“35c, Calengrove Mansions,“Maida Vale, W.“November 11th, 19—.“Dear Sir,“I don’t know that I am particularly surprised that you have up to now entirely ignored my letters of the 1st and the 5th instant. You probably think that I am not a person about whom any one need take much trouble; a mean cur, perhaps, who can do no more than snap at a mastiff’s heels. I am very well aware (having had the benefit of a year’s experience of your character and temperament) that you have very little respect for unmoneyed people and are contemptuous of their ability to interfere with the moneyed. But in that matter you are mistaken. And to put matters plainly, it will pay you far better to keep me a friend than to transform me into an enemy. Therefore I ask you to consider well and deeply the next sentence of this letter—which I will underline.“I am in full possession of the secret which you have taken such vast pains to keep for fifteen years.“I think you are quite competent to read my meaning, and I now confidently expect to hear that you will take pleasure in obliging me in the way which I indicated to you in my previous letters.“Yours faithfully,“Frank Burchill.”
“35c, Calengrove Mansions,
“Maida Vale, W.
“November 11th, 19—.
“Dear Sir,
“I don’t know that I am particularly surprised that you have up to now entirely ignored my letters of the 1st and the 5th instant. You probably think that I am not a person about whom any one need take much trouble; a mean cur, perhaps, who can do no more than snap at a mastiff’s heels. I am very well aware (having had the benefit of a year’s experience of your character and temperament) that you have very little respect for unmoneyed people and are contemptuous of their ability to interfere with the moneyed. But in that matter you are mistaken. And to put matters plainly, it will pay you far better to keep me a friend than to transform me into an enemy. Therefore I ask you to consider well and deeply the next sentence of this letter—which I will underline.
“I am in full possession of the secret which you have taken such vast pains to keep for fifteen years.
“I think you are quite competent to read my meaning, and I now confidently expect to hear that you will take pleasure in obliging me in the way which I indicated to you in my previous letters.
“Yours faithfully,
“Frank Burchill.”
Barthorpe read this communication three times, pausing over every sentence, seeking to read the meanings, the implications, the subtly veiled threat. Whenhe folded the square sheet and replaced it in the letter-case he half spoke one word:
“Blackmail!”
Then, staring in apparent idleness about the little restaurant, with its gilt-framed mirrors, its red, plush-covered seats, its suggestion of foreign atmosphere and custom, he idly drummed the tips of his fingers on the table, and thought. Naturally, he thought of the writer of the letter. Of course, he said to himself, of course he knew Burchill. Burchill had been Jacob Herapath’s private secretary for rather more than a year, and it was now about six months since Jacob had got rid of him. He, Barthorpe, remembered very well why Jacob had quietly dismissed Burchill. One day Jacob had said to him, with a dry chuckle:
“I’m getting rid of that secretary of mine—it won’t do.”
“What won’t do?” Barthorpe had asked.
“He’s beginning to make eyes at Peggie,” Jacob had answered with another chuckle, “and though Peggie’s a girl of sense, that fellow’s too good looking to have about a house. I never ought to have had him. However—he goes.”
Barthorpe, as he ate the cutlets and sipped the half-bottle of claret which the waiter presently brought him, speculated on these facts and memories. He was not very sure about Burchill’s antecedents: he believed he was a young man of good credentials and high respectability—personally, he had always wondered why old Jacob Herapath, a practical business man, should have taken as a private secretary a fellow who looked, dressed, spoke, and behaved like a play-actor. As it all came within the scope of things he mused on Burchill and his personal appearance, calling up the ex-secretary’s graceful and slender figure, his oval, olive-tinted face, his large, dark, lustrous eyes, his dark, curling hair, his somewhat affected dress, his tall, wide-brimmed hats, his taper fingers, his big, wide-ended cravats. It had once amused Barthorpe—and many other people—to see Jacob Herapath and his secretary together; nevertheless, Jacob had always spoken of Burchill as being thoroughly capable, painstaking, thorough and diligent. His airs and graces Jacob put down as a young man’s affectations—yet there came the time when they suited Jacob no longer.
“I catch him talking too much to Peggie,” he had added, in that conversation of which Barthorpe was thinking. “Better get rid of him before they pass the too-much stage.”
So Burchill had gone, and Barthorpe had heard no more of him until now. But what he had heard now was a revelation. Burchill had witnessed a will of Jacob Herapath’s, which, if good and valid and the only will in existence, would leave him, Barthorpe, a ruined man. Burchill had written a letter to Jacob Herapath asking for some favour, reward, compensation, as the price of his silence about a secret. What secret? Barthorpe could not even guess at it—but Burchill had said, evidently knowing what he was talking about, that Jacob Herapath had taken vast pains to keep it for fifteen years.
By the time Barthorpe had finished his lunch he had come to the conclusion that there was only one thing for him to do. He must go straight to Calengrove Mansions and interview Mr. Frank Burchill. In one way or another he must make sure of him, or, rather—though it was really the same thing—sure of what he could tell. And on the way there he would make sure of something else—in order to do which he presently commissioned a taxi-cab and bade its driver go first to 331, Upper Seymour Street.
The domestic who answered Barthorpe’s double knock at that house shook her head when he designedly asked for Mr. Frank Burchill. Nobody of that name, she said. But on being assured that there once had been a lodger of that name in residence there, she observed that she would fetch her mistress, and disappeared to return with an elderly lady who also shook her head at sight of the caller.
“Mr. Burchill left here some time ago,” she said. “Nearly six months. I don’t know where he is.”
“Did he leave no address to which his letters were to be sent?” asked Barthorpe, affecting surprise.
“He said there’d be no letters coming—and there haven’t been,” answered the landlady. “And I’ve neither seen nor heard of him since he went.”
Something in her manner suggested to Barthorpe that she had no desire to renew acquaintance with her former lodger. This sent Barthorpe away well satisfied. It was precisely what he wanted. The three people whom he had left in Portman Square in all probability knew no other address than this atwhich to seek for Burchill when he was wanted; they would seek him there eventually and get no news. Luckily for himself, Barthorpe knew where he was to be found, and he went straight off up Edgware Road to find him.
