely how much I
wanted--and I shouldn't have budged from the amount. Mrs.
Mallathorpe!--it's no good. I've got my own schemes, and my own
ideas--and I'm going to carry 'em out. I want you to appoint me steward
to your property, your affairs, for life."

"Life!" she exclaimed. "Life!"

"My life," answered Pratt. "And let me tell you--you'll find me a
first-class man--a good, faithful, honest servant. I'll do well by you
and yours. You'll never regret it as long as you live. It'll be the best
day's work you've ever done. I'll look after your son's
interests--everybody's interests--as if they were my own. As indeed," he
added, with a sly glance, "they will be."

Mrs. Mallathorpe realized the finality, the resolve, in all this--but
she made one more attempt.

"Ten thousand!" she said. "Come, now!--think what ten thousand pounds in
cash would mean to you!"

"No--nor twenty thousand," replied Pratt. "I've made up my mind. I'll
have my own terms. It's no use--not one bit of use--haggling or
discussing matters further. I'm in possession of the will--and therefore
of the situation, Mrs. Mallathorpe, you've just got to do what I tell
you!"

He got up from his chair, and going over to a side-table took from it a
blotting-pad, some writing paper and a pencil. For the moment his back
was turned--and again he did not see the look of almost murderous hatred
which came into his visitor's eyes; had he seen and understood it, he
might even then have reconsidered matters and taken Mrs. Mallathorpe's
last offer. But the look had gone when he turned again, and he noticed
nothing as he handed over the writing materials.

"What are these for?" she asked.

"You'll see in a moment," replied Pratt, reseating himself, and drawing
his chair a little nearer her own. "Now listen--because it's no good
arguing any more. You're going to give me that stewardship and agency.
You'll simply tell your son that it's absolutely necessary to have a
steward. He'll agree. If he doesn't, no matter--you'll convince him.
Now, then, we must do it in a fashion that won't excite any suspicion.
Thus--in a few days--say next week--you'll insert in the Barford
papers--all three of them--the advertisement I'm going to dictate to
you. We'll put it in the usual, formal phraseology. Write this down, if
you please, Mrs. Mallathorpe."

He dictated an advertisement, setting forth the requirements of which he
had spoken, and Mrs. Mallathorpe obeyed him and wrote. She hated Pratt
more than ever at that moment--there was a quiet, steadfast
implacability about him that made her feel helpless. But she restrained
all sign of it, and when she had done his bidding she looked at him as
calmly as he looked at her.

"I am to insert this in the Barford papers next week," she said.
"And--what then?"

"Then you'll get a lot of applications for the job," chuckled Pratt.
"There'll be mine amongst them. You can throw most of 'em in the fire.
Keep a few for form's sake. Profess to discuss them with Mr. Harper--but
let the discussion be all on your side. I'll send two or three good
testimonials--you'll incline to me from the first. You'll send for me.
Your interview with me will be highly satisfactory. And you'll give me
the appointment."

"And--your terms?" asked Mrs. Mallathorpe. Now that her own scheme had
failed, she seemed quite placable to all Pratt's proposals--a sure sign
of danger to him if he had only known it. "Better let me know them
now--and have done with it."

"Quite so," agreed Pratt. "But first of all--can you keep this secret to
yourself and me? The money part, any way?"

"I can--and shall," she answered.

"Good!" said Pratt. "Very well. I want a thousand a year. Also I want
two rooms--and a business room--at the Grange. I shall not interfere
with you or your family, or your domestic arrangements, but I shall
expect to have all my meals served to me from your kitchen, and to have
one of your servants at my disposal. I know the Grange--I've been over
it more than once. There's much more room there than you can make use
of. Give me the rooms I want in one of the wings. I shan't disturb any
of you. You'll never see me except on business--and if you want to."

Again the calm acquiescence which would have surprised some men. Why
Pratt failed to be surprised by it was because he was just then feeling
exceedingly triumphant--he believed that Mrs. Mallathorpe was,
metaphorically, at his feet. He had more than a little vanity in him,
and it pleased him greatly, that dictating of terms: he saw himself a
conqueror, with his foot on the neck of his victim.

"Is that all, then?" asked the visitor.

"All!" answered Pratt.

Mrs. Mallathorpe calmly folded up the draft advertisement and placed it
in her purse. Then she rose and adjusted her veil.

"Then--there is nothing to be done until I get your answer to this--your
application?" she asked. "Very well."

Pratt showed her out, and walked to the cab with her. He went back to
his rooms highly satisfied--and utterly ignorant of what Mrs.
Mallathorpe was thinking as she drove away.




CHAPTER IX


UNTIL NEXT SPRING


Within a week of his sudden death in Eldrick's private office, old
Antony Bartle was safely laid in the tomb under the yew-tree of which
Mrs. Clough had spoken with such appreciation, and his grandson had
entered into virtual possession of all that he had left. Collingwood
found little difficulty in settling his grandfather's affairs.
Everything had been left to him: he was sole executor as well as sole
residuary legatee. He found his various tasks made uncommonly easy.
Another bookseller in the town hurried to buy the entire stock and
business, goodwill, book debts, everything--Collingwood was free of all
responsibility of the shop in Quagg Alley within a few days of the old
man's funeral. And when he had made a handsome present to the
housekeeper, a suitable one to the shop-boy, and paid his grandfather's
last debts, he was free to depart--a richer man by some five-and-twenty
thousand pounds than when he hurried down to Barford in response to
Eldrick's telegram.

He sat in Eldrick's office one afternoon, winding up his affairs with
him. There were certain things that Eldrick & Pascoe would have to do;
as for himself it was necessary for him to get back to London.

"There's something I want to propose to you," said Eldrick, when they
had finished the immediate business. "You're going to practise, of
course?"

"Of course!" replied Collingwood, with a laugh. "If I get the chance!"

"You'll get the chance," said Eldrick. "What were you going in for?"

"Commercial law--company law--as a special thing," answered Collingwood.

"Why?"

"I'll tell you what it is," continued Eldrick eagerly. "There's a career
for you if you'll take my advice. Leave London--come down here and take
chambers in the town, and go the North-Eastern Circuit. I'll promise
you--for our firm alone--plenty of work. You'll get more--there's lots
of work waiting here for a good, smart young barrister. Ah!--you smile,
but I know what I'm talking about. You don't know Barford men. They
believe in the old adage that one should look at home before going
abroad. They're terribly litigious, too, and if you were here, on the
spot, they'd give you work. What do you say, Collingwood?"

"That sounds very tempting. But I was thinking of sticking to London."

"Not one hundredth part of the chance in London that there is here!"
affirmed Eldrick. "We badly want two or three barristers in this place. A
man who's really well up in commercial and company law would soon have
his hands full. There's work, I tell you. Take my advice, and come!"

"I couldn't come--in any case--for a few months," said Collingwood,
musingly. "Of course, if you really think there's an opening----"

"I know there is!" asserted Eldrick. "I'll guarantee you lots of
work--our work. I'm sick of fetching men down all the way from town, or
getting them from Leeds. Come!--and you'll see."

"I might come in a few months' time, and try things for a year or two,"
replied Collingwood. "But I'm off to India, you know, next week, and I
shall be away until the end of spring--four months or so."

"To India!" exclaimed Eldrick. "What are you going to do there?"

"Sir John Standridge," said Collingwood, mentioning a famous legal
luminary of the day, "is going out to Hyderabad to take certain
evidence, and hold a sort of inquiry, in a big case, and I'm going with
him as his secretary and assistant--I was in his chambers for two years,
you know. We leave next week, and we shall not be back until the end of
April."

"Lucky man!" remarked the solicitor. "Well, when you return, don't
forget what I've said. Come back!--you'll not regret it. Come and settle
down. Bye-the-bye, you're not engaged, are you?"

"Engaged?" said Collingwood. "To what--to whom--what do you mean?"

"Engaged to be married," answered Eldrick coolly. "You're not? Good! If
you want a wife, there's Miss Mallathorpe. Nice, clever girl, my
boy--and no end of what Barford folk call brass. The very woman for
you."

"Do you Barford people ever think of anything else but what you call
brass?" asked Collingwood, laughing.

"Sometimes," replied Eldrick. "But it's generally of something that
nothing but brass can bring or produce. After all, a rich wife isn't a
despicable thing, nowadays. You've seen this young lady?"

"I've been there once," asserted Collingwood.

"Go again--before you leave," counselled Eldrick. "You're just the right
man. Listen to the counsels of the wise! And while you're in India,
think well over my other advice. I tell you there's a career for you,
here in the North, that you'd never get in town."

Collingwood left him and went out--to find a motorcar and drive off to
Normandale Grange, not because Eldrick had advised him to go, but
because of his promise to Harper and Nesta Mallathorpe. And once more he
found Nesta alone, and though he had no spice of vanity in his
composition it seemed to him that she was glad when he walked into the
room in which they had first met.

"My mother is out--gone to town--to the mill," she said. "And Harper is
knocking around the park with a gun--killing rabbits--and time. He'll be
in presently to tea--and he'll be delighted to see you. Are you going to
stay in Barford much longer?"

