The Talleyrand Maxim, J. S. Fletcher [books to read fiction TXT] 📗
- Author: J. S. Fletcher
- Performer: -
Book online «The Talleyrand Maxim, J. S. Fletcher [books to read fiction TXT] 📗». Author J. S. Fletcher
which might have no significance in relation to the present
perplexities—on the other hand, out of it might come a good deal of
illumination. Briefly, it was that on the evening before this
consultation with Eldrick & Byner, he had found out that he was living
in the house of a man who had actually witnessed the famous catastrophe
at Mallathorpe’s Mill, whereby John Mallathorpe, his manager, and his
cashier, together with some other bystanders, had lost their lives.
On settling down in Barford, Collingwood had spent a couple of weeks in
looking about him for comfortable rooms of a sort that appealed to his
love of quiet and retirement. He had found them at last in an old house
on the outskirts of the town—a fine old stone house, once a farmstead,
set in a large garden, and tenanted by a middle-aged couple, who having
far more room than they needed for themselves, had no objection to
letting part of it to a business gentleman. Collingwood fell in love
with this place as soon as he saw it. The rooms were large and full of
delightful nooks and corners; the garden was rich in old trees; from it
there were fine views of the valley beneath, and the heather-clad hills
in the distance; within two miles of the town and easily approached by a
convenient tram-route, it was yet quite out in the country.
He was just as much set up by his landlady—a comfortable, middle-aged
woman, who fostered true Yorkshire notions about breakfast, and knew how
to cook a good dinner at night. With her Collingwood had soon come to
terms, and to his new abode had transferred a quantity of books and
pictures from London. He soon became acquainted with the domestic
menage. There was the landlady herself, Mrs. Cobcroft, who, having no
children of her own, had adopted a niece, now grown up, and a teacher in
an adjacent elementary school: there was a strapping, rosy-cheeked
servant-maid, whose dialect was too broad for the lodger to understand
more than a few words of it; finally there was Mr. Cobcroft, a
mild-mannered, quiet man who disappeared early in the morning, and was
sometimes seen by Collingwood returning home in the evening.
Lately, with the advancing spring, this unobtrusive individual was seen
about the garden at the end of the day: Collingwood had so seen him on
the evening before the talk with Eldrick and Byner, busied in setting
seeds in the flower-beds. And he had asked Mrs. Cobcroft, just then in
his sitting-room, if her husband was fond of gardening.
“It’s a nice change for him, sir,” answered the landlady. “He’s kept
pretty close at it all day in the office yonder at Mallathorpe’s Mill,
and it does him good to get a bit o’ fresh air at nights, now that the
fine weather’s coming on. That was one reason why we took this old
place—it’s a deal better air here nor what it is in the town.”
“So your husband is at Mallathorpe’s Mill, eh?” asked Collingwood.
“Been there—in the counting-house—boy and man, over thirty years,
sir,” replied Mrs. Cobcroft.
“Did he see that terrible affair then—was it two years ago?”
The landlady shook her head and let out a weighty sigh.
“Aye, I should think he did!” she answered. “And a nice shock it gave
him, too!—he actually saw that chimney fall—him and another clerk were
looking out o’ the counting-house window when it gave way.”
Collingwood said no more then—except to remark that such a sight must
indeed have been trying to the nerves. But for purposes of his own he
determined to have a talk with Cobcroft, and the next evening, seeing
him in his garden again, he went out to him and got into conversation,
and eventually led up to the subject of Mallathorpe’s Mill, the new
chimney of which could be seen from a corner of the garden.
“Your wife tells me,” observed Collingwood, “that you were present when
the old chimney fell at the mill yonder?”
Cobcroft, a quiet, unassuming man, usually of few words, looked along
the hillside at the new chimney, and nodded his head. A curious,
far-away look came into his eyes.
“I was, sir!” he said. “And I hope I may never see aught o’ that sort
again, as long as ever I live. It was one o’ those things a man can
never forget!”
“Don’t talk about it if you don’t want to,” remarked Collingwood. “But
I’ve heard so much about that affair that–-”
“Oh, I don’t mind talking about it,” replied Cobcroft. He leaned over
the fence of his garden, still gazing at the mill in the distance.
“There were others that saw it, of course: lots of ‘em. But I was close
at hand—our office was filled with the dust in a few seconds.”
“It was a sudden affair?” asked Collingwood.
“It was one of those affairs,” answered Cobcroft slowly, “that some folk
had been expecting for a long time—only nobody had the sense to see
that it might happen at some unexpected minute. It was a very old
chimney. It looked all right—stood plumb, and all that. But Mr.
Mallathorpe—my old master, Mr. John Mallathorpe, I’m talking of—he got
an idea from two or three little things, d’ye see, that it wasn’t as
safe as it ought to be. And he got a couple of these professional
steeplejacks to examine it. They made a thorough examination, too—so
far as one could tell by what they did. They’d been at the job several
days when the accident happened. One of ‘em had only just come down when
the chimney fell. Mr. Mallathorpe, himself, and his manager, and his
cashier, had just stepped out of the counting-house and crossed the yard
to hear what this man had got to say when—down it came! Not the
slightest warning at the time. It just—collapsed!”