Calengrove Mansions proved to be a new block of flats in the dip of Maida Vale; 35c was a top flat in a wing which up to that stage of its existence did not appear to be much sought after by would-be tenants. It was some time before Barthorpe succeeded in getting an answer to his ring and knock; when at last the door was opened Burchill himself looked out upon him, yawning, and in a dressing-gown. And narrowly and searchingly as Barthorpe glanced at Burchill he could not see a trace of unusual surprise or embarrassment in his face. He looked just as any man might look who receives an unexpected caller.
“Oh!” he said. “Mr. Barthorpe Herapath! Come in—do. I’m a bit late—a good bit late, in fact. You see, I’m doing dramatic criticism now, and there was an importantpremièrelast night at the Hyperion, and I had to do a full column, and so—but that doesn’t interest you. Come in, pray.”
He led the way into a small sitting-room, drew forward an easy-chair, and reaching down a box of cigarettes from the mantelpiece offered its contents to his visitor. Barthorpe, secretly wondering if all this unconcerned behaviour was natural or merely a bit of acting, took a cigarette and dropped into the chair.
“I don’t suppose you thought of seeing me when you opened your door, Burchill?” he remarked good-humouredly, as he took the match which his host had struck for him. “Last man in the world you thought of seeing, eh?”
Burchill calmly lighted a cigarette for himself before he answered.
“Well,” he said at last, “I don’t know—you never know who’s going to turn up. But to be candid, I didn’t expect to see you, and I don’t know why you’ve come.”
Barthorpe slowly produced the letter-case from his pocket, took Burchill’s letter from it, and held it before him.
“That’s what brought me here,” he said significantly. “That! Of course, you recognize it.”
Burchill glanced at the letter without turning a hair. If he was merely acting, thought Barthorpe, he was doing it splendidly, and instead of writing dramatic criticism he ought to put on the sock and buskins himself. But somehow he began to believe that Burchill was not acting. And he was presently sure of it when Burchill laughed—contemptuously.
“Oh!” said Burchill. “Ah! So Mr. Jacob Herapath employs legal assistance—your assistance—in answering me? Foolish—foolish! Or, since that is, perhaps, too strong a word—indiscreet. Indiscreet—and unnecessary. Say so, pray, to Mr. Jacob Herapath.”
Barthorpe remained silent a moment; then he put the letter back in the case and gave Burchill a sharp steady look.
“Good gracious, man!” he said quietly. “Are you pretending? Or—haven’t you heard? Say—that—to Jacob Herapath? Jacob Herapath is dead!”
Burchill certainly started at that. What was more he dropped his cigarette, and when he straightened himself from picking it up his face was flushed a little.
“Upon my honour!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know. Dead! When? It must have been sudden.”
“Sudden!” said Barthorpe. “Sudden? He was murdered!”
There was no doubt that this surprised Burchill. At any rate, he showed all the genuine signs of surprise. He stood staring at Barthorpe for a full minute of silence, and when he spoke his voice had lost something of its usual affectation.
“Murdered?” he said. “Murdered! Are you sure of that? You are? Good heavens!—no, I’ve heard nothing. But I’ve not been out since two o’clock this morning, so how could I hear? Murdered——” he broke off sharply and stared at his visitor. “And you came to me—why?”
“I came to ask you if you remember witnessing my uncle’s will,” replied Barthorpe promptly. “Give me a plain answer. Do you remember?”
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greek against greek
At this direct question, Burchill, who had been standing on the hearthrug since Barthorpe entered the room, turned away and took a seat in the corner of a lounge opposite his visitor. He gave Barthorpe a peculiarly searching look before he spoke, and as soon as he replied Barthorpe knew that here was a man who was not readily to be drawn.
“Oh,” said Burchill, “so I am supposed to have witnessed a will made by Mr. Jacob Herapath, am I?”
Barthorpe made a gesture of impatience.
“Don’t talk rot!” he said testily. “A man either knows that he witnessed a will or knows that he didn’t witness a will.”
“Excuse me,” returned Burchill, “I don’t agree with that proposition. I can imagine it quite possible that a man may think he has witnessed a will when he has done nothing of the sort. I can also imagine it just as possible that a man may have really witnessed a will when he thought he was signing some much less important document. Of course, you’re a lawyer, and I’m not. But I believe that what I have just said is much more in accordance with what we may call the truth of life than what you’ve said.”
“If a man sees another man sign a document and witnesses the signature together with a third man who had been present throughout, what would you say was being done?” asked Barthorpe, sneeringly. “Come, now?”
“I quite apprehend your meaning,” replied Burchill. “You put it very cleverly.”
“Then why don’t you answer my question?” demanded Barthorpe.
Burchill laughed softly.
“Why not answer mine?” he said. “However, I’ll ask it in another and more direct form. Have you seen my signature as witness to a will made by Jacob Herapath?”
“Yes,” replied Barthorpe.
“Are you sure it was my signature?” asked Burchill.
Barthorpe lifted his eyes and looked searchingly at his questioner. But Burchill’s face told him nothing. What was more, he was beginning to feel that he was not going to get anything out of Burchill that Burchill did not want to tell. He remained silent, and again Burchill laughed.
“You see,” he said, “I can suppose all sorts of things. I can suppose, for example, that there’s such a thing as forging a signature—two signatures—three signatures to a will—or, indeed, to any other document. Don’t you think that instead of asking me a direct question like this that you’d better wait until this will comes before the—is it the Probate Court?—and then let some of the legal gentlemen ask me if that—that!—is my signature? I’m only putting it to you, you know. But perhaps you’d like to tell me—all about it?” He paused, looking carefully at Barthorpe, and as Barthorpe made no immediate answer, he went on speaking in a lower, softer tone. “All about it,” he repeated insinuatingly. “Ah!”
Barthorpe suddenly flung his cigarette in the hearth with a gesture that implied decision.
“I will!” he exclaimed. “It may be the shortest way out. Very well—listen, then. I tell you my uncle was murdered at his office about—well, somewhere between twelve and three o’clock this morning. Naturally, after the preliminaries were over, I wanted to find out if he’d made a will—naturally, I say.”
“Naturally, you would,” murmured Burchill.
