The Talleyrand Maxim, J. S. Fletcher [books to read fiction TXT] 📗
- Author: J. S. Fletcher
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“Decidedly I do!” replied Byner. “Where is he to be found?’
“I couldn’t say wheer he lives,” answered the landlord. “But it’ll be
somewhere close about; anyway, he’ll be in here tonight. Bill Thomson t’
feller’s name is—decent young feller enough.”
“I must contrive to see him, certainly,” said Byner. “Well, now, can you
show me this Stubbs’ Lane and the neighbourhood?”
“Just step along t’ road a bit and I’ll join you in a few o’ minutes,”
assented Pickard. “We’d best not be seen leavin t’ house together, or
our folk’ll think it’s a put-up job. Walk forrard a piece.”
Byner strolled along the road a little way, and leaned over a wall until
Mr. Pickard, wearing his white billycock hat and accompanied by a fine
fox-terrier, lounged up with his thumbs in the armholes of his
waistcoat. Together they went a little further along.
“Now then!” said the landlord, crossing the road towards the entrance of
a narrow lane which ran between two high stone walls. “This here is
Stubbs’ Lane—so called, I believe, ‘cause an owd gentleman named
similar used to hev a house here ‘at’s been pulled down. Ye see, it runs
up fro’ this high-road towards yon terrace o’ houses. Folks hereabouts
calls that terrace t’ World’s End, ‘cause they’re t’ last houses afore
ye get on to t’ open moorlands. Now, that night ‘at Parrawhite wor
aimin’ to meet Pratt, it wor i’ this very lane. Pratt, when he left t’
tram-car, t’ other side o’ my place, ‘ud come up t’ road, and up this
lane. And it wor at t’ top o’ t’ lane ‘at Bill Thomson see’d Pratt and
Parrawhite cross into what Bill called t’ owd quarry ground.”
“Can we go into that?” asked Byner.
“Nowt easier!” said Pickard. “It’s a sort of open space where t’ childer
goes and plays about: they hev’n’t worked no stone theer for many a long
year—all t’ stone’s exhausted, like.”
He led Byner along the lane to its further end, pointed out the place
where Thomson said he had seen Pratt and Parrawhite, and indicated the
terrace of houses in which Pratt lived. Then he crossed towards the old
quarries.
“Don’t know what they should want to come in here for—unless it wor to
talk very confidential,” said Pickard. “But lor bless yer!—it ‘ud be
quiet enough anywheer about this neighbourhood at that time o’ neet.
However, this is wheer Bill Thomson says he see’d ‘em come.”
He led the way amongst the disused quarries, and Byner, following,
climbed on a mound, now grown over with grass and weed, and looked about
him. To his town eyes the place was something novel. He had never seen
the like of it before. Gradually he began to understand it. The stone
had been torn out of the earth, sometimes in square pits, sometimes in
semi-circular ones, until the various veins and strata had become
exhausted. Then, when men went away, Nature had stepped in to assert her
rights. All over the despoiled region she had spread a new clothing of
green. Turf had grown on the flooring of the quarries; ivy and bramble
had covered the deep scars; bushes had sprung up; trees were already
springing. And in one of the worn-out excavations some man had planted a
kitchen-garden in orderly and formal rows and plots.
“Dangerous place that there!” said Pickard suddenly. “If I’d known o’
that, I shouldn’t ha’ let my young ‘uns come to play about here. They
might be tummlin’ in and drownin’ theirsens! I mun tell my missis to
keep ‘em away!”
Byner turned—to find the landlord pointing at the old shaft which had
gradually become filled with water. In the morning sunlight its surface
glittered like a plane of burnished metal, but when the two men went
nearer and gazed at it from its edge, the water was black and
unfathomable to the eye.
“Goodish thirty feet o’ water in that there!” surmised Pickard. “It’s
none safe for childer to play about—theer’s nowt to protect ‘em. Next
time I see Mestur Shepherd I shall mak’ it my business to tell him so;
he owt either to drain that watter off or put a fence around it.”
“Is Mr. Shepherd the property-owner?” asked Byner.
“Aye!—it’s all his, this land,” answered Pickard. He pointed to a
low-roofed house set amidst elms and chestnuts, some distance off across
the moor. “Lives theer, does Mestur Shepherd—varry well-to-do man, he
is.”
“How could that water be drained off?” asked Byner with assumed
carelessness.
“Easy enough!” replied Pickard. “Cut through yon ledge, and let it run
into t’ far quarry there. A couple o’ men ‘ud do that job in a day.”
Byner made no further remark. He and Pickard strolled back to the _Green
Man_ together. And declining the landlord’s invitation to step inside
and take another glass, but promising to see him again very soon, the
inquiry agent walked on to the tram-car and rode down to Barford to keep
his appointment with Eldrick and Collingwood at the barrister’s
chambers.
THE DIRECT CHARGE
While Byner was pursuing his investigations in the neighbourhood of the
Green Man, Collingwood was out at Normandale Grange, discussing
certain matters with Nesta Mallathorpe. He had not only thought long and
deeply over his conversation with Cobcroft the previous evening, but had
begun to think about the crucial point of the clerk’s story as soon as
he spoke in the morning, and the result of his meditations was that he
rose early, intercepted Cobcroft before he started for Mallathorpe’s
Mill and asked his permission to re-tell the story to Miss Mallathorpe.