“You saw the actual collapse?” asked Collingwood.
“Aye—didn’t I?” exclaimed Cobcroft. “Another man and myself were
looking out of the office window, right opposite. It fell in the
queerest way—like this,” he went on, holding up his garden-rake.
“Supposing this shaft was the chimney—standing straight up. As we
looked we saw it suddenly bulge out, on all sides—it was a square
chimney, same size all the way up till you got to the cornice at the
top—bulge out, d’ye see, just about halfway up—simultaneous, like.
Then—down it came with a roar that they heard over half the town! O’
course, there were some two or three thousands of tons of stuff in that
chimney—and when the dust was cleared a bit there it was in one great
heap, right across the yard. And it was a good job,” concluded Cobcroft,
reflectively, “that it fell straight—collapsed in itself, as you might
say—for if it had fallen slanting either way, it ‘ud ha’ smashed right
through some of the sheds, and there’d ha’ been a terrible loss of
life.”
“Mr. John Mallathorpe was killed on the spot, I believe?” suggested
Collingwood.
“Aye—and Gaukrodger, and Marshall, and the steeplejack that had just
come down, and another or two,” said Cobcroft. “They’d no chance—they
were standing in a group at the very foot, talking. They were all killed
there and then—instantaneous. Some others were struck and injured—one
or two died. Yes, sir,—I’m not very like to forget that!”
“A terrible experience!” agreed Collingwood. “It would naturally fix
itself on your memory.”
“Aye—my memory’s very keen about it,” said Cobcroft. “I remember every
detail of that morning. And,” he continued, showing a desire to become
reminiscent, “there was something happened that morning, before the
accident, that I’ve oft thought over and has oft puzzled me. I’ve never
said aught to anybody about it, because we Yorkshiremen we’re not given
to talking about affairs that don’t concern us, and after all, it was
none o’ mine! But you’re a law gentleman, and I dare say you get things
told to you in confidence now and then, and, of course, this is between
you and me. I’ll not deny that I have oft thought that I would like to
tell it to a lawyer of some sort, and find out how it struck him.”
“Anything that you like to tell me, Mr. Cobcroft, I shall treat as a
matter of confidence—until you tell me it’s no longer a secret,”
answered Collingwood.
“Why,” continued Cobcroft, “it isn’t what you rightly would call a
secret—though I don’t think anybody knows aught about it but myself! It
was just this—and it may be there’s naught in it but a mere fancy o’
mine. That morning, before the accident happened, I was in and out of
the private office a good deal—carrying in and out letters, and account
books, and so on. Mr. John Mallathorpe’s private office, ye’ll
understand, sir, opened out of our counting-house—as it does still—the
present manager, Mr. Horsfall, has it, just as it was. Well, now, on one
occasion, when I went in there, to take a ledger back to the safe, Mr.
Mallathorpe had his manager and cashier, Gaukrodger and Marshall in with
him. Mr. Mallathorpe, he always used a stand-up desk to write at—never
wrote sitting down, though he had a big desk in the middle of the room
that he used to sit at to look over accounts or talk to people. Now when
I went in, he and Gaukrodger and Marshall were all at this stand-up
desk—in the window-place—and they were signing some papers. At least
Gaukrodger had just signed a paper, and Marshall was taking the pen from
him. ‘Sign there, Marshall,’ says Mr. Mallathorpe. And then he went on,
‘Now we’ll sign this other—it’s well to have these things in duplicate,
in case one gets lost.’ And then—well, then, I went out, and—why, that
was all.”
“You’ve some idea in your mind about that,” said Collingwood, who had
watched Cobcroft closely as he talked. “What is it?”
Cobcroft smiled—and looked round as if to ascertain that they were
alone. “Why!” he answered in a low voice. “I’ll tell you what I did
wonder—some time afterwards. I dare say you’re aware—it was all in the
papers—that Mr. John Mallathorpe died intestate?”
“Yes,” asserted Collingwood. “I know that.”
“I’ve oft wondered,” continued Cobcroft, “if that could ha’ been his
will that they were signing! But then I reflected a bit on matters. And
there were two or three things that made me say naught at all—not a
word. First of all, I considered it a very unlikely thing that a rich
man like Mr. John Mallathorpe would make a will for himself. Second—I
remembered that very soon after I’d been in his private office Marshall
came out into the counting-house and gave the office lad a lot of
letters and documents to take to the post—some of ‘em big
envelopes—and I thought that what I’d seen signed was some agreement or
other that was in one of them. And third—and most important—no will
was ever found in any of Mr. John Mallathorpe’s drawers or safes or
anywhere, though they turned things upside down at the office, and, I
heard, at his house as well. Of course, you see, sir, supposing that to
have been a will—why, the only two men who could possibly have proved
it was were dead and gone! They were killed with him. And of course, the
young people, the nephew and niece, they came in for everything—so
there was an end of it. But—I’ve oft wondered what those papers were.
One thing is certain, anyway!” concluded Cobcroft, with a grim laugh,
“when those three signed ‘em, they were picking up their pens for the
last time!”
“How long was
Comments (0)