“I didn’t believe he had,” continued Barthorpe. “But I examined his safe at the office, and I was going to examine that in his study at Portman Square when Tertius said in the presence of my cousin, myself, and Selwood, your successor, that there was a will, and produced one from a secret drawer in an old bureau——”
“A secret drawer in an old bureau!” murmured Burchill. “How deeply interesting for all of you!—quite dramatic. Yes?”
“Which, on being inspected,” continued Barthorpe, “proved to be a holograph——”
“Pardon,” interrupted Burchill, “a holograph? Now, I am very ignorant. What is a holograph?”
“A holograph will is a will entirely written in the handwriting of the person who makes it,” replied Barthorpe.
“I see. So this was written out by Mr. Jacob Herapath, and witnessed by—whom?” asked Burchill.
“Tertius as first witness, and you as second,” answered Barthorpe. “Now then, I’ve told you all about it. What are you going to tell me? Come—did you witness this will or not? Good gracious, man!—don’t you see what a serious thing it is?”
“How can I when I don’t know the contents of the will?” asked Burchill. “You haven’t told me that—yet.”
Barthorpe swallowed an exclamation of rage.
“Contents!” he exclaimed. “He left everything—everything!—to my cousin! Everything to her.”
“And nothing to you,” said Burchill, accentuating his habitual drawl. “Really, how infernally inconsiderate! Yes—now I see that it is serious. But—only for you.”
Barthorpe glared angrily at him and began to growl, almost threateningly. And Burchill spoke, soothingly and quietly.
“Don’t,” he said. “It does no good, you know. Serious—yes. Most serious—for you, as I said. But remember—only serious for you if the will is—good. Eh?”
Barthorpe jumped to his feet and thrust his hands in his pockets. He began to pace the room.
“Hang me if I know what you mean, Burchill!” he said. “Is that your signature on that will or not?”
“How can I say until I see it?” asked Burchill, with seeming innocence. “Let’s postpone matters until then. By the by, did Mr. Tertius say that it was my signature?”
“What do you mean!” exclaimed Barthorpe. “Why, of course, he said that he and you witnessed the will!”
“Ah, to be sure, he would say so,” assented Burchill. “Of course. Foolish of me to ask. It’s quite evident that we must postpone matters until this will is—what do you call it?—presented, propounded—what is it?—for probate. Let’s turn to something else. My letter to your uncle, for instance. Of course, as you’ve got it, you’ve read it.”
Barthorpe sat down again and stared.
“You’re a cool customer, Master Burchill!” he said. “By Jove, you are! You’re playing some game. What is it?”
Burchill smiled deprecatingly.
“What’s your own?” he asked. “Or, if that’s too pointed a question at present, suppose we go back to—my letter? Want to ask me anything about it?”
Barthorpe again drew the letter from the case. He affected to re-read it, while Burchill narrowly watched him.
“What,” asked Barthorpe at last, “what was it that you wanted my uncle to oblige you with? A loan?”
“If it’s necessary to call it anything,” replied Burchill suavely, “you can call it a—well, say a donation. That sounds better—it’s more dignified.”
“I don’t suppose it matters much what it’s called,” said Barthorpe drily. “I should say, from the tone of your letter, that most people would call it——”
“Yes, but not polite people,” interrupted Burchill, “and you and I are—or must be—polite. So we’ll say donation. The fact is, I want to start a newspaper—weekly—devoted to the arts. I thought your uncle—now, unfortunately, deceased—would finance it. I didn’t want much, you know.”
“How much?” asked Barthorpe. “The amount isn’t stated in this letter.”
“It was stated in the two previous letters,” replied Burchill. “Oh, not much. Ten thousand.”
“The price of your silence, eh?” suggested Barthorpe.
“Dirt cheap!” answered Burchill.
Barthorpe folded up the letter once more and put it away. He helped himself to another cigarette and lighted it before he spoke again. Then he leaned forward confidentially.
“What is the secret?” he asked.
Burchill stated and assumed an air of virtuous surprise.
“My dear fellow!” he said. “That’s against all the rules—all the rules of——”
“Of shady society,” sneered Barthorpe. “Confound it, man, what do you beat about the bush so much for? Hang it, I’ve a pretty good notion of you, and I daresay you’ve your own of me. Why can’t you tell me?”
“You forget that I offered not to tell for—ten thousand pounds,” said Burchill. “Therefore I should want quite as much for telling. If you carry ten thousand in cash on you——”
“Is there a secret?” asked Barthorpe. “Sober earnest, now?”
“I have no objection to answering that question,” replied Burchill. “There is!”
“And you want ten thousand pounds for it?” suggested Barthorpe.
“Pardon me—I want a good deal more for it, under the present much altered circumstances,” said Burchill quietly. “There is an old saying that circumstances alter cases. It’s true—they do. I would have taken ten thousand pounds from your uncle to hold my tongue—true. But—the case is altered by his death.”
Barthorpe pondered over this definite declaration for a minute or two. Then, lowering his voice, he said:
“Looks uncommonly like—blackmail! And that——”
“Pardon me again,” interrupted Burchill. “No blackmail at all—in my view. I happen to possess information of a certain nature, and——”
Barthorpe interrupted in his turn.
“The thing is,” he said, “the only thing is—how long are you and I going to beat about the bush? Are you going to tell me if you signed that will I told you of?”
“Certainly not before I’ve seen it,” answered Burchill promptly.
“Will you tell me then?”
“That entirely depends.”
“On—what?”
“Circumstances!”
“Have the circumstances got anything to do with this secret?”
“Everything! More than anything—now.”
“Now—what?”
“Now that Jacob Herapath is dead. Look here!” continued Burchill, leaning forward and speaking impressively. “Take my counsel. Leave this for the moment and come to see me—now, when? Tonight. Come tonight. I’ve nothing to do. Come at ten o’clock. Then—I’ll be in a position to say a good deal more. How will that do?”
“That’ll do,” answered Barthorpe after a moment’s consideration. “Tonight, here, at ten o ’clock.”
He got up and made for the door. Burchill got up too, and for a moment both men glanced at each other. Then Burchill spoke.
“I suppose you’ve no idea who murdered your uncle?” he said.
“Not the slightest!” exclaimed Barthorpe. “Have you?”
“None! Of course—the police are on the go?”
“Oh, of course!”
“All right,” said Burchill. “Tonight, then.”