"I'm going up to town this evening--seven o'clock train," answered
Collingwood, watching her keenly. "All my business is finished now--for
the present."

"But--you'll be coming back?" she asked.

"Perhaps," he said. "I may come back--after a while."

"When you do come back," she went on, a little hurriedly, "will you come
and see us again? I--it's difficult to explain--but I do wish Harper
knew more men--the right sort of men. Do you understand?"

"You mean--he needs more company?"

"More company of the right kind. He doesn't know many nice men. And he
has so little to occupy him. He's no head for business--my mother
attends to all that--and he doesn't care much about sport--and when he
goes into Barford he only hangs about the club, and, I'm afraid, at two
or three of the hotels there, and--it's not good for him."

"Can't you get him interested in anything?" suggested Collingwood. "Is
there nothing that he cares about?"

"He never did care about anything," replied Nesta with a sigh. "He's
apathetic! He just moves along. Sometimes I think he was born half
asleep, and he's never been really awakened. Pity, isn't it?"

"Considering everything--a great pity," agreed Collingwood. "But--he's
provided for."

Nesta gave him a swift glance.

"It might have been a good deal better for him if he hadn't been
provided for!" she said. "He'd have just had to do something, then.
But--if you come back, you'll come here sometimes?"

"Of course!" answered Collingwood. "And if I come back, it will probably
be to stop here. Mr. Eldrick says there's a lot of work going begging in
Barford--for a smart young barrister well up in commercial law. Perhaps
I may try to come up to his standard--I'm certainly young, but I don't
know whether I'm smart."

"Better come and try," she said, smiling. "Don't forget that I've seen
you look the part, anyway--your wig and gown suited you very well."

"Theatrical properties," he replied, laughing. "The wig was too small,
and the gown too long. Well--we'll see. But in the meantime, I'm going
away for four months--to India."

"To India--four months!" she exclaimed. "That sounds nice."

"Legal business," said Collingwood. "I shall be back about the end of
April--and then I shall probably come down here again, and seriously
consider Eldrick's suggestion. I'm very much inclined to take it."

"Then--you'd leave London?" she asked.

"I've little to leave there," replied Collingwood. "My father and mother
are dead, and I've no brothers, no sisters--no very near relations.
Sounds lonely, doesn't it?"

"One can feel lonely when one has relations," said Nesta.

"Are you saying that from--experience?" he asked.

"I often wish I had more to do," she answered frankly. "What's the use
of denying it? I've next to nothing to do, here. I liked my work at the
hospital--I was busy all day. Here----"

"If I were you," interrupted Collingwood, "I'd set to work nursing in
another fashion. Look after your brother! Get him going at
something--even if it's playing golf. Play with him! It would do
him--and you--all the good in the world if you got thoroughly infatuated
with even a game. Don't you see?"

"You mean--anything is better than nothing," she replied. "All
right--I'll try that, anyway. For--I'm anxious about Harper. All this
money!--and no occupation!"

Collingwood, who was sitting near the windows, looked out across the
park and into the valley beyond.

"I should have thought that a man who had come into an estate like this
would have found plenty of occupation," he remarked. "What is there,
beside the house and this park?"

Nesta, who had busied herself with some fancy-work since Collingwood's
entrance, laid it down and came to the windows. She pointed to certain
roofs and gables in the valley.

"There's the whole village of Normandale," she said. "A busy place, no
doubt, but it's all Harper's--he's lord of the manor. He's patron of the
living, too. It's all his--farms, cottages, everything. And the woods,
and the park, and this house, and a stretch of the moors, as well. Of
course, he ought to find a lot to do--but he doesn't. Perhaps because my
mother does everything. She really is a business woman."

Collingwood looked out over the area which Nesta had indicated. Harper
Mallathorpe, he calculated, must be possessed of some three or four
thousand acres.

"A fine property!" he said. "He's a very fortunate fellow!"

Just then this very fortunate fellow came in. His face, dull enough as
he entered, lighted up at sight of a visitor, and fell again when
Collingwood explained that his visit was a mere flying one, and that he
was returning to London that night. Collingwood led him on to the
project which he had mentioned at his previous visit--the making of golf
links in the park, and pointed out, as a devotee of the sport, what a
fine course could be made. Before he left he had succeeded in arousing
like interest in Harper--he promised to go into the matter, and to
employ a man whom Collingwood recommended as an expert in laying out
golf courses.

"You'll have got your greens in something like order by this time next
year, if you start operations soon," said Collingwood. "And then, if I
settle down at Barford, I'll come out now and then, if you'll let me."

"Let you!" exclaimed Harper. "By Jove!--we're only too glad to have
anybody out here--aren't we, Nesta?"

"We shall always be glad to see Mr. Collingwood," said Nesta.

Collingwood went away with that last intimation warm in his memory. He
had an idea that the girl meant what she said--and for a moment he was
sorry that he was going to India. He might have settled down at Barford
there and then, and--but at that he laughed at himself.

"A young woman with several thousands a year of her own!" he said. "Of
course, she'll marry some big pot in the county. They feel a little
lonely, those two, just now, because everything's new to them, and
they're new to their changed circumstances. But when I get back--ah!--I
guess they'll have got plenty of people around them."

And he determined, being a young man of sense, not to think any
more--for already he had thought a good deal of Nesta Mallathorpe, until
he returned from his Indian travels. Let him attend to his business, and
leave possibilities until they came nearer.

"All the same." he mused, as he drew near the town again, "I'm pretty
sure I shall come back here next spring--I feel like it."

He called in at Eldrick's office on his way to the hotel, to take some
documents which had been preparing for him. It was then late in the
afternoon, and no one but Pratt was there--Pratt, indeed, had been
waiting until Collingwood called.

"Going back to town, Mr. Collingwood?" asked Pratt as he handed over a
big envelope. "When shall we have the pleasure of seeing you again,
sir?"

Something in the clerk's tone made Collingwood think--he could not tell
why--that Pratt was fishing for information. And--also for reasons which
he could not explain--Collingwood had taken a curious dislike to Pratt,
and was not inclined to give him any confidence.

"I don't know," he answered, a little icily. "I am leaving for India
next week."

He bade the clerk a formal farewell and went off, and Pratt locked the
office door and slowly followed him downstairs.

"To India!" he said to himself, watching the young barrister's
retreating figure. "To India, eh? For a time--or for--what?"

Anyway, that was good news, Pratt had seen in Collingwood a possible
rival.




CHAPTER X


THE FOOT-BRIDGE


Collingwood's return to London was made on a Friday evening: next day he
began the final preparations for his departure to India on the following
Thursday. He was looking forward to his journey and his stay in India
with keen expectation. He would have the society of a particularly
clever and brilliant man; they were to break their journey in Italy and
in Egypt; he would enjoy exceptional facilities for seeing the native
life of India; he would gain valuable experience. It was a chance at
which any young man would have jumped, and Collingwood had been greatly
envied when it was known that Sir John Standridge had offered it to him.
And yet he was conscious that if he could have done precisely what he
desired, he would have stayed longer at Barford, in order to see more of
Nesta Mallathorpe. Already it seemed a long time to the coming spring,
when he would be back--and free to go North again.

But Collingwood was fated to go North once more much sooner than he had
dreamed of. As he sat at breakfast in his rooms on the Monday morning
after his departure from Barford, turning over his newspaper with no
particular aim or interest, his attention was suddenly and sharply
arrested by a headline. Even that headline might not have led him to
read what lay beneath. But in the same instant in which he saw it he
also saw a name--Mallathorpe. In the next he knew that heavy trouble had
fallen on Normandale Grange, the very day after he had left it.

This is what Collingwood read as he sat, coffee-cup in one hand,
newspaper in the other--staring at the lines of unleaded type:

    TRAGIC FATE OF YOUNG YORKSHIRE SQUIRE

    "A fatal accident, of a particularly sad and disturbing nature,
    occurred near Barford, Yorkshire, on Saturday. About four
    o'clock on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Linford Pratt, managing clerk
    to Messrs. Eldrick & Pascoe, Solicitors, of Barford, who was
    crossing the grounds of Normandale Grange on his way to a
    business appointment, discovered the dead body of Mr. H. J.
    Mallathorpe, the owner of the Normandale Estate, lying in a
    roadway which at that point is spanned, forty feet above, by a
    narrow foot-bridge. The latter is an ancient construction of
    wood, and there is no doubt that it was in extremely bad repair,
    and had given way when the unfortunate young gentleman, who was
    out shooting in his park, stepped upon it. Mr. Mallathorpe, who
    was only twenty-four years of age, succeeded to the Normandale
    estates, one of the finest properties in the neighbourhood of
    Barford, about two years ago, under somewhat romantic--and also
    tragic--circumstances, their previous owner, his uncle, Mr. John
    Mallathorpe, a well-known Barford manufacturer, meeting a sudden
    death by the falling of his mill chimney--a catastrophe which
    also caused the deaths of several of his employees. Mr. John
    Mallathorpe died intestate, and the estate at Normandale passed
    to the young gentleman who met such a sad fate on Saturday
    afternoon. Mr. H.J. Mallathorpe was unmarried, and it is
    understood that Normandale (which includes the village of that
    name, the advowson of the living, and about four thousand acres
    of land) now becomes the property of his sister, Miss Nesta
    Mallathorpe."

