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

with, who says

there has been any forcing? I know one person who won’t say so—and

that’s your mother herself!”

 

Nesta felt unable to answer that assertion. And Pratt smiled

triumphantly and went on.

 

“She’ll tell you—Mrs. Mallathorpe’ll tell you—that she’s very pleased

indeed to have my poor services,” he said. “She knows that I shall serve

her well. She’s glad to do a kind service to a poor relation. And since

I am your mother’s relation, Miss Mallathorpe, I’m yours, too. I’m some

degree of cousin to you. You might think rather better, rather more

kindly, of me!”

 

“Are you going to tell me anything more than that?” asked Nesta

steadily. Pratt shrugged his shoulders and waved his hands.

 

“What more can I tell?” he asked. “The fact is, there’s a business

arrangement between me and your mother—and you object to it. Well—I’m

sorry, but I’ve my own interests to consider.”

 

“Are you going to tell me what it was that induced my mother to sign

that paper you got from her the other day?” asked Nesta.

 

“Can I say more than that it was—a business arrangement?” pleaded

Pratt. “There’s nothing unusual in one party in a business arrangement

giving a power of attorney to another party. Nothing!”

 

“Very well!” said Nesta, rising from the straight-backed chair, and

looking very rigid herself as she stood up. “You won’t tell me anything!

So—I am now going to the police. I don’t know what they’ll do. I don’t

know what they can do. But—I can tell them what I think and feel about

this, at any rate. For as sure as I am that I see you, there’s something

wrong! And I’ll know what it is.”

 

Pratt recognized that she had passed beyond the stage of mere anger to

one of calm determination. And as she marched towards the door he called

her back—as the result of a second’s swift thought on his part.

 

“Miss Mallathorpe,” he said. “Oblige me by sitting down again. I’m not

in the least afraid of your going to the police. But my experience is

that if one goes to them on errands of this sort, it sets all sorts of

things going—scandal, and suspicion, and I don’t know what! You don’t

want any scandal. Sit down, if you please, and let us think for a

moment. And I’ll see if I can tell you—what you want to know.”

 

Nesta already had a hand on the door. But after looking at him for a

second or two, she turned back, and sat down in her old position. And

Pratt, still seated at his desk, plunged his hands in his trousers

pockets, tilted back his chair, and for five minutes stared with knitted

brows at his blotting pad. A queer silence fell on the room. The windows

were double-sashed; no sound came up from the busy street below. But on

the mantelpiece a cheap Geneva clock ticked and ticked, and Nesta felt

at last that if it went on much longer, without the accompaniment of a

human voice, she should suddenly snatch it up, and hurl it—anywhere.

 

Pratt was in the position of the card-player, who, confronted by a

certain turn in the course of a game which he himself feels sure he is

bound to win, wonders whether he had better not expedite matters by

laying his cards on the table, and asking his opponent if he can

possibly beat their values and combination. He had carefully reckoned up

his own position more than once during the progress of recent events,

and the more carefully he calculated it the more he felt convinced that

he had nothing to fear. He had had to alter his ground in consequence of

the death of Harper Mallathorpe, and he had known that he would have to

fight Nesta. But he had not anticipated that hostilities would come so

soon, or begin with such evident determination on her part. How would it

be, then, at this first stage to make such a demonstration in force that

she would recognize his strength?

 

He looked up at last and saw Nesta regarding him sternly. But Pratt

smiled—the quiet smile which made her uneasy.

 

“Miss Mallathorpe!” he said. “I was thinking of two things just then—a

game at cards—and the science of warfare. In both it’s a good thing

sometimes to let your adversary see what a strong hand you’ve got. Now,

then, a question, if you please—are you and I adversaries?”

 

“Yes!” answered Nesta unflinchingly. “You’re acting like an enemy—you

are an enemy!”

 

“I’ve hoped that you and I would be friends—good friends,” said Pratt,

with something like a sigh. “And if I may say so, I’ve no feeling of

enmity towards you. When I speak of us being adversaries, I mean it

in—well, let’s say a sort of legal sense. But now I’ll show you my

hand—that is, as far as I please. Will you listen quietly to me?”

