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

CHAPTER XXVII

RESTORED TO ENERGY

 

Esther Mawson, leaving Pratt to enjoy his sherry and sandwiches at his

leisure, went away through the house, out into the gardens, and across

the shrubbery to the stables. The coachman and grooms were at

dinner—with the exception of one man who lived in a cottage at the

entrance to the stable-yard. This was the very man she wanted to see,

and she found him in the saddle-room, and beckoned him to its door.

 

“Mrs. Mallathorpe wants me to go over to Scaleby on an errand for her

this afternoon,” she said. “Can you have the dog-cart ready, at the

South Garden gate at three o’clock sharp? And—without saying anything

to the coachman? It’s a private errand.”

 

Of late this particular groom had received several commissions of this

sort, and being a sharp fellow he had observed that they were generally

given to him when Miss Mallathorpe was out.

 

“All right,” he answered. “The young missis is going out in the carriage

at half-past two. South Garden gate—three sharp. Anybody but you?”

 

“Only me,” replied Esther. “Don’t say anything to anybody about where

we’re going. Get the dog-cart ready after the carriage has gone.”

 

The groom nodded in comprehension, and Esther went back to the house and

to her own room. She ought at that time of day to have been eating her

dinner with the rest of the upper servants, but she had work to do which

was of much more importance than the consumption of food and drink.

There was going to be a flight that afternoon—but it would not be Pratt

who would undertake it. Esther Mawson had carefully calculated all her

chances as soon as Pratt told her that he was going to be away for a

while. She knew that Pratt would not have left Barford for any

indefinite period unless something had gone seriously wrong. But she

knew more—by inference and intuition. If Pratt was going away—rather,

since he was going away, he would have on his person things of

value—documents, money. She meant to gain possession of everything that

he had; she meant to have a brief interview with Mrs. Mallathorpe; then

she meant to drive to Scaleby—and to leave that part of the country

just as thoroughly and completely as Pratt had meant to leave it. And

now in her own room she was completing her preparations. There was

little to do. She knew that if her venture came off successfully, she

could easily afford to leave her personal possessions behind her, and

that she would be all the more free and unrestricted in her movements if

she departed without as much as a change of clothes and linen. And so by

two o’clock she had arrayed herself in a neat and unobtrusive

tailor-made travelling costume, had put on an equally neat and plain

hat, had rolled her umbrella, and laid it, her gloves, and a cloak where

they could be readily picked up, and had attached to her slim waist a

handbag—by means of a steel chain which she secured by a small padlock

as soon as she had arranged it to her satisfaction. She was not the sort

of woman to leave a handbag lying about in a railway carriage at any

time, but in this particular instance she was not going to run any risk

of even a moment’s forgetfulness.

 

Everything was in readiness by twenty minutes past two, and she took up

her position in a window from which she could see the front door of the

house. At half-past two the carriage and its two fine bay horses came

round from the stables; a minute or two later Nesta Mallathorpe emerged

from the hall; yet another minute and the carriage was whirling down the

park in the direction of Barford. And then Esther moved from the window,

picked up the umbrella, the cloak, the gloves, and went off in the

direction of the room wherein she had left Pratt.

 

No one ever went near those old rooms except on some special errand or

business, and there was a dead silence all around her as she turned the

key in the lock and slipped inside the door—to lock it again as soon as

she had entered. There was an equally deep silence within the room—and

for a moment she glanced a little fearfully at the recumbent figure in

the old, deep-backed chair. Pratt had stretched himself fully in his

easy quarters–his legs lay extended across the moth-eaten hearth-rug;

his head and shoulders were thrown far back against the faded tapestry,

and he was so still that he might have been supposed to be dead. But

Esther Mawson had tried the effect of that particular drug on a good

many people, and she knew that the victim in this instance was merely

plunged in a sleep from which nothing whatever could wake him yet

awhile. And after one searching glance at him, and one lifting of an

eyelid by a practised finger, she went rapidly and thoroughly through

Pratt’s pockets, and within a few minutes of entering the room had

cleared them of everything they contained. The sealed packet which he

had taken from his safe that morning; the banknotes which Mrs.