Collingwood set down his cup, and dropped the newspaper. He was but half
way through his breakfast, but all his appetite had vanished. All that
he was conscious of was that here was trouble and grief for a girl in
whom--it was useless to deny it--he had already begun to take a warm
interest. And suddenly he started from his chair and snatched up a
railway guide. As he turned over its pages, he thought rapidly. The
preparations for his journey to India were almost finished--what was not
done he could do in a few hours. He had no further appointment with Sir
John Standridge until nine o'clock on Thursday morning, when he was to
meet him at the train for Dover and Paris. Monday--Tuesday--Wednesday--he
had three days--ample time to hurry down to Normandale, to do what he
could to help there, and to get back in time to make his own last
arrangements. He glanced at his watch--he had forty minutes in which to
catch an express from King's Cross to Barford. Without further delay he
picked up a suit-case which was already packed and set out for the
station.

He was in Barford soon after two o'clock--in Eldrick's office by
half-past two. Eldrick shook his head at sight of him.

"I can guess what's brought you down, Collingwood," he said. "Good of
you, of course--I don't think they've many friends out there."

"I can scarcely call myself that--yet," answered Collingwood. "But--I
thought I might be of some use. I'll drive out there presently. But
first--how was it?"

Eldrick shook his head.

"Don't know much more than what the papers say," he answered. "There's
an old foot-bridge there that spans a road in the park--road cut through
a ravine. They say it was absolutely rotten, and the poor chap's weight
was evidently too much for it. And there was a drop of forty feet into a
hard road. Extraordinary thing that nobody on the estate seems to have
known of the dangerous condition of that bridge!--but they say it was
little used--simply a link between one plantation and another.
However;--it's done, now. Our clerk--Pratt, you know--found the body.
Hadn't been dead five minutes, Pratt says."

"What was Pratt doing there?" asked Collingwood.

"Oh, business of his own," replied Eldrick. "Not ours. There was an
advertisement in Saturday's papers which set out that a steward was
wanted for the Normandale estate, and Pratt mentioned it to me in the
morning that he thought of applying for the job if we'd give him a good
testimonial. I suppose he'd gone out there to see about the
preliminaries. Anyway, he was walking through the park when he found
young Mallathorpe's body. I understand he made himself very useful, too,
and I've sent him out there again today, to do anything he can--smart
chap, Pratt!"

"Possibly, then, there is nothing I can do," remarked Collingwood.

"I should say you'll do a lot by merely going there," answered Eldrick.
"As I said just now, they've few friends, and no relations, and I hear
that Mrs. Mallathorpe is absolutely knocked over. Go, by all means--a
bit of sympathy goes a long way on these occasions. I say!--what a
regular transformation an affair of this sort produces. Do you know,
that young fellow, just like his uncle, had not made any will! Fact!--I
had it from Robson, their solicitor, this very morning. The whole of the
estate comes to the sister, of course--she and the mother will share the
personal property. By that lad's death, Nesta Mallathorpe becomes one of
the wealthiest young women in Yorkshire!"

Collingwood made no reply to this communication. But as he drove off to
Normandale Grange, it was fresh in his mind. And it was not very
pleasant to him. One of the wealthiest young women in Yorkshire!--and he
was already realizing that he would like to make Nesta Mallathorpe his
wife: it was because he felt what he did for her that he had rushed down
to do anything he could that would be of help. Supposing--only
supposing--that people--anybody--said that he was fortune-hunting!
Somewhat unduly sensitive, proud, almost to a fault, he felt his cheek
redden at the thought, and for a moment he wished that old John
Mallathorpe's wealth had never passed to his niece. But then he sneered
at himself for his presumption.

"Ass!" he said. "She's never even thought of me--in that way, most
likely! Anyway, I'm a stupid fool for thinking of these things at
present."

But he knew, within a few minutes of entering the big, desolate-looking
house, that Nesta had been thinking of him. She came to him in the room
where they had first met, and quietly gave him her hand.

"I was not surprised when they told me you were here," she said. "I was
thinking about you--or, rather, expecting to hear from you."

"I came at once," answered Collingwood, who had kept her hand in his.
"I--well, I couldn't stop away. I thought, perhaps, I could do
something--be of some use."

"It's a great deal of use to have just--come," she said. "Thank you!
But--I suppose you'll have to go?"

"Not for two days, anyway," he replied. "What can I do?"

"I don't know that you can actually do anything," she answered.
"Everything is being done. Mr. Eldrick sent his clerk, Mr. Pratt--who
found Harper--he's been most kind and useful. He--and our own
solicitor--are making all arrangements. There's got to be an inquest.
No--I don't know that you can do actual things. But--while you're
here--you can look in when you like. My mother is very ill--she has
scarcely spoken since Saturday."

"I'll tell you what I will do," said Collingwood determinedly. "I
noticed in coming through the village just now that there's quite a
decent inn there. I'll go down and arrange to stay there until Wednesday
evening--then I shall be close by--if you should need me."

He saw by her look of quick appreciation and relief that this suggestion
pleased her. She pressed his hand and withdrew her own. "Thank you
again!" she said. "Do you know--I can't quite explain--I should be glad
if you were close at hand? Everybody has been very kind--but I do feel
that there is nobody I can talk to. If you arrange this, will you come
in again this evening?"

"I shall arrange it," answered Collingwood. "I'll see to it now. Tell
your people I am to be brought in whenever I call. And--I'll be close by
whenever you want me."

It seemed little to say, little to do, but he left her feeling that he
was being of some use. And as he went off to make his arrangements at
the inn he encountered Pratt, who was talking to the butler in the outer
hall.

The clerk looked at Collingwood with an unconcern and a composure which
he was able to assume because he had already heard of his presence in
the house. Inwardly, he was malignantly angry that the young barrister
was there, but his voice was suave, and polite enough when he spoke.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Collingwood," he said quietly. "Very sad occasion
on which we meet again, sir. Come to offer your sympathy, Mr.
Collingwood, of course--very kind of you."

"I came," answered Collingwood, who was not inclined to bandy phrases
with Pratt, "to see if I could be of any practical use."

"Just so, sir," said Pratt. "Mr. Eldrick sent me here for the same
purpose. There's really not much to do--beyond the necessary
arrangements, which are already pretty forward. Going back to town,
sir?" he went on, following Collingwood out to his motor-car, which
stood waiting in the drive.

"No!" replied Collingwood. "I'm going to send this man to Barford to
fetch my bag to the inn down there in the village, where I'm going to
stay for a few days. Did you hear that?" he continued, turning to the
driver. "Go back to Barford--get my bag from the _Station Hotel_
there--bring it to the _Normandale Arms_--I'll meet you there on your
return."

The car went off, and Collingwood, with a nod to Pratt, was about to
turn down a side path towards the village. But Pratt stopped him.

"Would you care to see the place where the accident happened, Mr.
Collingwood?" he said. "It's close by--won't take five minutes."

Collingwood hesitated a moment; then he turned back. It might be well,
he reflected, if he made himself acquainted with all the circumstances
of this case, simple as they seemed.

"Thank you," he said. "If it's so near."

"This way, sir," responded Pratt. He led his companion along the front
of the house, through the shrubberies at the end of a wing, and into a
plantation by a path thickly covered with pine needles. Presently they
emerged upon a similar track, at right angles to that by which they had
come, and leading into a denser part of the woods. And at the end of a
hundred yards of it they came to a barricade, evidently of recent
construction, over which Pratt stretched a hand. "There!" he said.
"That's the bridge, sir." Collingwood looked over the barricade. He saw
that he and Pratt were standing at the edge of one thick plantation of
fir and pine; the edge of a similar plantation stretched before them
some ten yards away. But between the two lay a deep, dark ravine, which,
immediately in front of the temporary barricade, was spanned by a narrow
rustic bridge--a fragile-looking thing of planks, railed in by boughs of
trees. And in the middle was a jagged gap in both floor and side-rails,
showing where the rotten wood had given way.

"I'll explain, Mr. Collingwood," said the clerk presently. "I knew this
park, sir--I knew it well, before the late Mr. John Mallathorpe bought
the property. That path at the other end of the bridge makes a short cut
down to the station in the valley--through the woods and the lower part
of the park. I came up that path, from the station, on Saturday
afternoon, intending to cross this bridge and go on to the house, where
I had private business. When I got to the other end of the bridge,
there, I saw the gap in the middle. And then I looked down into the
cut--there's a road--a paved road--down there, and I saw--him! And so I
made shift to scramble down--stiff job it was!--to get to him. But he
was dead, Mr. Collingwood--stone dead, sir!--though I'm certain he
hadn't been dead five minutes. And----"

"Aye, an' he'd never ha' been dead at all, wouldn't young Squire, if
only his ma had listened to what I telled her!" interrupted a voice
behind them. "He'd ha' been alive at this minute, he would, if his ma
had done what I said owt to be done--now then!"