He opened the door for his visitor, nodded to him, as he passed out, and when he had gone sat down in the easy chair which Barthorpe had vacated and for half an hour sat immobile, thinking. At the end of that half-hour he rose, went into his bedroom, made an elaborate toilet, went out, found a taxi-cab, and drove off to Portman Square.
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mr. benjamin halfpenny
When Barthorpe Herapath left his cousin, Mr. Tertius, and Selwood in company with the newly discovered will, and walked swiftly out of the house and away from Portman Square, he passed without seeing it a quiet, yet smartly appointedcoupébrougham which came round the corner from Portman Street and pulled up at the door which Barthorpe had just quitted. From it at once descended an elderly gentleman, short, stout, and rosy, who bustled up the steps of the Herapath mansion and appeared to fume and fret until his summons was responded to. When the door was opened to him he bustled inside at the same rate, rapped out the inquiry, “Miss Wynne at home?—Miss Wynne at home?” several times without waiting for a reply, and never ceased in his advance to the door of the study, into which he precipitated himself panting and blowing, as if he had run hard all the way from his original starting-point. The three people standing on the hearthrug turned sharply and two of them uttered cries which betokened pleasure mixed with relief.
“Mr. Halfpenny!” exclaimed Peggie, almost joyfully. “How good of you to come!”
“We had only just spoken—were only just speaking of you,” remarked Mr. Tertius. “In fact—yes, Mr. Selwood and I were thinking of going round to your offices to see if you were in town.”
The short, stout, and rosy gentleman who, as soon as he had got well within the room, began to unswathe his neck from a voluminous white silk muffler, now completed his task and advancing upon Peggie solemnly kissed her on both cheeks, held her away from him, looked at her, kissed her again, and then patted her on the shoulder. This done, he shook hands solemnly with Mr. Tertius, bowed to Selwood, took off his spectacles and proceeded to polish them with a highly-coloured bandana handkerchief which he produced from the tail of his overcoat. This operation concluded, he restored the spectacles to his nose, sat down, placed his hands, palm downwards, on his plump knees and solemnly inspected everybody.
“My dear friends!” he said in a hushed, deep voice. “My dear, good friends! This dreadful, awful, most afflicting news! I heard it but three-quarters of an hour ago—at the office, to which I happened by mere chance, to have come up for the day. I immediately ordered out our brougham and drove here—to see if I could be of any use. You will command me, my dear friends, in anything that I can do. Not professionally, of course. No—in that respect you have Mr. Barthorpe Herapath. But—otherwise.”
Mr. Tertius looked at Peggie.
“I don’t know whether we shan’t be glad of Mr. Halfpenny’s professional services?” he said. “The truth is, Halfpenny, we were talking of seeing you professionally when you came in. That’s one truth—another is that a will has been found—our poor friend’s will, of course.”
“God bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Halfpenny. “A will—our poor friend’s will—has been found! But surely, Barthorpe, as nephew, and solicitor—eh?”
Again Mr. Tertius looked at Peggie.
“I suppose we’d better tell Mr. Halfpenny everything,” he remarked. “Of course, Halfpenny, you’ll understand that as soon as this dreadful affair was discovered and the first arrangements had been made, Barthorpe, as only male relative, began to search for a will. He resented any interference from me and was very rude to me, but when he came here and proposed to examine that safe, I told him at once that I knew of a will and where it was, though I didn’t know its terms. And I immediately directed him to it, and we found it and read it a few minutes ago with the result that Barthorpe at once quitted the house—you must have passed him in the square.”
“God bless us!” repeated Mr. Halfpenny. “I judge from that, then—but you had better show me this document.”
Mr. Tertius at once produced the will, and Mr. Halfpenny, rising from his chair, marched across the room to one of the windows where he solemnly half-chanted every word from start to finish. This performance over, he carefully and punctiliously folded the document into its original lines, replaced it in its envelope, and grasping this firmly inhis hand, resumed his seat and motioned everybody to attention.
“My dear Tertius!” he said. “Oblige me by narrating, carefully, briefly, your recollection of the circumstances under which your signature to this highly important document was obtained and made.”
“Easily done,” responded Mr. Tertius. “One night, some months ago, when our poor friend was at work here with his secretary, a Mr. Frank Burchill, he called me into the room, just as Burchill was about to leave. He said: ‘I want you two to witness my signature to a paper.’ He——”
“A moment,” interrupted Mr. Halfpenny. “He said—‘a paper.’ Did he not say ‘my will’?”
“Not before the two of us. He merely said a paper. He produced the paper—that paper, which you now hold. He let us see that it was covered with writing, but we did not see what the writing was. He folded it over, laid it, so folded, on that desk, and signed his name. Then we both signed it in the blank spaces which he indicated: I first, then Burchill. He then put it into an envelope—that envelope—and fastened it up. As regards that part of the proceedings,” said Mr. Tertius, “that is all.”
“There was, then, another part?” suggested Mr. Halfpenny.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Tertius. “There was. Burchill then left—at once. I, too, was leaving the room when Jacob called me back. When we were alone, he said: ‘That was my will that you’ve just witnessed. Never mind what’s in it—I may alter it, or some of it, some day, but I don’t think I shall. Now look here, I’m going to seal this envelope, and I’ll show you where I put it when it’s sealed.’ He then sealed the envelope in two places, as you see, and afterwards, in my presence, placed it in a secret drawer, which I’ll show to you now. And that done, he said: ‘There, Tertius, you needn’t mention that to anybody, unless I happen to be taken off suddenly.’ And,” concluded Mr. Tertius, as he motioned Mr. Halfpenny to accompany him to the old bureau, “I never, of course, did mention it until half an hour ago.”
Mr. Halfpenny solemnly inspected the secret drawer, made no remark upon it, and reseated himself.
“Now,” he said, “this Mr. Frank Burchill—the other witness? He left our old friend?”
“Some little time ago,” replied Mr. Tertius.
“Still, we have his address on the will,” said Mr. Halfpenny. “I shall call on Mr. Burchill at once—as soon as I leave here. There is, of course, no doubt as to the validity of this will. You said just now that Barthorpe left you as soon as he had seen it. Now, what did Barthorpe say about it?”
“Nothing!” answered Mr. Tertius. “He went away without a word—rushed away, in fact.”