Cobcroft raised no objection, and when Collingwood had been to his
chambers and seen his letters, he chartered a car and rode out to
Normandale where he told Nesta of what he had learned and of his own
conclusions. And Nesta, having listened carefully to all he had to tell,
put a direct question to him.
“You think this document which Pratt told me he holds is my late uncle’s
will?” she said. “What do you suppose its terms to be?”
“Frankly—these, or something like these,” replied Collingwood. “And I
get at my conclusions in this way. Your uncle died intestate—consequently,
everything in the shape of real estate came to your brother and everything
in personal property to your brother and yourself. Now, supposing that
the document which Pratt boasts of holding is the will, one fact is very
certain—the property, real or personal, is not disposed of in the way
in which it became disposed of because of John Mallathorpe’s intestacy.
He probably disposed of it in quite another fashion. Why do I think that?
Because the probability is that Pratt said to your mother, ‘I have got
John Mallathorpe’s will! It doesn’t leave his property to your son and
daughter. Therefore, I have all of you at my mercy. Make it worth my
while, or I will bring the will forward.’ Do you see that situation?”
“Then,” replied Nesta, after a moment’s reflection, “you do think that
my mother was very anxious to get that document—a will—from Pratt?”
Collingwood knew what she was thinking of—her mind was still uneasy
about Pratt’s account of the affair of the footbridge. But—the matter
had to be faced.
“I think your mother would naturally be very anxious to secure such a
document,” he said. “You must remember that according to Pratt’s story
to you, she tried to buy it from him—just as you did yourself, though
you, of course, had no idea of what it was you wanted to buy.”
“What I wanted to buy,” she answered readily, “was necessity from
further interference! But—is there no way of compelling Pratt to give
up that document—whatever it is? Can’t he be made to give it up?”
“A way is may be being made, just now—through another affair,” replied
Collingwood. “At present matters are vague. One couldn’t go to Pratt and
demand something at which one is, after all, only guessing. Your mother,
of course, would deny that she knows what it is that Pratt holds.
But—there is the possibility of the duplicate to which Cobcroft
referred. Now, I want to put the question straight to you—supposing
that duplicate will can be found—and supposing—to put it plainly–its
terms dispossess you of all your considerable property—what then?”
“Do you want the exact truth?” she asked. “Well, then, I should just
welcome anything that cleared up all this mystery! What is it at
present, this situation, but intolerable? I know that my
mother is in Pratt’s power, and likely to remain so as long as ever this
goes on—probably for life. She will not give me her confidence. What is
more, I am certain that she is giving it to Esther Mawson—who is most
likely hand-in-glove with Pratt. Esther Mawson is always with her. I am
almost sure that she communicates with Pratt through Esther Mawson. It
is all what I say—intolerable! I had rather lose every penny that has
come into my hands than have this go on.”
“Answer me a plain question,” said Collingwood. “Is your mother fond of
money, position—all that sort of thing?”
“She is fond of power!” replied Nesta. “It pleased her greatly when we
came into all this wealth to know that she was the virtual
administrator. Even if she could only do it by collusion with Pratt, she
would make a fight for all that she—and I—hold. It’s useless to deny
that. Don’t forget,” she added, looking appealingly at Collingwood,
“don’t forget that she has known what it was to be poor—and if one does
come into money—I suppose one doesn’t want to lose it again.”
“Oh, it’s natural enough!” agreed Collingwood. “But—if things are as I
think, Pratt would be an incubus, a mill-stone, for ever. Anyway, I came
out to tell you what I’ve learned, and what I have an idea may be the
truth, and above all, to get your definite opinion. You want the Pratt
influence out of the way—at any cost?”
“At any cost!” she affirmed. “Even if I have to go back to earning my
own living! Whatever pleasure in life could there be for me, knowing
that at the back of all this there is that—what?”
“Pratt!” answered Collingwood. “Pratt! He’s the shadow—with his deep
schemes. However, as I said—there may be—developing at this
moment—another way of getting at Pratt. Gentlemen like Pratt, born
schemers, invariably forget one very important factor in life—the
unexpected! Even the cleverest and most subtle schemer may have his
delicate machinery broken to pieces by a chance bit of mere dust getting
into it at an unexpected turn of the wheels. And to turn to plainer
language—I’m going back to Barford now to hear what another man has to
say concerning certain of Pratt’s recent movements.”
Eldrick was already waiting when Collingwood reached his chambers: Byner
came there a few moments later. Within half an hour the barrister had
told his story of Cobcroft, and the inquiry agent his of his visit to
the Green Man and the quarries. And the solicitor listened quietly and
attentively to both, and in the end turned to Collingwood.
“I’ll withdraw my opinion about the nature of the document which Pratt
got hold of,” he said. “What he’s got is what you think—John
Mallathorpe’s will!”
“If I may venture an opinion,” remarked Byner, “that’s dead certain!”
“And now,” continued Eldrick, “we’re faced with a nice situation! Don’t
either of you forget this fact. Not out of willingness on her part, but
because she’s got to do it, Mrs. Mallathorpe and Pratt are partners in
that affair. He’s got the will—but she knows its contents.
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