Collingwood turned sharply--to confront an old man, evidently one of the
woodmen on the estate who had come up behind them unheard on the thick
carpeting of pine needles. And Pratt turned, too--with a keen look and a
direct question.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "What are you talking about?"

"I know what I'm talking about, young gentleman," said the man doggedly.
"I ain't worked, lad and man, on this one estate nine-and-forty
years--and happen more--wi'out knowin' all about it. I tell'd Mrs.
Mallathorpe on Friday noon 'at that there owd brig 'ud fall in afore
long if it worn't mended. I met her here, at this very place where we're
standin', and I showed her 'at it worn't safe to cross it. I tell'd her
't she owt to have it fastened up theer an' then. It's been rottin' for
many a year, has this owd brig--why, I mind when it wor last repaired,
and that wor years afore owd Mestur Mallathorpe bowt this estate!"

"When do you say you told Mrs. Mallathorpe all that?" asked Pratt.

"Friday noon it were, sir," answered the woodman. "When I were on my way
home--dinner time. 'Cause I met the missis here, and I made bold to tell
her what I'd noticed. That there owd brig!--lor' bless yer, gentlemen!
it were black rotten i' the middle, theer where poor young maister he
fell through it. 'Ye mun hev' that seen to at once, missis,' I says.
'Sartin sure, 'tain't often as it's used,' I says, 'but surely sartin
'at if it ain't mended, or closed altogether,' I says, 'summun 'll be
going through and brekkin' their necks,' I says. An' reight, too,
gentlemen--forty feet it is down to that road. An' a mortal hard road,
an' all, paved wi' granite stone all t' way to t' stable-yard."

"You're sure it was Friday noon?" repeated Pratt.

"As sure as that I see you," answered the woodman. "An' Mrs. Mallathorpe
she said she'd hev it seen to. Dear-a-me!--it should ha' been closed!"

The old man shook his head and went off amongst the trees, and Pratt,
giving his vanishing figure a queer look, turned silently back along the
path, followed by Collingwood. At the point where the other path led to
the house, he glanced over his shoulder at the young barrister.

"If you keep straight on, Mr. Collingwood," he said, "you'll get
straight down to the village and the inn. I must go this way."

He went off rapidly, and Collingwood walked on through the plantation
towards the _Normandale Arms_--wondering, all the way, why Pratt was so
anxious to know exactly when it was that Mrs. Mallathorpe had been
warned about the old bridge.




CHAPTER XI


THE PREVALENT ATMOSPHERE


Until that afternoon Collingwood had never been in the village to which
he was now bending his steps; on that and his previous visits to the
Grange he had only passed the end of its one street. Now, descending
into it from the slopes of the park, he found it to be little more than
a hamlet--a church, a farmstead or two, a few cottages in their gardens,
all clustering about a narrow stream spanned by a high-arched bridge of
stone. The _Normandale Arms_, a roomy, old-fashioned place, stood at one
end of the bridge, and from the windows of the room into which
Collingwood was presently shown he could look out on the stream itself
and on the meadows beyond it. A peaceful, pretty, quiet place--but the
gloom which was heavy at the big house or the hill seemed to have spread
to everybody that he encountered.

"Bad job, this, sir!" said the landlord, an elderly, serious-faced man,
to whom Collingwood had made known his wants, and who had quickly formed
the opinion that his guest was of the legal profession. "And a queer
one, too! Odd thing, sir, that our old squire, and now the young one,
should both have met their deaths in what you might term violent
fashion."

"Accident--in both cases," remarked Collingwood.

The landlord nodded his head--and then shook it in a manner which seemed
to indicate that while he agreed with this proposition in one respect he
entertained some sort of doubt about it in others.

"Ay, well!" he answered. "Of course, a mill chimney falling, without
notice, as it were, and a bridge giving way--them's accidents, to be
sure. But it's a very strange thing about this foot-bridge, up yonder at
the Grange--very strange indeed! There's queer talk about it, already."

"What sort of talk?" asked Collingwood. Ever since the old woodman had
come up to him and Pratt, as they stood looking at the foot-bridge, he
had been aware of a curious sense of mystery, and the landlord's remark
tended to deepen it. "What are people talking about?"

"Nay--it's only one or two," replied the landlord. "There's been two men
in here since the affair happened that crossed that bridge Friday
afternoon--and both of 'em big, heavy men. According to what one can
learn that there bridge wasn't used much by the Grange people--it led to
nowhere in particular for them. But there is a right of way across that
part of the park, and these two men as I'm speaking of--they made use of
it on Friday--getting towards dark. I know 'em well--they'd both of 'em
weigh four times as much--together--as young Squire Mallathorpe, and yet
it didn't give way under them. And then--only a few hours later, as you
might say, down it goes with him!"

"I don't think you can form any opinion from that!" said Collingwood.
"These things, these old structures, often give way quite suddenly and
unexpectedly."

"Ay, well, they did admit, these men too, that it seemed a bit tottery,
like," remarked the landlord. "Talking it over, between themselves, in
here, they agreed, to be sure, that it felt to give a bit. All the same,
there's them as says that it's a queer thing it should ha' given
altogether when young squire walked on it."

Collingwood clinched matters with a straight question.

"You don't mean to say that people are suggesting that the foot-bridge
had been tampered with?" he asked.

"There is them about as wouldn't be slow to say as much," answered the
landlord. "Folks will talk! You see, sir--nobody saw what happened. And
when country folk doesn't see what takes place, with their own eyes,
then they----"

"Make mysteries out of it," interrupted Collingwood, a little
impatiently. "I don't think there's any mystery here, landlord--I
understood that this foot-bridge was in a very unsafe condition. No! I'm
afraid the whole affair was only too simple."

But he was conscious, as he said this, that he was not precisely voicing
his own sentiments. He himself was mystified. He was still wondering why
Pratt had been so pertinacious in asking the old woodman when,
precisely, he had told Mrs. Mallathorpe about the unsafe condition of
the bridge--still wondering about a certain expression which had come
into Pratt's face when the old man told them what he did--still
wondering at the queer look which Pratt had given the information as he
went off into the plantation. Was there, then, something--some secret
which was being kept back by--somebody?

He was still pondering over these things when he went back to the
Grange, later in the evening--but he was resolved not to say anything
about them to Nesta. And he saw Nesta only for a few minutes. Her
mother, she said, was very ill indeed--the doctor was with her then, and
she must go back to them. Since her son's death, Mrs. Mallathorpe had
scarcely spoken, and the doctor, knowing that her heart was not strong,
was somewhat afraid of a collapse.

"If there is anything that I can do,--or if you should want me, during
the night," said Collingwood, earnestly, "promise me that you'll send at
once to the inn!"

"Yes," answered Nesta. "I will. But--I don't think there will be any
need. We have two nurses here, and the doctor will stop. There is
something I should be glad if you would do tomorrow," she went on,
looking at him a little wistfully, "You know about--the inquest?"

"Yes," said Collingwood.

"They say we--that is I, because, of course, my mother couldn't--that I
need not be present," she continued. "Mr. Robson--our solicitor--says it
will be a very short, formal affair. He will be there, of
course,--but--would you mind being there, too!--so that you
can--afterwards--tell me all about it?"

"Will you tell me something--straight out?" answered Collingwood,
looking intently at her. "Have you any doubt of any description about
the accepted story of your brother's death? Be plain with me!"

Nesta hesitated for awhile before answering.

"Not of the actual circumstances," she replied at last,--"none at all of
what you call the accepted story. The fact is, I'm not a good hand at
explaining anything, and perhaps I can't convey to you what I mean. But
I've a feeling--an impression--that there is--or was some mystery on
Saturday which might have--and might not have--oh, I can't make it
clear, even to myself.

"If you would be at the inquest tomorrow, and listen carefully to
everything--and then tell me afterwards--do you understand?"

"I understand," answered Collingwood. "Leave it to me."

Whether he expected to hear anything unusual at the inquest, whether he
thought any stray word, hint, or suggestion would come up during the
proceedings, Collingwood was no more aware than Nesta was certain of her
vague ideas. But he was very soon assured that there was going to be
nothing beyond brevity and formality. He had never previously been
present at an inquest--his legal mind was somewhat astonished at the way
in which things were done. It was quickly evident to him that the twelve
good men and true of the jury--most of them cottagers and labourers
living on the estate--were quite content to abide by the directions of
the coroner, a Barford solicitor, whose one idea seemed to be to get
through the proceedings as rapidly and smoothly as possible. And
Collingwood felt bound to admit that, taking the evidence as it was
brought forward, no simpler or more straightforward cause of
investigation could be adduced. It was all very simple indeed--as it
appeared there and then.

The butler, a solemn-faced, respectable type of the old family
serving-man, spoke as to his identification of the dead master's body,
and gave his evidence in a few sentences. Mr. Mallathorpe, he said, had
gone out of the front door of the Grange at half-past two on Saturday
afternoon, carrying a gun, and had turned into the road leading towards
the South Shrubbery. At about three o'clock Mr. Pratt had come running
up the drive to the house, and told him and Miss Mallathorpe that he had
just found Mr. Mallathorpe lying dead in the sunken cut between the
South and North Shrubbery. Nobody had any question to ask the butler.
Nor were any questions asked of Pratt--the one really important witness.