Mr. Halfpenny shook his head with profound solemnity.
“I am not in the least surprised to hear that,” he observed. “Barthorpe naturally received a great shock. What I am surprised at is—the terms of the will. Nothing whatever to Barthorpe—his only male relative—his only brother’s only son. Extraordinary! My dear,” he continued, turning to Peggie, “can you account for this? Do you know of anything, any difference between them, anything at all which would make your uncle leave his nephew out of his will?”
“Nothing!” answered Peggie. “And I’m very troubled about it. Does it really mean that I get everything, and Barthorpe nothing?”
“That is the precise state of affairs,” answered Mr. Halfpenny. “And it is all the more surprising when we bear in mind that you two are the only relations Jacob Herapath had, and that he was a rich man—a very rich man indeed. However, he doubtless had his reasons. And now, as I conclude you desire me to act for you, I shall take charge of this will and lock it up in my safe as soon as I return to the office. On my way, I shall call at Mr. Burchill’s address and just have a word with him. Tertius, you had better come with me. And—yes, there is another thing that I should like to have done. Mr. Selwood—are you engaged on any business?”
“No,” replied Selwood, who was secretly speculating on the meaning of the morning’s strange events. “I have nothing to attend to.”
“Then will you go to Mr. Barthorpe Herapath’s office—in Craven Street, I think?—and see him personally and tell him that Mr. Benjamin Halfpenny is in town, has been acquainted with these matters by Mr. Tertius and Miss Wynne, and would esteem it a favour if he would call upon him before five o’clock. Thank you, Mr. Selwood. Now, Tertius, you and I will attend to our business.”
Left alone, Peggie Wynne suddenly realized that the world had become a vastly different world to what it had seemed a few short hours before. This room, into which Jacob Herapath, bustling and busy, would never come again, was already a place of dread; nay, the whole house in which she had spent so many years of comfort and luxury suddenly assumed a strange atmosphere of distastefulness. It was true that her uncle had never spent much time in the house. An hour or two in the morning—yes, but by noon he had hurried off to some Committee at the House of Commons, and in session time she had never seen him again that day. But he had a trick of running in for a few minutes at intervals during the day; he would come for a cup of tea; sometimes he would contrive to dine at home; whether he was at home or not, his presence, always alert, masterful, active, seemed to be everywhere in the place. She could scarcely realize that she would never see him again. And as she stood looking at his vacant chair she made an effort to realize what it all really meant to her, and suddenly, for the first time in her life, she felt the meaning of the usually vague term—loneliness. In all practical essentials she was absolutely alone. So far as she knew she had no relations in the world but Barthorpe Herapath—and there was something—something shadowy and undefinable—about Barthorpe which she neither liked nor trusted. Moreover, she had caught a glimpse of Barthorpe’s face as heturned from looking at the will and hurried away, and what she had seen had given her a strange feeling of fear and discomfort. Barthorpe, she knew, was not the sort of man to be crossed or thwarted or balked of his will, and now——
“Supposing Barthorpe should begin to hate me because all the money is mine?” she thought. “Then—why, then I should have no one! No one of my own flesh and blood, anyway. Of course, there’s Mr. Tertius. But—I must see Barthorpe. I must tell him that I shall insist on sharing—if it’s all mine, I can do that. And yet—why didn’t Uncle Jacob divide it? Why did he leave Barthorpe—nothing?”
Still pondering sadly over these and kindred subjects Peggie went upstairs to a parlour of her own, a room in which she did as she liked and made into a den after her own taste. There, while the November afternoon deepened in shadow, she sat and thought still more deeply. And she was still plunged in thought when Kitteridge came softly into the room and presented a card. Peggie took it from the butler’s salver and glanced half carelessly at it. Then she looked at Kitteridge with some concern.
“Mr. Burchill?” she said. “Here?”
“No, miss,” answered Kitteridge. “Mr. Burchill desired me to present his most respectful sympathy, and to say that if he could be of any service to you or to the family, he begged that you would command him. His address is on this card, miss.”
“Very kind of him,” murmured Peggie, and laid the card aside on her writing-table. When Kitteridge had gone she picked it up and looked at it again. Burchill?—she had been thinking of him only a few minutes before the butler’s entrance; thinking a good deal. And her thoughts had been disquieted and unhappy. Burchill was the last man in the world that she wished to have anything to do with, and the fact that his name appeared on Jacob Herapath’s will had disturbed her more than she would have cared to admit.
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the shadow
Mr. Halfpenny, conducting Mr. Tertius to thecoupébrougham, installed him in its further corner, got in himself and bade his coachman drive slowly to 331, Upper Seymour Street.
“I said slowly,” he remarked as they moved gently away, “because I wanted a word with you before we see this young man. Tertius—what’s the meaning of all this?”
Mr. Tertius groaned dolefully and shook his head.
“There is so much, Halfpenny,” he answered, “that I don’t quite know what you specifically mean by this. Do you mean——”
“I mean, first of all, Herapath’s murder,” said Mr. Halfpenny. “You think it is a case of murder?”
“I’m sure it’s a case of murder—cold, calculated murder,” replied Mr. Tertius, with energy. “Vile murder, Halfpenny.”
“And, as far as you know, is there no clue?” asked the old lawyer. “There’s nothing said or suggested in the newspapers. Haven’t you any notion—hasn’t Barthorpe any notion?”
Mr. Tertius remained silent for a while. Thecoupébrougham turned into Upper Seymour Street.
“I think,” he said at last, “yes, I think that when we’ve made this call, I shall ask you to accompany me to my friend Cox-Raythwaite’s, in Endsleigh Gardens—you know him, I believe. I’ve already seen him this morning and told him—something. When we get there, I’ll tell it to you, and he shall show you—something. After that, we’ll hear what your legal instinct suggests. It is my opinion, Halfpenny—I offer it with all deference, as a layman—that great, excessive caution is necessary. This case is extraordinary—very extraordinary. That is—in my opinion.”
“It’s an extraordinary thing that Jacob Herapath should have made that will,” murmured Mr. Halfpenny reflectively. “Why Barthorpe should be entirely ignored is—to me—marvellous. And—it may be—significant. You never heard of any difference, quarrel, anything of that sort, between him and his uncle?”
