The Talleyrand Maxim, J. S. Fletcher [books to read fiction TXT] 📗
- Author: J. S. Fletcher
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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.
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 footbridge, 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 footbridge, 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 footbridge
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 footbridge 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
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