Pratt gave his evidence tersely and admirably. On Saturday morning he
had seen an advertisement in the Barford newspapers which stated that a
steward and agent was wanted for the Normandale Estate, and all
applications were to be made to Mrs. Mallathorpe. Desirous of applying
for the post, he had written out a formal letter during Saturday
morning, had obtained a testimonial from his present employers, Messrs.
Eldrick & Pascoe, and, anxious to present his application as soon as
possible, had decided to take it to Normandale Grange himself, that
afternoon. He had left Barford by the two o'clock train, which arrived
at Normandale at two-thirty-five. Knowing the district well, he had
taken the path through the plantations. Arrived at the foot-bridge, he
had at once noticed that part of it had fallen in. Looking into the
cutting, he had seen a man lying in the roadway beneath--motionless. He
had scrambled down the side of the cutting, discovered that the man was
Mr. Harper Mallathorpe, and that he was dead, and had immediately
hurried up the road to the house, where he had informed the last witness
and Miss Mallathorpe.

A quite plain story, evidently thought everybody--no questions needed.
Nor were there any questions needed in the case of the only other
witnesses--the estate carpenter who said that the foot-bridge was very
old, but that he had not been aware that it was in quite so bad a
condition, and who gave it as his opinion that the recent heavy rains
had had something to do with the matter; and the doctor who testified
that the victim had suffered injuries which would produce absolutely
instantaneous death. A clear case--nothing could be clearer, said the
coroner to his obedient jury, who presently returned the only
verdict--one of accidental death--which, on the evidence, was possible.

Collingwood heard no comments on the inquest from those who were
present. But that evening, as he sat in his parlour at the _Normandale
Arms_, the landlord, coming in on pretence of attending to the fire,
approached him with an air of mystery and jerked his thumb in the
direction of the regions which he had just quitted.

"You remember what we were talking of this afternoon when you come in,
sir?" he whispered. "There's some of 'em--regular nightly customers,
village folk, you understand--talking of the same thing now, and of this
here inquest. And if you'd like to hear a bit of what you may call local
opinion--and especially one man's--I'll put you where you can hear it,
without being seen. It's worth hearing, anyway."

Collingwood, curious to know what the village wiseacres had to say,
rose, and followed the landlord into a small room at the back of the
bar-parlour.

An open hatchment in the wall, covered by a thin curtain, allowed him to
hear every word which came from what appeared to be a full company. But
it was quickly evident that in that company there was one man who either
was, or wished to be dictator and artifex--a man of loud voice and
domineering tone, who was laying down the law to the accompaniment of
vigorous thumpings of the table at which he sat. "What I say is--and I
say it agen---I reckon nowt at all o' crowners' quests!" he was
affirming, as Collingwood and his guide drew near the curtained opening.
"What is a crowner's quest, anyway? It's nowt but formality--all form
and show--it means nowt. All them 'at sits on t' jury does and says just
what t' crowner tells 'em to say and do. They nivver ax no questions out
o' their own mouths--they're as dumb as sheep--that's what yon jury wor
this mornin'--now then!"

"That's James Stringer, the blacksmith," whispered the landlord, coming
close to Collingwood's elbow. "He thinks he knows everything!"

"And pray, what would you ha' done, Mestur Stringer, if you'd been on
yon jury?" inquired a milder voice. "I suppose ye'd ha' wanted to know a
bit more, what?" "Mestur Stringer 'ud ha' wanted to know a deal more,"
observed another voice. "He would do!"

"There's a many things I want to know," continued the blacksmith, with a
stout thump of the table. "They all tak' it for granted 'at young squire
walked on to yon bridge, an' 'at it theer and then fell to pieces. Who
see'd it fall to pieces? Who was theer to see what did happen?"

"What else did happen or could happen nor what were testified to?" asked
a new voice. "Theer wor what they call circumstantial evidence to show
how all t' affair happened!"

"Circumstantial evidence be blowed!" sneered the blacksmith heartily. "I
reckon nowt o' circumstantial evidence! Look ye here! How do you
know--how does anybody know 'at t' young squire worn't thrown off that
bridge, and 'at t' bridge collapsed when he wor thrown? He might ha' met
somebody on t' bridge, and quarrelled wi' 'em, and whoivver it wor might
ha' been t' strongest man, and flung him into t' road beneath!"

"Aye, but i' that case t' other feller--t' assailant--'ud ha' fallen wi'
him," objected somebody.

"Nowt o' t' sort!" retorted the blacksmith. "He'd be safe on t' sound
part o' t' bridge--it's only a piece on 't that gave way. I say that
theer idea wants in-quirin' into. An' theer's another thing--what wor
that lawyer-clerk chap fro' Barford--Pratt--doin' about theer? What
reight had he to be prowlin' round t' neighbourhood o' that bridge, and
at that time? Come, now!--theer's a tickler for somebody."

"He telled that," exclaimed several voices. "He had business i' t'
place. He had some papers to 'liver."

"Then why didn't he go t' nearest way to t' house t' 'liver 'em?"
demanded Stringer. "T' shortest way to t' house fro' t' railway station
is straight up t' carriage drive--not through them plantations. I ax
agen--what wor that feller doin' theer? It's important."

"Why, ye don't suspect him of owt, do yer, Mestur Stringer?" asked
somebody. "A respectable young feller like that theer--come!"

"I'm sayin' nowt about suspectin' nobody!" vociferated the blacksmith.
"I'm doin' nowt but puttin' a case, as t' lawyers 'ud term it. I say 'at
theer's a lot o' things 'at owt to ha' comed out. I'll tell ye one on
'em--how is it 'at nowt--not a single word--wor said at yon inquest
about Mrs. Mallathorpe and t' affair? Not one word!"

A sudden silence fell on the company, and the landlord tapped
Collingwood's arm and took the liberty of winking at him.

"Why," inquired somebody, at last, "what about Mrs. Mallathorpe and t'
affair? What had she to do wi' t' affair?"

The blacksmith's voice became judicial in its solemnity.

"Ye listen to me!" he said with emphasis. "I know what I'm talking
about. Ye know what came out at t' inquest. When this here Pratt ran to
tell t' news at t' house he returned to what they term t' fatal spot i'
company wi' t' butler, and a couple of footmen, and Dan Scholes, one o'
t' grooms. Now theer worn't a word said at t' inquest about what that
lot--five on em, mind yer--found when they reached t' dead corpse--not
one word! But I know--Dan Scholes tell'd me!"

"What did they find, then, Mestur Stringer?" asked an eager member of
the assemblage. "What wor it?"

The blacksmith's voice sank to a mysterious whisper.

"I'll tell yer!" he replied. "They found Mrs. Mallathorpe, lyin' i' a
dead faint--close by! And they say 'at she's nivver done nowt but go out
o' one faint into another, ivver since. So, of course, she's nivver been
able to tell if she saw owt or knew owt! And what I say is," he
concluded, with a heavy thump of the table, "that theer crowner's quest
owt to ha' been what they term adjourned, until Mrs. Mallathorpe could
tell if she did see owt, or if she knew owt, or heer'd owt! She mun ha'
been close by--or else they wo'dn't ha' found her lyin' theer aside o'
t' corpse. What did she see? What did she hear? Does she know owt? I
tell ye 'at theer's questions 'at wants answerin'--and theer's trouble
ahead for somebody if they aren't answered--now then!"

Collingwood went away from his retreat, beckoning the landlord to
follow. In the parlour he turned to him.

"Have you heard anything of what Stringer said just now?" he asked. "I
mean--about Mrs. Mallathorpe?"

"Heard just the same--and from the same chap, Scholes, the groom, sir,"
replied the landlord. "Oh, yes! Of course, people will wonder why they
didn't get some evidence from Mrs. Mallathorpe--just as Stringer says."

Collingwood sat a long time that night, thinking over the things he had
heard. He came to the conclusion that the domineering blacksmith was
right in one of his dogmatic assertions--there was trouble ahead. And
next morning, before going up to the Grange, he went to the nearest
telegraph office, and sent Sir John Standridge a lengthy message in
which he resigned the appointment that would have taken him to India.




CHAPTER XII


THE POWER OF ATTORNEY


Collingwood had many things to think over as he walked across Normandale
Park that morning. He had deliberately given up his Indian appointment
for Nesta's sake, so that he might be near her in case the trouble which
he feared arose suddenly. But it was too soon yet to let her know that
she was the cause of his altered arrangements--in any case, that was not
the time to tell her that it was on her account that he had altered
them.

He must make some plausible excuse: then he must settle down in Barford,
according to Eldrick's suggestion. He would then be near at hand--and if
the trouble, whatever it might be, took tangible form, he would be able
to help. But he was still utterly in the dark as to what that possible
trouble might be--yet, of one thing he felt convinced--it would have
some connection with Pratt.