“I have not the remotest notion as to what the relations were that existed between the uncle and the nephew,” replied Mr. Tertius. “And though, as I have said, I knew that the will was in existence, I hadn’t the remotest idea, the faintest notion, of its contents until we took it out of the sealed envelope an hour or so ago. But——” he paused and shook his head meaningly.
“Well?” said Mr. Halfpenny.
“I’m very sure, knowing Jacob as I did, that he had a purpose in making that will,” answered Mr. Tertius. “He was not the man to do anything without good reasons. I think we are here.”
The landlady of No. 331 opened its door herself to these two visitors. Her look of speculative interest on seeing two highly respectable elderly gentlemen changed to one of inquisitiveness when she heard what they wanted.
“No, sir,” she answered. “Mr. Frank Burchill doesn’t live here now. And it’s a queer thing that during the time he did live here and gave me more trouble than any lodger I ever had, him keeping such strange hours of a night and early morning, he never had nobody to call on him, as I recollect of! And now here’s been three gentlemen asking for him within this last hour—you two and another gentleman. And I don’t know where Mr. Burchill lives, and don’t want, neither!”
“My dear lady!” said Mr. Halfpenny, mildly and suavely. “I am sure we are deeply sorry to disturb you—no doubt we have called you away from your dinner. Perhaps, er, this”—here there was a slight chink of silver in Mr. Halfpenny’s hand, presently repeated in one of the landlady’s—“will, er, compensate you a little? But we are really anxious to see Mr. Burchill—haven’t you any idea where he’s gone to live? Didn’t he leave an address for any letters that might come here?”
“He didn’t, sir—not that he ever had many letters,” answered the landlady. “And I haven’t the remotest notion. Of course, if I had I’d give the address. But, as I said to the gentleman what was here not so long ago, I’ve neither seen nor heard of Mr. Burchill since he left—and that’s six months since.”
Mr. Halfpenny contrived to give his companion a nudge of the elbow.
“Is it, indeed, ma’am?” he said. “Ah! That gentleman who called, now?—I think he must be a friend of ours, who didn’t know we were coming. What was he like, now, ma’am?”
“He was a tallish, fine-built gentleman,” answered the landlady. “Fresh-coloured, clean-shaved gentleman. And for that matter, he can’t be so far away—it isn’t more than a quarter of an hour since he was here. I’ll ask my girl if she saw which way he went.”
“Don’t trouble, pray, ma’am, on my account,” entreated Mr. Halfpenny. “It’s of no consequence. We’re deeply obliged to you.” He swept off his hat in an old-fashioned obeisance and drew Mr. Tertius away to thecoupébrougham. “That was Barthorpe, of course,” he said. “He lost no time, you see, Tertius, in trying to see Burchill.”
“Why should he want to see Burchill?” asked Mr. Tertius.
“Wanted to know what Burchill had to say about signing the will, of course,” replied Mr. Halfpenny. “Well—what next? Do you want me to see Cox-Raythwaite with you?”
Mr. Tertius, who had seemed to be relapsing into a brown study on the edge of the pavement, woke up into some show of eagerness. “Yes, yes!” he said. “Yes, by all means let us go to Cox-Raythwaite. I’m sure that’s the thing to do. And there’s another man—the chauffeur. But—yes, we’ll go to Cox-Raythwaite first. Tell your man to drive to the corner of Endsleigh Gardens—the corner by St. Pancras Church.”
Professor Cox-Raythwaite was exactly where Mr. Tertius had left him in the morning, when the two visitors were ushered into his laboratory. And for the second time that day he listened in silence to Mr. Tertius’s story. When it was finished, he looked at Mr. Halfpenny, whose solemn countenance had grown more solemn than ever.
“Queer story, isn’t it, Halfpenny?” he said laconically. “How does it strike you?”
Mr. Halfpenny slowly opened his pursed-up lips.
“Queer?” he exclaimed. “God bless me!—I’m astounded! I—but let me see these—these things.”
“Sealed ’em up not so long ago—just after lunch,” remarked the Professor, lifting his heavy bulk out of his chair. “But you can see ’em all right through the glass. There you are!” He led the way to a side-table and pointed to the hermetically-sealed receptacles in which he had safely bestowed the tumbler and the sandwich brought so gingerly from Portman Square by Mr. Tertius. “The tumbler,” he continued, jerking a big thumb at it, “will have, of course, to be carefully examined by an expert in finger-prints; the sandwich, so to speak, affords primary evidence. You see—what there is to see, Halfpenny?”
Mr. Halfpenny adjusted his spectacles, bent down, and examined the exhibits with scrupulous, absorbed interest. Again he pursed up his lips, firmly, tightly, as if he would never open them again; when he didopen them it was to emit a veritable whistle which indicated almost as much delight as astonishment. Then he clapped Mr. Tertius on the back.
“A veritable stroke of genius!” he exclaimed. “Tertius, my boy, you should have been a Vidocq or a Hawkshaw! How did you come to think of it? For I confess that with all my forty years’ experience of Law, I—well, I don’t think I should ever have thought of it!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mr. Tertius, modestly. “I—well, I looked—and then, of course, I saw. That’s all!”
Mr. Halfpenny sat down and put his hands on his knees.
“It’s a good job you did see, anyway,” he said, ruminatively; “an uncommonly good job. Well—you’re certain of what we may call the co-relative factor to what is most obvious in that sandwich?”
“Absolutely certain,” replied Mr. Tertius.
“And you’re equally certain about the diamond ring?”
“Equally and positively certain!”
“Then,” said Mr. Halfpenny, rising with great decision, “there is only one thing to be done. You and I, Tertius, must go at once—at once!—to New Scotland Yard. In fact, we will drive straight there. I happen to know a man who is highly placed in the Criminal Investigation Department—we will put our information before him. He will know what ought to be done. In my opinion, it is one of those cases which will require infinite care, precaution, and, for the time being, secrecy—mole’s work. Let us go, my dear friend.”
“Want me—and these things?” asked the Professor.
“For the time being, no,” answered Mr. Halfpenny. “Nor, at present, the taxi-cab driver that Tertius has told us of. We’ll merely tell what we know. But take care of these—these exhibits, as if they were the apples of your eyes, Cox-Raythwaite. They—yes, they may hang somebody!”
