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

at his quiet figure and wan

face, and knew that Pratt was right.

 

“Poor old chap!” he murmured, touching one of the thin hands. “He was a

fine man in his time, Pratt; clever man! And he was very, very old—one

of the oldest men in Barford. Well, we must wire to his grandson, Mr.

Bartle Collingwood. You’ll find his address in the book. He’s the only

relation the old fellow had.”

 

“Come in for everything, doesn’t he, sir?” asked Pratt, as he took an

address book from the desk, and picked up a sheaf of telegram forms.

 

“Every penny!” murmured Eldrick. “Nice little fortune, too—a fine thing

for a young fellow who’s just been called to the Bar. As a matter of

fact, he’ll be fairly well independent, even if he never sees a brief in

his life.”

 

“He has been called, has he, sir?” asked Pratt, laying a telegram form

on Eldrick’s writing pad and handing him a pen. “I wasn’t aware of

that.”

 

“Called this term—quite recently—at Gray’s Inn,” replied Eldrick, as

he sat down. “Very promising, clever young man. Look here!—we’d better

send two wires, one to his private address, and one to his chambers.

They’re both in that book. It’s six o’clock, isn’t it?—he might be at

his chambers yet, but he may have gone home. I’ll write both

messages—you put the addresses on, and get the wire off—we must have

him down here as soon as possible.”

 

“One address is 53x, Pump Court; the other’s 96, Cloburn Square,”

remarked Pratt consulting the book. “There’s an express from King’s

Cross at 8.15 which gets here midnight.”

 

“Oh, it would do if he came down first thing in the morning—leave it to

him,” said Eldrick. “I say, Pratt, do you think an inquest will be

necessary?”

 

Pratt had not thought of that—he began to think. And while he was

thinking, the doctor whom he had summoned came in. He looked at the dead

man, asked the clerk a few questions, and was apparently satisfied. “I

don’t think there’s any need for an inquest,” he said in reply to

Eldrick. “I knew the old man very well—he was much feebler than he

would admit. The exertion of coming up these stairs of yours, and the

coughing brought on by the fog outside—that was quite enough. Of

course, the death will have to be reported in the usual way, but I have

no hesitation in giving a certificate. You’ve let the Town Hall people

know? Well, the body had better be removed to his rooms—we must send

over and tell his housekeeper. He’d no relations in the town, had he?”

 

“Only one in the world that he ever mentioned—his grandson—a young

barrister in London,” answered Eldrick. “We’ve just been wiring to him.

Here, Pratt, you take these messages now, and get them off. Then we’ll

see about making all arrangements. By-the-by,” he added, as Pratt moved

towards the door, “you don’t know what—what he came to see me about?”

 

“Haven’t the remotest idea, sir,” answered Pratt, readily and glibly.

“He died—just as I’ve told you—before he could tell me anything.”

 

He went downstairs, and out into the street, and away to the General

Post Office, only conscious of one thing, only concerned about one

thing—that he was now the sole possessor of a great secret. The

opportunity which he had so often longed for had come. And as he hurried

along through the gathering fog he repeated and repeated a fragment of

the recent conversation between the man who was now dead, and

himself—who remained very much alive.

 

“You haven’t shown it to anybody else?” Pratt had asked.

 

“Neither shown it to anybody, nor mentioned it to a soul,” Antony Bartle

had answered. So, in all that great town of Barford, he, Linford Pratt,

he, alone out of a quarter of a million people, knew—what? The

magnitude of what he knew not only amazed but exhilarated him. There

were such possibilities for himself in that knowledge. He wanted to be

alone, to think out those possibilities; to reckon up what they came to.

Of one thing he was already certain—they should be, must be, turned to

his own advantage.

 

It was past eight o’clock before Pratt was able to go home to his

lodgings. His landlady, meeting him in the hall, hoped that his dinner

would not be spoiled: Pratt, who relied greatly on his dinner as his one

great meal of the day, replied that he fervently hoped it wasn’t, but

that if it was it couldn’t be helped, this time. For once he was

thinking of something else than his dinner—as for his engagement for

that evening, he had already thrown it over: he wanted to give all his

energies and thoughts and time to his secret. Nevertheless, it was

characteristic of him that he washed, changed his clothes, ate his

dinner, and even glanced over the evening newspaper before he turned to

the real business which was already deep in his brain. But at last, when

the maid had cleared away the dinner things, and he was alone in his

sitting-room, and had lighted his pipe, and mixed himself a drop of

whisky-and-water—the only indulgence in such things that he allowed

himself within the twenty-four hours—he drew John Mallathorpe’s will

from his pocket, and read it carefully three times. And then he began to

think, closely and steadily.