He remembered, as he walked along, that he had formed some queer, uneasy
suspicion about Pratt when he first hurried down to Barford on hearing
of Antony Bartle's death: that feeling, subsequently allayed to some
extent, had been revived. There might be nothing in it, he said to
himself, over and over again; everything that seemed strange might be
easily explained; the evidence of Pratt at the inquest had appeared
absolutely truthful and straightforward, and yet the blunt, rough,
downright question of the blacksmith, crudely voiced as it was, found a
ready agreement in Collingwood's mind. As he drew near the house he
found himself repeating Stringer's broad Yorkshire--"What wor that
lawyer-clerk chap fro' Barford--Pratt--doin' about theer? What reight
had he to be prowlin' round t' neighbourhood o' that bridge, and at that
time? Come, now--theer's a tickler for somebody!" And even as he smiled
at the remembrance of the whole rustic conversation of the previous
evening, and thought that the blacksmith's question certainly might be a
ticklish one--for somebody--he looked up from the frosted grass at his
feet, and saw Pratt.

Pratt, a professional-looking bag in his hand, a morning newspaper under
the other arm, was standing at the gate of one of the numerous
shrubberies which flanked the Grange, talking to a woman who leaned over
it. Collingwood recognized her as a person whom he had twice seen in the
house during his visits on the day before---a middle-aged, slightly
built woman, neatly dressed in black, and wearing a sort of nurse's cap
which seemed to denote some degree of domestic servitude. She was a
woman who had once been pretty, and who still retained much of her good
looks; she was also evidently of considerable shrewdness and
intelligence and possessed a pair of remarkably quick eyes--the sort of
eyes, thought Collingwood, that see everything that happens within their
range of vision. And she had a firm chin and a mouth which expressed
determination; he had seen all that as she exchanged some conversation
with the old butler in Collingwood's presence--a noticeable woman
altogether. She was evidently in close conference with Pratt at that
moment--but as Collingwood drew near she turned and went slowly in the
direction of the house, while Pratt, always outwardly polite, stepped
towards the interrupter of this meeting, and lifted his hat.

"Good morning, Mr. Collingwood," he said. "A fine, sharp morning, sir! I
was just asking Mrs. Mallathorpe's maid how her mistress is this
morning--she was very ill when I left last night. Better, sir, I'm glad
to say--Mrs. Mallathorpe has had a much better night."

"I'm very pleased to hear it," replied Collingwood. He was going towards
the front of the Grange, and Pratt walked at his side, evidently in the
same direction. "I am afraid she has had a great shock. You are still
here, then?" he went on, feeling bound to make some remark, and saying
the first obvious thing. "Still busy?"

"Mr. Eldrick has lent me--so to speak--until the funeral's over,
tomorrow," answered Pratt. "There are a lot of little things in which I
can be useful, you know, Mr. Collingwood. I suppose your
arrangements--you said you were sailing for India--won't permit of your
being present tomorrow, sir?"

Collingwood was not sure if the clerk was fishing for information.
Pratt's manner was always polite, his questions so innocently put, that
it was difficult to know what he was actually after. But he was not
going to give him any information--either then, or at any time.

"I don't quite know what my arrangements may be," he answered. And just
then they came to the front entrance, and Collingwood was taken off in
one direction by a footman, while Pratt, who already seemed to be fully
acquainted with the house and its arrangements, took himself and his bag
away in another.

Nesta came to Collingwood looking less anxious than when he had left her
at his last call the night before. He had already told her what his
impressions of the inquest were, and he was now wondering whether to
tell her of the things he had heard said at the village inn. But
remembering that he was now going to stay in the neighbourhood, he
decided to say nothing at that time--if there was anything in these
vague feelings and suspicions it would come out, and could be dealt with
when it arose. At present he had need of a little diplomacy.

"Oh!--I wanted to tell you," he said, after talking to her awhile about
Mrs. Mallathorpe. "I--there's a change in my arrangements, I'm not going
to India, after all."

He was not prepared for the sudden flush that came over the girl's face.
It took him aback. It also told him a good deal that he was glad to
know--and it was only by a strong effort of will that he kept himself
from taking her hands and telling her the truth. But he affected not to
see anything, and he went on talking rapidly. "Complete change in the
arrangements at the last minute," he said. "I've just been writing about
it. So--as that's off, I think I shall follow Eldrick's advice, and take
chambers in Barford for a time, and see how things turn out. I'm going
into Barford now, to see Eldrick about all that."

Nesta, who was conscious of her betrayal of more than she cared to show
just then, tried to speak calmly.

"But--isn't it an awful disappointment?" she said. "You were looking
forward so to going there, weren't you?"

"Can't be helped," replied Collingwood. "All these affairs
are--provisional. I thought I'd tell you at once, however--so that
you'll know--if you ever want me--that I shall be somewhere round about.
In fact, as it's quite comfortable there, I shall stop at the inn until
I've got rooms in the town."

Then, not trusting himself to remain longer, he went off to Barford,
certain that he was now definitely pledged in his own mind to Nesta
Mallathorpe, and not much less that when the right time came she would
not be irresponsive to him. And on that, like a cold douche, came the
remembrance of her actual circumstances--she was what Eldrick had said,
one of the wealthiest young women in Yorkshire. The thought of her
riches made Collingwood melancholy for a while--he possessed a curious
sort of pride which made him hate and loathe the notion of being taken
for a fortune-hunter. But suddenly, and with a laugh, he remembered that
he had certain possessions of his own--ability, knowledge, and
perseverance. Before he reached Eldrick's office, he had had a vision of
the Woolsack.

Eldrick received Collingwood's news with evident gratification. He
immediately suggested certain chambers in an adjacent building; he
volunteered information as to where the best rooms in the town were to
be had. And in proof of his practical interest in Collingwood's career,
he there and then engaged his professional services for two cases which
were to be heard at a local court within the following week.

"Pratt shall deliver the papers to you at once," he said. "That is, as
soon as he's back from Normandale this afternoon. I sent him there again
to make himself useful."

"I saw him this morning," remarked Collingwood. "He appears to be a very
useful person."

"Clever chap," asserted Eldrick, carelessly. "I don't know what'll be
done about that stewardship that he was going to apply for. Everything
will be altered now that young Mallathorpe's dead. Of course, I,
personally, shouldn't have thought that Pratt would have done for a job
like that, but Pratt has enough self-assurance and self-confidence for a
dozen men, and he thought he would do, and I couldn't refuse him a
testimonial. And as he's made himself very useful out there, it may be
that if this steward business goes forward, Pratt will get the
appointment. As I say, he's a smart chap."

Collingwood offered no comment. But he was conscious that it would not
be at all pleasing to him to know that Linford Pratt held any official
position at Normandale. Foolish as it might be, mere inspiration though
it probably was, he could not get over his impression that Eldrick's
clerk was not precisely trustworthy. And yet, he reflected, he himself
could do nothing--it would be utter presumption on his part to offer any
gratuitous advice to Nesta Mallathorpe in business matters. He was very
certain of what he eventually meant to say to her about his own personal
hopes, some time hence, when all the present trouble was over, but in
the meantime, as regarded anything else, he could only wait and watch,
and be of service to her if she asked him to render any.

Some time went by before Collingwood was asked to render service of any
sort. At Normandale Grange, events progressed in apparently ordinary and
normal fashion. Harper Mallathorpe was buried; his mother began to make
some recovery from the shock of his death; the legal folk were busied in
putting Nesta in possession of the estate, and herself and her mother in
proprietorship of the mill and the personal property. In Barford, things
went on as usual, too. Pratt continued his round of duties at Eldrick &
Pascoe's; no more was heard--by outsiders, at any rate--of the
stewardship at Normandale. As for Collingwood, he settled down in
chambers and lodgings and, as Eldrick had predicted, found plenty of
work. And he constantly went out to Normandale Grange, and often met
Nesta elsewhere, and their knowledge of each other increased, and as the
winter passed away and spring began to show on the Normandale woods and
moors, Collingwood felt that the time was coming when he might speak. He
was professionally engaged in London for nearly three weeks in the early
part of that spring--when he returned, he had made up his mind to tell
Nesta the truth, at once. He had faced it for himself--he was by that
time so much in love with her that he was not going to let monetary
considerations prevent him from telling her so.

But Collingwood found something else than love to talk about when he
presented himself at Normandale Grange on the morning after his arrival
from his three weeks' absence in town. As soon as he met her, he saw
that Nesta was not only upset and troubled, but angry.

"I am glad you have come," she said, when they were alone. "I want some
advice. Something has happened--something that bothers--and puzzles--me
very, very much! I'm dreadfully bothered."

"Tell me," suggested Collingwood.

Nesta frowned--at some recollection or thought.

"Yesterday afternoon," she answered, "I was obliged to go into Barford,
on business. I left my mother fairly well---she has been recovering fast
lately, and she only has one nurse now. Unfortunately, she, too, was out
for the afternoon. I came back to find my mother ill and much
upset---and there's no use denying it--she'd all the symptoms of having
been--well, frightened. I can't think of any other term than
that--frightened. And then I learned that, in my absence, Mr. Eldrick's
clerk, Mr. Pratt--you know him--had been here, and had been with her for
quite an hour. I am furiously angry!"

