Collected works of j s f.., p.363
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 363
Another sharp-eyed person made it his business to follow Barthorpe Herapath when he, too, went away. Barthorpe had come to the ceremony unattended. Selwood, Mr. Tertius, Professor Cox-Raythwaite, and Mr. Halfpenny had come together. These four also went away together. Barthorpe, still alone, re-entered his carriage when they had driven off. The observant person of the sharp eyes, hanging around the gates, heard him give his order:
“Portman Square!”
The four men who had preceded him were standing in the study when Barthorpe drove up to the house — standing around Peggie, who was obviously ill at ease and distressed. And when Barthorpe’s voice was heard in the hall, Mr. Halfpenny spoke in decisive tones.
“We must understand matters at once,” he said. “There is no use in beating about the bush. He has refused to meet or receive me so far — now I shall insist upon his saying plainly whatever he has to say. You, too, my dear, painful as it may be, must also insist.”
“On — what?” asked Peggie.
“On his saying what he intends — if he intends — I don’t know what he intends!” answered Mr. Halfpenny, testily. “It’s most annoying, and we can’t — —”
Barthorpe came striding in, paused as he glanced around, and affected surprise.
“Oh!” he said. “I came to see you, Peggie — I did not know that there was any meeting in progress.”
“Barthorpe!” said Peggie, looking earnestly at him. “You know that all these gentlemen were Uncle Jacob’s friends — dear friends — and they are mine. Don’t go away — Mr. Halfpenny wants to speak to you.”
Barthorpe had already half turned to the door. He turned back — then turned again.
“Mr. Halfpenny can only want to speak to me on business,” he said, coldly. “If Mr. Halfpenny wants to speak to me on business, he knows where to find me.”
He had already laid a hand on the door when Mr. Halfpenny spoke sharply and sternly.
“Mr. Barthorpe Herapath!” he said. “I know very well where to find you, and I have tried to find you and to get speech with you for two days — in vain. I insist, sir, that you speak to us — or at any rate to your cousin — you are bound to speak, sir, out of common decency!”
“About what?” asked Barthorpe. “I came to speak to my cousin — in private.”
“There is a certain something, sir,” retorted Mr. Halfpenny, with warmth, “about which we must speak in public — such a public, at any rate, as is represented here and now. You know what it is — your uncle’s will!”
“What about my uncle’s will — or alleged will?” asked Barthorpe with a sneer.
Mr. Halfpenny appeared to be about to make a very angry retort, but he suddenly checked himself and looked at Peggie.
“You hear, my dear?” he said. “He says — alleged will!”
Peggie turned to Barthorpe with an appealing glance.
“Barthorpe!” she exclaimed. “Is that fair — is it generous? Is it just — to our uncle’s memory? You know that is his will — what doubt can there be about it?”
Barthorpe made no answer. He still stood with one hand on the door, looking at Mr. Halfpenny. And suddenly he spoke.
“What do you wish to ask me?” he said.
“I wish to ask you a plain question,” replied Mr. Halfpenny. “Do you accept this will, and are you going to act on your cousin’s behalf? I want your plain answer.”
Barthorpe hesitated a moment before replying. Then he made as if to open the door.
“I decline to discuss the matter of the alleged will,” he answered. “I decline — especially,” he continued, lifting a finger and pointing at Mr. Tertius, “especially in the presence of that man!”
“Barthorpe!” exclaimed Peggie, flushing at the malevolence of the tone and gesture. “How dare you! In my house — —”
Barthorpe suddenly laughed. Once again he turned to the door — and this time he opened it.
“Just so — just so!” he said. “Your house, my dear cousin — according to the alleged will.”
“Which will be proved, sir,” snapped out Mr. Halfpenny. “As you refuse, or seem to do so, I shall act for your cousin — at once.”
Barthorpe opened the door wide, and as he crossed the threshold, turned and gave Mr. Halfpenny a swift glance.
“Act!” he said. “Act! — if you can!”
Then he walked out and shut the door behind him, and Mr. Halfpenny turned to the others.
“The will must be proved at once,” he said decisively. “Alleged — you all heard him say alleged! That looks as if — um! My dear Tertius, you have no doubt whatever about the proper and valid execution of this important document — now in my safe. None?”
“How can I have any doubt about what I actually saw?” replied Mr. Tertius. “I can’t have any doubt, Halfpenny! I saw Jacob sign it; I signed it myself; I saw young Burchill sign it; we all three saw each other sign. What more can one want?”
“I must see this Mr. Burchill,” remarked Mr. Halfpenny. “I must see him at once. Unfortunately, he left no address at the place we called at. He will have to be discovered.”
Peggie coloured slightly as she turned to Mr. Halfpenny.