 

First of all, the will was a good will. Nothing could upset it. It was

absolutely valid. It was not couched in the terms which a solicitor

would have employed, but it clearly and plainly expressed John

Mallathorpe’s intentions and meanings in respect to the disposal of his

property. Nothing could be clearer. The properly appointed trustees were

to realize his estate. They were to distribute it according to his

specified instructions. It was all as plain as a pikestaff. Pratt, who

was a good lawyer, knew what the Probate Court would say to that will if

it were ever brought up before it, as he did, a quite satisfactory will.

And it was validly executed. Hundreds of people, competent to do so,

could swear to John Mallathorpe’s signature; hundreds to Gaukrodger’s;

thousands to Marshall’s—who as cashier was always sending his signature

broadcast. No, there was nothing to do but to put that into the hands of

the trustees named in it, and then….

 

Pratt thought next of the two trustees. They were well-known men in the

town. They were comparatively young men—about forty. They were men of

great energy. Their chief interests were in educational matters—that,

no doubt, was why John Mallathorpe had appointed them trustees. Wyatt

had been plaguing the town for two years to start commercial schools:

Charlesworth was a devoted champion of technical schools. Pratt knew how

the hearts of both would leap, if he suddenly told them that enormous

funds were at their disposal for the furtherance of their schemes. And

he also knew something else—that neither Charlesworth nor Wyatt had the

faintest, remotest notion or suspicion that John Mallathorpe had ever

made such a will, or they would have moved heaven and earth, pulled down

Normandale Grange and Mallathorpe’s Mill, in their efforts to find it.

 

But the effect—the effect of producing the will—now? Pratt, like

everybody else, had been deeply interested in the Mallathorpe affair.

There was so little doubt that John Mallathorpe had died intestate, such

absolute certainty that his only living relations were his deceased

brother’s two children and their mother, that the necessary proceedings

for putting Harper Mallathorpe and his sister Nesta in possession of the

property, real and personal, had been comparatively simple and speedy.

But—what was it worth? What would the two trustees have been able to

hand over to the Mayor and Corporation of Barford, if the will had been

found as soon as John Mallathorpe died? Pratt, from what he remembered

of the bulk and calculations at the time, made a rapid estimate. As near

as he could reckon, the Mayor and Corporation would have got about

�300,000.

 

That, then—and this was what he wanted to get at—was what these young

people would lose if he produced the will. Nay!—on second thoughts, it

would be much more, very much more in some time; for the manufacturing

business was being carried on by them, and was apparently doing as well

as ever. It was really an enormous amount which they would lose—and

they would get—what? Ten thousand apiece and their mother a like sum.

Thirty thousand pounds in all—in comparison with hundreds of thousands.

But they would have no choice in the matter. Nothing could upset that

will.

 

He began to think of the three people whom the production of this will

would dispossess. He knew little of them beyond what common gossip had

related at the time of John Mallathorpe’s sudden death. They had lived

in very quiet fashion, somewhere on the outskirts of the town, until

this change in their fortunes. Once or twice Pratt had seen Mrs.

Mallathorpe in her carriage in the Barford streets—somebody had pointed

her out to him, and had observed sneeringly that folk can soon adapt

themselves to circumstances, and that Mrs. Mallathorpe now gave herself

all the airs of a duchess, though she had been no more than a hospital

nurse before she married Richard Mallathorpe. And Pratt had also seen

young Harper Mallathorpe now and then in the town—since the good

fortune arrived—and had envied him: he had also thought what a strange

thing it was that money went to young fellows who seemed to have no

particular endowments of brain or energy. Harper was a very ordinary

young man, not over intelligent in appearance, who, Pratt had heard, was

often seen lounging about the one or two fashionable hotels of the

place. As for the daughter, Pratt did not remember having ever set eyes

on her—but he had heard that up to the time of John Mallathorpe’s death

she had earned her own living as a governess, or a nurse, or something

of that sort.

 

He turned from thinking of these three people to thoughts about himself.

Pratt often thought about himself, and always in one direction—the

direction of self-advancement. He was always wanting to get on. He had

nobody to help him. He had kept himself since he was seventeen. His

father and mother were dead; he had no brothers or sisters—the only

relations he had, uncles and aunts, lived—some in London, some in

Canada. He was now twenty-eight, and earning four pounds a week. He had

immense confidence in himself, but he had never seen much chance of

escaping from drudgery. He had often thought of asking Eldrick & Pascoe

to give him his articles—but he had a shrewd idea that his request

would be refused. No—it was difficult to get out of a rut. And yet—he

was a clever fellow, a good-looking fellow, a sharp, shrewd, able—and

here was a chance, such a chance as scarcely ever comes to a man. He

would be a fool if he did not take it, and use it to his own best and

lasting advantage.

 

And so he locked up the will in a safe place, and went to bed, resolved

to take a bold step towards fortune on the morrow.