Collingwood had expected this announcement as soon as she began to
explain. So--the trouble was beginning!

"How came Pratt to be admitted to your mother?" he asked.

"That makes me angry, too," answered Nesta. "Though I confess I ought to
be angry with myself for not giving stricter orders. I left the house
about two--he came about three, and asked to see my mother's maid,
Esther Mawson. He told her that it was absolutely necessary for him to
see my mother on business, and she told my mother he was there. My
mother consented to see him--and he was taken up. And as I say, I found
her ill--and frightened--and that's not the worst of it!"

"What is the worst of it?" asked Collingwood, anxiously. "Better tell
me!--I may be able to do something."

"The worst of it," she said, "is just this--my mother won't tell me what
that man came about! She flatly refuses to tell me anything! She will
only say that it was business of her own. She won't trust me with it,
you see!--her own daughter! What business can that man have with
her?--or she with him? Eldrick & Pascoe are not our solicitors! There's
some secret and----"

"Will you answer one or two questions?" said Collingwood quietly. He had
never seen Nesta angry before, and he now realized that she had certain
possibilities of temper and determination which would be formidable when
roused. "First of all, is that maid you speak of, Esther Mawson,
reliable?"

"I don't know!" answered Nesta. "My mother has had her two years--she's
a Barford woman. Sometimes I think she's sly and cunning. But I've given
her such strict orders now that she'll never dare to let any one see my
mother again without my consent."

"The other question's this," said Collingwood. "Have you any idea, any
suspicion of why Pratt wanted to see your mother?"

"Not unless it was about that stewardship," replied Nesta. "But--how
could that frighten her? Besides, all that's over. Normandale is
mine!--and if I have a steward, or an estate agent, I shall see to the
appointment myself. No!--I do not know why he should have come here!
But--there's some mystery. The curious thing is----"

"What?" asked Collingwood, as she paused.

"Why," she said, shaking her head wonderingly, "that I'm absolutely
certain that my mother never even knew this man Pratt--I don't I think
she even knew his name--until quite recently. I know when she got to
know him, too. It was just about the time that you first called here--at
the time of Mr. Bartle's death. Our butler told me this morning that
Pratt came here late one evening--just about that time!--and asked to
see my mother, and was with her for some time in the study. Oh! what is
it all about?--and why doesn't she tell me?"

Collingwood stood silently staring out of the window. At the time of
Antony Bartle's death? An evening visit?--evidently of a secret nature.
And why paid to Mrs. Mallathorpe at that particular time? He suddenly
turned to Nesta.

"What do you wish me to do?" he asked.

"Will you speak to Mr. Eldrick?" she said. "Tell him that his clerk must
not call upon, or attempt to see, my mother. I will not have it!"

Collingwood went off to Barford, and straight to Eldrick's office. He
noticed as he passed through the outer rooms that Pratt was not in his
accustomed place--as a rule, it was impossible to get at either Eldrick
or Pascoe without first seeing Pratt.

"Hullo!" said Eldrick. "Just got in from town? That's lucky--I've got a
big case for you."

"I got in last night," replied Collingwood. "But I went out to
Normandale first thing this morning: I've just come back from there. I
say, Eldrick, here's an unpleasant matter to tell you of"; and he told
the solicitor all that Nesta had just told him, and also of Pratt's
visit to Mrs. Mallathorpe about the time of Antony Bartle's death.
"Whatever it is," he concluded sternly, "it's got to stop! If you've any
influence over your clerk----"

Eldrick made a grimace and waved his hand.

"He's our clerk no longer!" he said. "He left us the week after you went
up to town, Collingwood. He was only a weekly servant, and he took
advantage of that to give me a week's notice. Now, what game is Master
Pratt playing? He's smart, and he's deep, too. He----"

Just then an office-boy announced Mr. Robson, the Mallathorpe family
solicitor, a bustling, rather rough-and-ready type of man, who came into
Eldrick's room looking not only angry but astonished. He nodded to
Collingwood, and flung himself into a chair at the side of Eldrick's
desk.

"Look here, Eldrick!" he exclaimed. "What on earth has that clerk of
yours, Pratt, got to do with Mrs. Mallathorpe? Do you know what Mrs.
Mallathorpe has done? Hang it, she must be out of her senses,--or--or
there's something I can't fathom. She's given your clerk, Linford Pratt,
a power of attorney to deal with all her affairs and all her property!
Oh, it's all right, I tell you! Pratt's been to my office, and exhibited
it to me as if--as if he were the Lord Chancellor!"

Eldrick turned to Collingwood, and Collingwood to Eldrick--and then both
turned to Robson.



CHAPTER XIII


THE FIRST TRICK


The Mallathorpe family solicitor shook his head impatiently under those
questioning glances.

"It's not a bit of use appealing to me to know what it means!" he
exclaimed. "I know no more than what I've told you. That chap walked
into my office as bold as brass, half an hour ago, and exhibited to me a
power of attorney, all duly drawn up and stamped, executed in his favour
by Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday. And as Mrs. Mallathorpe is, as far as I
know, in her senses,--why--there you are!"

"What is it?" asked Eldrick. "A general power? Or a special?"

"General!" answered Robson, with an air of disgust. "Authorizes him to
act for her in all business matters. It means, of course, that that
fellow now has full control over--why, a tremendous amount of money! The
estate, of course, is Miss Mallathorpe's--he can't interfere with that.
But Mrs. Mallathorpe shares equally with her daughter as regards the
personal property of Harper Mallathorpe--his share in the business, and
all that he left, and what's more, Mrs. Mallathorpe is administratrix of
the personal property. She's simply placed in Pratt's hands an enormous
power! And--for what reason? Who on earth is Pratt--what right, title,
age, or qualification, has he to be entrusted with such a big affair? I
never knew of such a business in the whole course of my professional
experiences!"

"Nor I!" agreed Eldrick. "But there's one thing in which you're
mistaken, Robson. You ask what qualification Pratt has for a post of
that sort? Pratt's a very smart, clever, managing chap!"

"Oh, of course! He's your clerk!" retorted Robson, a little sneeringly.
"Naturally, you've a big idea of his abilities. But----"

"He's not our clerk any longer," said Eldrick. "He left us about a week
ago. I heard this morning that he's set up an office in Market
Street--in the Atlas Building--and I wondered for what purpose."

"Purpose of fleecing Mrs. Mallathorpe, I should say!" grumbled Robson.
"Of course, everything of hers must pass through his hands. What on
earth can her daughter have been thinking of to allow----"

"Stop a bit!" interrupted Eldrick. "Collingwood came in to tell me about
that--he's just come from Normandale Grange. Miss Mallathorpe complains
that Pratt called there yesterday in her absence. That's probably when
this power of attorney was signed. But Miss Mallathorpe doesn't know
anything of it--she insists that Pratt shall not visit her mother."

Robson stirred impatiently in his chair.

"That's all bosh!" he said. "She can't prevent it. I saw Mrs.
Mallathorpe myself three days ago--she's recovering very well, and she's
in her right senses, and she's capable of doing business. Her daughter
can't prevent her from doing anything she likes! And if she did what she
liked yesterday when she signed that document--why, everybody's
powerless--except Pratt."

"There's the question of how the document was obtained," remarked
Collingwood. "There may have been undue influence."

The two solicitors looked at each other. Then Eldrick rose from his
chair. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "It's no affair of mine,
but we employed Pratt for years, and he'll confide in me. I'll go and
see him, and ask him what it's all about. Wait here a while, you two."

He went out of his office and across into Market Street, where the Atlas
Building, a modern range of offices and chambers, towered above the
older structures at its foot. In the entrance hall a man was gilding the
name of a new tenant on the address board--that name was Pratt's, and
Eldrick presently found himself ascending in the lift to Pratt's
quarters on the fifth floor. Within five minutes of leaving Collingwood
and Robson, he was closeted with Pratt in a well-furnished and appointed
little office of two rooms, the inner one of which was almost luxurious
in its fittings. And Pratt himself looked extremely well satisfied, and
confident--and quite at his ease. He wheeled forward an easy chair for
his visitor, and pushed a box of cigarettes towards him.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Eldrick," he said, with a cordial politeness which
suggested, however, somehow, that he and the solicitor were no longer
master and servant. "How do you like my little place of business?"

"You're making a comfortable nest of it, anyhow, Pratt," answered
Eldrick, looking round. "And--what sort of business are you going to do,
pray?"

"Agency," replied Pratt, promptly. "It struck me some little time ago
that a smart man,--like myself, eh?--could do well here in Barford as an
agent in a new sort of fashion--attending to things for people who
aren't fitted or inclined to do 'em for themselves--or are rich enough
to employ somebody to look after their affairs. Of course, that
Normandale stewardship dropped out when young Harper died, and I don't
suppose the notion 'll be revived now that his sister's come in. But
I've got one good job to go on with---Mrs. Mallathorpe's given me her
affairs to look after."