“Is it really necessary to see Mr. Burchill personally?” she asked with a palpable nervousness which struck Selwood strangely. “Must he be found?”
“Absolutely necessary, my dear,” replied Mr. Halfpenny. “He must be found, and at once.”
Mr. Tertius uttered an exclamation of annoyance.
“Dear, dear!” he said. “I noticed the young man at the cemetery just now — I ought really to have pointed him out to you — most forgetful of me!”
“I have Mr. Burchill’s address,” said Peggie, with an effort. “He left his card here on the day of my uncle’s death — the address is on it. And I put it in this drawer.”
Selwood watched Peggie curiously, and with a strange, vague sense of uneasiness as she went over to a drawer in Jacob Herapath’s desk and produced the card. He had noticed a slight tremor in her voice when she spoke of Burchill, and her face, up till then very pale, had coloured at the first mention of his name. And now he was asking himself why any reference to this man seemed to disturb her, why ——
But Mr. Halfpenny cut in on his meditations. The old lawyer held up the card to the light and slowly read out the address.
“Ah! Calengrove Mansions, Maida Vale,” he said. “Um — quarter of an hour’s drive. Tertius — you and I will go and see this young fellow at once.”
Mr. Tertius turned to Professor Cox-Raythwaite.
“What do you think of this, Cox-Raythwaite?” he asked, almost piteously. “I mean — what do you think’s best to be done?”
The Professor, who had stood apart with Selwood during the episode which had just concluded, pulling his great beard and looking very big and black and formidable, jerked his thumb in the direction of the old lawyer.
“Do what Halfpenny says,” he growled. “See this other witness. And — but here, I’ll have a word with you in the hall.”
He said good-bye in a gruffly affectionate way to Peggie, patted her shoulder and her head as if she were a child, and followed the two other men out. Peggie, left alone with Selwood, turned to him. There was something half-appealing in her face, and Selwood suddenly drove his hands deep into his pockets, clenched them there, and put a tight hold on himself.
“It’s all different!” exclaimed Peggie, dropping into a chair and clasping her hands on her knees. “All so different! And I feel so utterly helpless.”
“Scarcely that,” said Selwood, with an effort to speak calmly. “You’ve got Mr. Tertius, and Mr. Halfpenny, and the Professor, and — and if there’s anything — anything I can do, don’t you know, why, I — —”
Peggie impulsively stretched out a hand — and Selwood, not trusting himself, affected not to see it. To take Peggie’s hand at that moment would have been to let loose a flood of words which he was resolved not to utter just then, if ever. He moved across to the desk and pretended to sort and arrange some loose papers.
“We’ll — all — all — do everything we can,” he said, trying to keep any tremor out of his voice. “Everything you know, of course.”
“I know — and I’m grateful,” said Peggie. “But I’m frightened.”
Selwood turned quickly and looked sharply at her.
“Frightened?” he exclaimed. “Of what?”
“Of something that I can’t account for or realize,” she replied. “I’ve a feeling that everything’s all wrong — and strange. And — I’m frightened of Mr. Burchill.”
“What!” snapped Selwood. He dropped the papers and turned to face her squarely. “Frightened of — Burchill? Why?”
“I — don’t — know,” she answered, shaking her head. “It’s more an idea — something vague. I was always afraid of him when he was here — I’ve been afraid of him ever since. I was very much afraid when he came here the other day.”
“You saw him?” asked Selwood.
“I didn’t see him. He merely sent up that card. But,” she added, “I was afraid even then.”
Selwood leaned back against the desk, regarding her attentively.
“I don’t think you’re the sort to be afraid without reason,” he said. “Of course, if you have reason, I’ve no right to ask what it is. All the same, if this chap is likely to annoy you, you’ve only to speak and — and — —”
“Yes?” she said, smiling a little. “You’d — —”
“I’ll punch his head and break his neck for him!” growled Selwood. “And — and I wish you’d say if you have reasons why I should. Has — has he annoyed you?”
“No,” answered Peggie. She regarded Selwood steadily for a minute; then she spoke with sudden impulse. “When he was here,” she said, “I mean before he left my uncle, he asked me to marry him.”
Selwood, in spite of himself, could not keep a hot flush from mounting to his cheek.
“And — you?” he said.
“I said no, of course, and he took my answer and went quietly away,” replied Peggie. “And that — that’s why I’m frightened of him.”
“Good heavens! Why?” demanded Selwood. “I don’t understand. Frightened of him because he took his answer, went away quietly, and hasn’t annoyed you since? That — I say, that licks me!”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But, you see, you don’t know him. It’s just because of that — that quiet — that — oh, I don’t quite know how to explain! — that — well, silence — that I’m afraid — yes, literally afraid. There’s something about him that makes me fear. I used to wish that my uncle had never employed him — that he had never come here. And — I’d rather be penniless than that my uncle had ever got him — him! — to witness that will!”