Half an hour later saw Mr. Halfpenny and Mr. Tertius closeted with a gentleman who, in appearance, resembled the popular conception of a country squire and was in reality as keen a tracker-down of wrong-doers as ever trod the pavement of Parliament Street. And before Mr. Halfpenny had said many words he stopped him.
“Wait a moment,” he said, touching a bell at his side, “we’re already acquainted, of course, with the primary facts of this case, and I’ve told off one of our sharpest men to give special attention to it. We’ll have him in.”
The individual who presently entered and who was introduced to the two callers as Detective-Inspector Davidge looked neither preternaturally wise nor abnormally acute. What he really did remind Mr. Tertius of was a gentleman of the better-class commercial traveller persuasion—he was comfortable, solid, genial, and smartly if quietly dressed. And he and the highly placed gentleman listened to all that the twovisitors had to tell with quiet and concentrated attention and did not even exchange looks with each other. In the end the superior nodded as if something satisfied him.
“Very well,” he said. “Now the first thing is—silence. You two gentlemen will not breathe a word of all this to any one. As you said just now, Mr. Halfpenny, the present policy is—secrecy. There will be a great deal of publicity during the next few days—the inquest, and so on. We shall not be much concerned with it—the public will say that as usual we are doing nothing. You may think so, too. But you may count on this—we shall be doing a great deal, and within a very short time from now we shall never let Mr. Barthorpe Herapath out of our sight until—we want him.”
“Just so,” assented Mr. Halfpenny. He took Mr. Tertius away, and when he had once more bestowed him in thecoupébrougham, dug him in the ribs. “Tertius!” he said, with something like a dry chuckle. “What an extraordinary thing it is that people can go about the world unconscious that other folks are taking a very close and warm interest in them! Now, I’ll lay a pound to a penny that Barthorpe hasn’t a ghost of a notion that he’s already under suspicion. My idea of the affair, sir, is that he has not the mere phantasm of such a thing. And yet, from now, as our friend there observed, Master Barthorpe, sir, will be watched. Shadowed, Tertius, shadowed!”
Barthorpe Herapath certainly had none of the notions of which Mr. Halfpenny spoke. He spent his afternoon, once having quitted Burchill’s flat, in a businesslike fashion. He visited the estate office in Kensington; he went to see the undertaker who had been charged with the funeral arrangements; he called in at the local police-office and saw the inspector and the detective who had first been brought into connection with the case; he made some arrangements with the Coroner’s officer about the necessary inevitable inquest. He did all these things in the fashion of a man who has nothing to fear, who is unconscious that other men are already eyeing him with suspicion. And he was quite unaware that when he left his office in Craven Street that evening he was followed by a man who quietly attended him to his bachelor rooms in the Adelphi, who waited patiently until he emerged from them to dine at a neighbouring restaurant, who himself dined at the same place, and who eventually tracked him to Maida Vale and watched him enter Calengrove Mansions.
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for ten per cent
Mr. Frank Burchill welcomed his visitor with easy familiarity—this might have been a mere dropping-in of one friend to another, for the very ordinary purpose of spending a quiet social hour before retiring for the night. There was a bright fire on the hearth, a small smoking-jacket on Burchill’s graceful shoulders and fancy slippers on his feet; decanters and glasses were set out on the table in company with cigars and cigarettes. And by the side of Burchill’s easy chair was a pile of newspapers, to which he pointed one of his slim white hands as the two men settled themselves to talk.
“I’ve been reading all the newspapers I could get hold of,” he observed. “Brought all the latest editions in with me after dinner. There’s little more known, I think, than when you were here this afternoon.”
“There’s nothing more known,” replied Barthorpe. “That is—as far as I’m aware.”
Burchill took a sip at his glass and regarded Barthorpe thoughtfully over its rim.
“In strict confidence,” he said, “have you got any idea whatever on the subject?”
“None!” answered Barthorpe. “None whatever! I’ve no more idea of who it was that killed my uncle than I have of the name of the horse that’ll win the Derby of year after next! That’s a fact. There isn’t a clue.”
“The police are at work, of course,” suggested Burchill.
“Of course!” replied Barthorpe, with an unconcealed sneer. “And a lot of good they are. Whoever knew the police to find out anything, except by a lucky accident?”
“Just so,” agreed Burchill. “But then—accidents, lucky or otherwise, will happen. You can’t think of anybody whose interest it was to get your esteemed relative out of the way?”
“Nobody!” said Barthorpe. “There may have been somebody. We want to know who the man was who came out of the House with him last night—so far we don’t know. It’ll all take a lot of finding out. In the meantime——”
“In the meantime, you’re much more concerned and interested in the will, eh?” said Burchill.
“I’m much more concerned—being a believer in present necessities—in hearing what you’ve got to say to me now that you’ve brought me here,” answered Barthorpe, coolly. “What is it?”
“Oh, I’ve a lot to say,” replied Burchill. “Quite a lot. But you’ll have to let me say it in my own fashion. And to start with, I want to ask you a few questions. About your family history, for instance.”
“I know next to nothing about my family history,” said Barthorpe; “but if my knowledge is helpful to what we—or I—want to talk about, fire ahead!”
“Good!” responded Burchill. “Now, just tell me what you know about Mr. Jacob Herapath, about his brother, your father, and about his sister, who was, of course, Miss Wynne’s mother. Briefly—concisely.”
“Not so much,” answered Barthorpe. “My grandfather was a medical man—pretty well known, I fancy—at Granchester, in Yorkshire; I, of course, never knew or saw him. He had three children. The eldest was Jacob, who came to his end last night. Jacob left Granchester for London, eventually began speculating in real estate, and became—what he was. The second was Richard, my father. He went out to Canada as a lad, and did there pretty much what Jacob did here in London——”
“With the same results?” interjected Burchill.
Barthorpe made a wry face.
“Unfortunately, no!” he replied. “He did remarkably well to a certain point—then he made some most foolish and risky speculations in American railroads, lost pretty nearly everything he’d made, and died a poorish man.”
“Oh—he’s dead, then?” remarked Burchill.
“He’s dead—years ago,” replied Barthorpe. “He died before I came to England. I, of course, was born out there. I——.”