Eldrick took one of the cigarettes and lighted it--as a sign of his
peaceable and amicable intentions.

"Pratt!" he said. "That's just what I've come to see you about.
Unofficially, mind--in quite a friendly way. It's like this"; and he
went on to tell Pratt of what had just occurred at his own office.
"So--there you are," he concluded. "I'm saying nothing, you know, it's
no affair of mine--but if these people begin to say that you've used any
undue influence----"

"Mr. Collingwood, and Mr. Robson, and Miss Mallathorpe--and anybody,"
answered Pratt, slowly and firmly, "had better mind what they are
saying, Mr. Eldrick. There's such a thing as slander, as you're well
aware. I'm not the man to be slandered, or libelled, or to have my
character defamed--without fighting for my rights. There has been no
undue influence! I went to see Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday at her own
request. The arrangement between me and her is made with her approval
and free will. If her daughter found her a bit upset, it's because she'd
such a shock at the time of her son's death. I did nothing to frighten
her, not I! The fact is, Miss Mallathorpe doesn't know that her mother
and I have had a bit of business together of late. And all that Mrs.
Mallathorpe has entrusted to me is the power to look after her affairs
for her. And why not? You know that I'm a good man of business, a really
good hand at commercial accountancy, and well acquainted with the trade
of this town. You know too, Mr. Eldrick, that I'm scrupulously
honest--I've had many and many a thousand pounds of yours and your
partner's through my hands! Who's got anything to say against me? I'm
only trying to earn an honest living."

"Well, well!" said Eldrick, who, being an easy-going and
kindly-dispositioned man, was somewhat inclined to side with his old
clerk. "I suppose Mr. Robson thinks that if Mrs. Mallathorpe wished to
put her affairs in anybody's hands, she should have put them in his.
He's their family solicitor, you know, Pratt, while you're a young man
with no claim on Mrs. Mallathorpe."

Pratt smiled--a queer, knowing smile--and reached out his hand to some
papers which lay on his desk.

"You're wrong there, Mr. Eldrick," he said. "But of course, you don't
know. I didn't know myself, nor did Mrs. Mallathorpe, until lately. But
I have a claim--and a good one--to get a business lift from Mrs.
Mallathorpe. I'm a relation."

"What--of the Mallathorpe family?" exclaimed Eldrick, whose legal mind
was at once bitten by notion of kinship and succession, and who knew
that Harper Mallathorpe was supposed to have no male relatives at all,
of any degree. "You don't mean it?"

"No!--but of hers, Mrs. Mallathorpe," answered Pratt. "My mother was her
cousin. I found that out by mere chance, and when I'd found it, I worked
out the facts from our parish church register. They're all here--fairly
copied--Mrs. Mallathorpe has seen them. So I have some claim--even if
it's only that of a poor relation."

Eldrick took the sheets of foolscap which Pratt handed to him, and
looked them over with interest and curiosity. He was something of an
expert in such matters, and had helped to edit a print more than once of
the local parish registers. He soon saw from a hasty examination of the
various entries of marriages and births that Pratt was quite right in
what he said.

"I call it a poor--and a mean--game," remarked Pratt, while his old
master was thus occupied, "a very mean game indeed, of well-to-do folk
like Mr. Collingwood and Mr. Robson to want to injure me in a matter
which is no business of theirs. I shall do my duty by Mrs.
Mallathorpe--you yourself know I'm fully competent to do it--and I shall
fully earn the percentage that she'll pay me. What right have these
people--what right has her daughter--to come between me and my living?"

"Oh, well, well!" said Eldrick, as he handed back the papers and rose.
"It's one of those matters that hasn't been understood. You made a
mistake, you know, Pratt, when you went to see Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday
in her daughter's absence. You shouldn't have done that."

Pratt pulled open a drawer and, after turning over some loose papers,
picked out a letter.

"Do you know Mrs. Mallathorpe's handwriting?" he asked. "Very
well--there it is! Isn't that a request from her that I should call on
her yesterday afternoon? Very well then!"

Eldrick looked at the letter with some surprise. He had a good memory,
and he remembered that Collingwood had told him that Nesta had said that
Pratt had gone to Normandale Grange, seen Esther Mawson, and told her
that it was absolutely necessary for him to see Mrs. Mallathorpe. And
though Eldrick was naturally unsuspicious, an idea flashed across his
mind--had Pratt got Mrs. Mallathorpe to write that letter while he was
there--yesterday--and brought it away with him?

"I think there's a good deal of misunderstanding," he said. "Mr.
Collingwood says that you went there and told her maid that it was
absolutely necessary for you to see her mistress--sort of forced
yourself in, you see, Pratt."

"Nothing of the sort!" retorted Pratt. He flourished the letter in his
hand. "Doesn't it say there, in Mrs. Mallathorpe's own handwriting, that
she particularly desires to see me at three o'clock? It does! Then it
was absolutely necessary for me to see her. Come, now! And Mr.
Collingwood had best attend to his own business. What's he got to do
with all this? After Miss Mallathorpe and her money, I should
think!--that's about it!"

Eldrick said another soothing word or two, and went back to his own
office. He was considerably mystified by certain things, but inclined to
be satisfied about others, and in giving an account of what had just
taken place he unconsciously seemed to take Pratt's side--much to
Robson's disgust, and to Collingwood's astonishment.

"You can't get over this, you know, Robson," said Eldrick. "Pratt went
there yesterday by appointment--went at Mrs. Mallathorpe's own express
desire, made in her own handwriting. And it's quite certain that what he
says about the relationship is true---I examined the proof myself. It's
not unnatural that Mrs. Mallathorpe should desire to do something for
her own cousin's son."

"To that extent?" sneered Robson. "Bless me, you talk as if it were no
more than presenting him with a twenty pound note, instead of its being
what it is--giving him the practical control of many a thousand pounds
every year. There'll be more heard of this--yet!"

He went away angrier than when he came, and Eldrick looked at
Collingwood and shook his head.

"I don't see what more there is to do," he said. "So far as I can make
out, or see, Pratt is within his rights. If Mrs. Mallathorpe liked to
entrust her business to him, what is to prevent it? I see nothing at all
strange in that. But there is a fact which does seem uncommonly strange
to me! It's this--how is it that Mrs. Mallathorpe doesn't consult,
hasn't consulted--doesn't inform, hasn't informed--her daughter about
all this?"

"That," answered Collingwood, "is precisely what strikes me--and I can't
give any explanation. Nor, I believe, can Miss Mallathorpe."

He felt obliged to go back to Normandale, and tell Nesta the result of
the afternoon's proceedings. And having seen during his previous visit
how angry she could be, he was not surprised to see her become angrier
and more determined than ever.

"I will not have Mr. Pratt coming here!" she exclaimed. "He shall not
see my mother--under my roof, at any rate. I don't believe she sent for
him."

"Mr. Eldrick saw her letter!" interrupted Collingwood quietly.

"Then that man made her write it while he was here!" exclaimed Nesta.
"As to the relationship--it may be so. I never heard of it. But I don't
care what relation he is to my mother--he is not going to interfere with
her affairs!"

"The strange thing," said Collingwood, as pointedly as was consistent
with kindness, "is that your mother--just now, at any rate--doesn't seem
to be taking you into her confidence."

Nesta looked steadily at him for a moment, without speaking. When she
did speak it was with decision.

"Quite so!" she said. "She is keeping something from me! And if she
won't tell me things--well, I must find them out for myself."

She would say no more than that, and Collingwood left her. And as he
went back to Barford he cursed Linford Pratt soundly for a deep and
underhand rogue who was most certainly playing some fine game.

But Pratt himself was quite satisfied--up to that point. He had won his
first trick and he had splendid cards still left in his hand. And he was
reckoning his chances on them one morning a little later when a ring at
his bell summoned him to his office door--whereat stood Nesta
Mallathorpe, alone.




CHAPTER XIV


CARDS ON THE TABLE


Had any third person been present, closely to observe the meeting of
these two young people, he would have seen that the one to whom it was
unexpected and a surprise was outwardly as calm and self-possessed as if
the other had come there to keep an ordinary business appointment.

Nesta Mallathorpe, looking very dignified and almost stately in her
mourning, was obviously angry, indignant, and agitated. But Pratt was as
cool and as fully at his ease as if he were back in Eldrick's office,
receiving the everyday ordinary client. He swept his door open and
executed his politest bow--and was clever enough to pretend that he saw
nothing of his visitor's agitation. Yet deep within himself he felt more
tremors than one, and it needed all his powers of dissimulation to act
and speak as if this were the most usual of occurrences.

"Good morning, Miss Mallathorpe!" he said. "You wish to see me? Come
into my private office, if you please. I haven't fixed on a clerk yet,"
he went on, as he led his visitor through the outer room, and to the
easy chair by his desk. "I have several applications from promising
aspirants, but I have to be careful, you know, Miss Mallathorpe--it's a
position of confidence. And now," he concluded, as he closed the door
upon Nesta and himself, "how is Mrs. Mallathorpe today? Improving, I
hope?"

Nesta made no reply to these remarks, or to the question. And instead of
taking th

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