Murgatroyd had returned in her indignant letter; another roll of notes,

of considerable value, in a note-case; a purse containing notes and gold

to a large amount—all those she laid one by one on a dust-covered

table. And finally—and as calmly as if she were sorting linen—she

swept banknotes, gold, and purse into her steel-chained bag, and tore

open the sealed envelope.

 

There were five documents in that envelope—Esther examined each with

meticulous care. The first was an authority to Linford Pratt to sell

certain shares standing in the name of Ann Mallathorpe. The second was a

similar document relating to other shares: each was complete, save for

Ann Mallathorpe’s signature. The third document was the power of

attorney which Ann Mallathorpe had given to Linford Pratt: the fourth,

the letter which she had written to him on the evening before the fatal

accident to Harper. And the fifth was John Mallathorpe’s will.

 

At last she held in her hand the half-sheet of foolscap paper of which

Mrs. Mallathorpe, driven to distraction, and knowing that she would get

no sympathy from her own daughter, had told her. She was a woman of a

quick and an understanding mind, and she had read the will through and

grasped its significance as swiftly as her eyes ran over it. And those

eyes turned to the unconscious Pratt with a flash of contempt—she, at

any rate, would not follow his foolish example, and play for too high a

stake—no, she would make hay while the sun shone its hottest! She was

of the Parrawhite persuasion—better, far better one good bird in the

hand than a score of possible birds in the bush.

 

She presently restored the five documents to the stout envelope, picked

up her other belongings, and without so much as a glance at Pratt, left

the room. She turned the key in the door and took it away with her. And

now she went straight to a certain sitting-room which Mrs. Mallathorpe

had tenanted by day ever since her illness. The final and most important

stage of Esther’s venture was at hand.

 

Mrs. Mallathorpe sat at an open window, wearily gazing out on the park.

Ever since her son’s death she had remained in a more or less torpid

condition, rarely talking to any person except Esther Mawson: it had

been manifest from the first that her daughter’s presence distressed and

irritated her, and by the doctor’s advice Nesta had gone to her as

little as possible, while taking every care to guard her and see to her

comfort. All day long she sat brooding—and only Esther Mawson, now for

some time in her full confidence, knew that her brooding was rapidly

developing into a monomania. Mrs. Mallathorpe, indeed, had but one

thought in her mind—the eventual circumventing of Pratt, and the

destruction of John Mallathorpe’s will.

 

She turned slowly as the maid came in and carefully closed the door

behind her, and her voice was irritable and querulous as she at once

began to complain.

 

“You’ve never been near me for two hours!” she said. “Your dinner time

was over long since! I might have been wanting all sorts of things for

aught you cared!”

 

“I’ve had something else to do—for you!” retorted Esther, coming close

to her mistress. “Listen, now!—I’ve got it!”

 

Mrs. Mallathorpe’s attitude and manner suddenly changed. She caught

sight of the packet of papers in the woman’s hand, and at once sprang to

her feet, white and trembling. Instinctively she held out her own hands

and moved a little nearer to the maid. And Esther quickly put the table

between them, and shook her head.

 

“No—no!” she exclaimed. “No handling of anything—yet! You keep your

hands off! You were ready enough to bargain with Pratt—now you’ll have

to bargain with me. But I’m not such a fool as he was—I’ll take cash

down, and be done with it.”

 

Mrs. Mallathorpe rested her trembling hands on the table and bent

forward across it.

 

“Is it—is it—really—the will?” she whispered hoarsely.

 

Instead of replying in words, Esther, taking care to keep at a safe

distance behind the table, and with the door only a yard or two in her

rear, drew out the documents one by one and held them up.

 

“The will!” she said. “Your letter to Pratt. The power of attorney. Two

papers that he brought for you to sign. That’s the lot! And now, as I

said, we’ll bargain.”

 

“Where is—he?” asked Mrs. Mallathorpe. “How—how did you get them? Does

he know—did he give them up?”

 

“If you want to know, he’s safe and sound asleep in one of the rooms in

the old part of the house,” answered Esther. “I drugged him. There’s

something afoot—something gone wrong with his schemes—at Barford, and

he came