 

“I’ve no choice,” replied Nesta bluntly. “And I came here to know what

you’ve got to say for yourself. Say it!”

 

Pratt moved his chair a little nearer to his visitor.

 

“Now,” he said, speaking very quietly and deliberately, “I’ll go through

what I have to say to you carefully, point by point. I shall ask you to

go back a little way. It is now some time since I discovered a secret

about your mother, Mrs. Mallathorpe. Ah, you start!—it may be with

indignation, but I assure you I’m telling you, and am going to tell you,

the absolute truth. I say—a secret! No one knows it but myself—not one

living soul! Except, of course, your mother. I shall not reveal it to

you—under any consideration, or in any circumstances—but I can tell

you this—if that secret were revealed, your mother would be ruined for

life—and you yourself would suffer in more ways than one.”

 

Nesta looked at him incredulously—and yet she began to feel he was

telling some truth. And Pratt shook his head at the incredulous

expression.

 

“It’s quite so!” he said. “You’ll begin to believe it–from other

things. Now, it was in connection with this that I paid a visit to

Normandale Grange one evening some months ago. Perhaps you never heard

of that? I was alone with your mother for some time in the study.”

 

“I have heard of it,” she answered.

 

“Very good,” said Pratt. “But you haven’t heard that your mother came to

see me at my rooms here in Barford—my lodgings—the very next night! On

the same business, of course. But she did—I know how she came, too.

Secretly—heavily veiled—naturally, she didn’t want anybody to know.

Are you beginning to see something in it, Miss Mallathorpe?”

 

“Go on with your—story,” answered Nesta.

 

“I go on, then, to the day before your brother’s death,” continued

Pratt. “Namely, a certain Friday. Now, if you please, I’ll invite you to

listen carefully to certain facts—which are indisputable, which I can

prove, easily. On that Friday, the day before your brother’s death, Mrs.

Mallathorpe was in the shrubbery at Normandale Grange which is near the

north end of the old footbridge. She was approached by Hoskins, an old

woodman, who has been on the estate a great many years—you know him

well enough. Hoskins told Mrs. Mallathorpe that the footbridge between

the north and south shrubberies, spanning the cut which was made there a

long time since so that a nearer road could be made to the stables, was

in an extremely dangerous condition—so dangerous, in fact, that in his

opinion, it would collapse under even a moderate weight. I impress this

fact upon you strongly.”

 

“Well?” said Nesta.

 

“Hoskins,” Pratt went on, “urged upon Mrs. Mallathorpe the necessity of

having the bridge closed at once, or barricaded. He pointed out to her

from where they stood certain places in the bridge, and in the railing

on one side of it, which already sagged in such a fashion, that he, as a

man of experience, knew that planks and railings were literally rotten

with damp. Now what did Mrs. Mallathorpe do? She said nothing to

Hoskins, except that she’d have the thing seen to. But she immediately

went to the estate carpenter’s shop, and there she procured two short

lengths of chain, and two padlocks, and she herself went back to the

footbridge and secured its wicket gates at both ends. I beg you will

bear that in mind, too, Miss Mallathorpe.”

 

“I am bearing everything in mind,” said Nesta resolutely. “Don’t be

afraid that I shall forget one word that you say.”

 

“I hear that sneer in your voice,” answered Pratt, as he turned,

unlocked a drawer, and drew out some papers. “But I think you will soon

learn that the sneer at what I’m telling you is foolish. Mrs.

Mallathorpe had a set purpose in locking up those gates—as you will see

presently. You will see it from what I am now going to tell you. Oblige

me, if you please, by looking at that letter. Do you recognize your

mother’s handwriting?”

 

“Yes!” admitted Nesta, with a sudden feeling of apprehension. “That is

her writing.”

 

“Very good,” said Pratt. “Then before I read it to you, I’ll just tell

you what this letter is. It formed, when it was written, an invitation

from Mrs. Mallathorpe to me—an invitation to walk, innocently, into

what she knew—knew, mind you!—to be a death-trap! She meant me to

fall through the bridge!”