“Never mind you just now,” interrupted Burchill. “Keep to the earlier branches of the family. Your grandfather had one other child?”
“A daughter,” assented Barthorpe. “I never saw her, either. However, I know that her name was Susan. I also know that she married a man named Wynne—my cousin’s father, of course. I don’t know who he was or anything about him.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing—nothing at all: My Uncle Jacob never spoke of him to me—except to mention that such a person had once existed. My cousin doesn’t know anything about him, either. All she knows is that her father and mother died when she was about—I think—two years old, and that Jacob then took charge of her. When she was six years old, he brought her to live with him. That was about the time I myself came to England.”
“All right,” said Burchill. “Now, we’ll come to you. Tell about yourself. It all matters.”
“Well, of course, I don’t know what you’re getting at,” replied Barthorpe. “But I’m sure you do. Myself, eh? Well, I was put to the Law out there in Canada. When my father died—not over well off—I wrote to Uncle Jacob, telling him all about how things were. He suggested that I should come over to this country, finish my legal training here, and qualify. He also promised—if I suited him—to give me his legal work. And, of course, I came.”
“Naturally,” said Burchill. “And that’s—how long ago?”
“Between fifteen and sixteen years,” answered Barthorpe.
“Did Jacob Herapath take you into his house?” asked Burchill, continuing the examination which Barthorpe was beginning to find irksome as well as puzzling. “I’m asking all this for good reasons—it’s necessary, if you’re to understand what I’m going to tell you.”
“Oh, as long as you’re going to tell me something I don’t mind telling you anything you like to ask,” replied Barthorpe. “That’s what I want to be getting at. No—he didn’t take me into the house. But he gave me a very good allowance, paid all my expenses until I got through my remaining examinations and stages, and was very decent all around. No—I fixed up in the rooms which I’ve still got—a flat in the Adelphi.”
“But you went a good deal to Portman Square?”
“Why, yes, a good deal—once or twice a week, as a rule.”
“Had your cousin—Miss Wynne—come there then?”
“Yes, she’d just about come. I remember she had a governess. Of course, Peggie was a mere child then—about five or six. Must have been six, because she’s quite twenty-one now.”
“And—Mr. Tertius?”
Burchill spoke the name with a good deal of subtle meaning, and Barthorpe suddenly looked at him with a rising comprehension.
“Tertius?” he answered. “No—Tertius hadn’t arrived on the scene then. He came—soon after.”
“How soon after?”
“I should say,” replied Barthorpe, after a moment’s consideration, “I should say—from my best recollection—a few months after I came to London. It was certainly within a year of my coming.”
“You remember his coming?”
“Not particularly. I remember that he came—at first, I took it, as a visitor. Then I found he’d had rooms of his own given him, and that he was there as a permanency.”
“Settled down—just as he has been ever since?”
“Just! Never any difference that I’ve known of, all these years.”
“Did Jacob ever tell you who he was?”
“Never! I never remember my uncle speaking of him in any particular fashion—to me. He was simply—there. Sometimes, you saw him; sometimes, you didn’t see him. At times, I mean, you’d meet him at dinner—other times, you didn’t.”
Burchill paused for a while; when he asked his next question he seemed to adopt a more particular and pressing tone.
“Now—have you the least idea who Tertius is?” he asked.
“Not the slightest!” affirmed Barthorpe. “I never have known who he is. I never liked him—I didn’t like his sneaky way of going about the house—I didn’t like anything of him—and he never liked me. I always had a feeling—a sort of intuition—that he resented my presence—in fact, my existence.”
“Very likely,” said Burchill, with a dry laugh. “Well—has it ever struck you that there was a secret between Tertius and Jacob Herapath?”
Barthorpe started. At last they were coming to something definite.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “So—that’s the secret you mentioned in that letter?”
“Never mind,” replied Burchill. “Answer my question.”
“No, then—it never did strike me.”
“Very well,” said Burchill. “There is a secret.”
“There is?”
“There is! And,” whispered Burchill, rising and coming nearer to his visitor, “it’s a secret that will put you in possession of the whole of the Herapath property! And—I know it.”
Barthorpe had by this time realized the situation. And he was thinking things over at a rapid rate. Burchill had asked Jacob Herapath for ten thousand pounds as the price of his silence; therefore——
“And, of course, you want to make something out of your knowledge?” he said presently.
“Of course,” laughed Burchill. He opened a box of cigars, selected one and carefully trimmed the end before lighting it. “Of course!” he repeated. “Who wouldn’t? Besides, you’ll be in a position to afford me something when you come into all that.”
“The will?” suggested Barthorpe.
Burchill threw the burnt-out match into the fire.
“The will,” he said slowly, “will be about as valuable as that—when I’ve fixed things up with you. Valueless!”
“You mean it?” exclaimed Barthorpe incredulously. “Then—your signature?”
“Look here!” said Burchill. “The only thing between us is—terms! Fix up terms with me, and I’ll tell you the whole truth. And then—you’ll see!”
“Well—what terms?” demanded Barthorpe, a little suspiciously. “If you want money down——”
“You couldn’t pay in cash down what I want, nor anything like it,” said Burchill. “I may want an advance that you can pay—but it will only be an advance. What I want is ten per cent. on the total value of Jacob Herapath’s property.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Barthorpe. “Why I believe he’ll cut up for a good million and a half!”
“That’s about the figure—as I’ve reckoned it,” assented Burchill. “But you’ll have a lot left when you’ve paid me ten per cent.”
Barthorpe fidgeted in his chair.
“When did you find out this secret?” he asked.
“Got an idea of it just before I left Jacob, and worked it all out, to the last detail, after I left,” replied Burchill. “I tell you this for a certainty—when I’ve told you all I know, you’ll know for an absolute fact, that the Herapath property is—yours!”
“Well!” said Barthorpe. “What do you want me to do?”
Burchill moved across to a desk and produced some papers.
“I want you to sign certain documents,” he said, “and then I’ll tell you the whole story. If the story’s no good, the documents are no good. How’s that?”
“That’ll do!” answered Barthorpe. “Let’s get to business.”
It was one o’clock in the morning when Barthorpe left Calengrove Mansions. But the eyes that had seen him enter saw him leave, and the shadow followed him through the sleeping town until he, too, sought his own place of slumber.
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