Selwood found no words wherewith to answer this. He did not understand it. Nevertheless he presently found words of another sort.
“All right!” he muttered doggedly. “I’ll watch him — or, I’ll watch that he — that — well, that no harm comes to — you know what I mean, don’t you?”
“Yes,” murmured Peggie, and once more held out an impulsive hand. But Selwood again pretended to see nothing, and he began another energetic assault upon the papers which Jacob Herapath would never handle again.
CHAPTER XVII
THE LAW
ONCE WITHIN A taxi-cab and on their way to Maida Vale, Mr. Halfpenny turned to his companion with a shake of the head which implied a much mixed state of feeling.
“Tertius!” he exclaimed. “There’s something wrong! Quite apart from what we know, and from what we were able to communicate to the police, there’s something wrong. I feel it — it’s in the air, the — the whole atmosphere. That fellow Barthorpe is up to some game. What? Did you notice his manner, his attitude — everything? Of course! — who could help it? He — has some scheme in his head. Again I say — what?”
Mr. Tertius stirred uneasily in his seat and shook his head.
“You haven’t heard anything from New Scotland Yard?” he asked.
“Nothing — so far. But they are at work, of course. They’ll work in their own way. And,” continued Mr. Halfpenny, with a grim chuckle, “you can be certain of this much, Tertius — having heard what we were able to tell them, having seen what we were able to put before them, with respect to the doings of that eventful night, they won’t let Master Barthorpe out of their ken — not they! It is best to let them pursue their own investigations in their own manner — they’ll let us know what’s been done, sure enough, at the right time.”
“Yes,” assented Mr. Tertius. “Yes — so I gather — I am not very conversant with these things. I confess there’s one thing that puzzles me greatly though, Halfpenny. That’s the matter of the man who came out of the House of Commons with Jacob that night. You remember that the coachman, Mountain, told us — and said at the inquest also — that he overheard what Jacob said to that man— ‘The thing must be done at once, and you must have everything ready for me at noon tomorrow,’ or words to that effect. Now that man must be somewhere at hand — he must have read the newspapers, know all about the inquest — why doesn’t he come forward?”
Mr. Halfpenny chuckled again and patted his friend’s arm.
“Ah!” he said. “But you don’t know that he hasn’t come forward! The probability is, Tertius, that he has come forward, and that the people at New Scotland Yard are already in possession of whatever story he had to tell. Oh, yes, I quite expect that — I also expect to hear, eventually, another piece of news in relation to that man.”
“What’s that?” asked Mr. Tertius.
“Do you remember that, at the inquest, Mountain, the coachman, said that there was another bit of evidence he had to give which he’d forgotten to tell Mr. Barthorpe when he questioned him? Mountain” — continued Mr. Halfpenny— “went on to say that while Jacob Herapath and the man stood talking in Palace Yard, before Jacob got into his brougham, Jacob took some object from his waistcoat pocket and handed it, with what looked like a letter, to the man? Eh?”
“I remember very well,” replied Mr. Tertius.
“Very good,” said Mr. Halfpenny. “Now I believe that object to have been the key of Jacob’s safe at the Safe Deposit, which, you remember, could not be found, but which young Selwood affirmed had been in Jacob’s possession only that afternoon. The letter I believe to have been a formal authority to the Safe Deposit people to allow the bearer to open that safe. I’ve thought all that out,” concluded Mr. Halfpenny, with a smile of triumph, “thought it out carefully, and it’s my impression that that’s what we shall find when the police move. I believe that man has revealed himself to the police, has told them — whatever it is he has to tell, and that his story probably throws a vast flood of light on the mystery. So I say — let us not at present concern ourselves with the actual murder of our poor friend: the police will ferret that out! What we’re concerned with is — the will! That will, Tertius, must be proved, and at once.”
“I am as little conversant with legal matters as with police procedure,” observed Mr. Tertius. “What is the exact course, now, in a case of this sort?”
“The exact procedure, my dear sir,” replied Mr. Halfpenny, dropping into his best legal manner, and putting the tips of his warmly-gloved fingers together in front of his well-filled overcoat, “the exact procedure is as follows. Barthorpe Herapath is without doubt the heir-at-law of his deceased uncle, Jacob Herapath. If Jacob had died intestate Barthorpe would have taken what we may call everything, for his uncle’s property is practically all in the shape of real estate, in comparison to which the personalty is a mere nothing. But there is a will, leaving everything to Margaret Wynne. If Barthorpe Herapath intends to contest the legality of that will — —”
“Good heavens, is that possible?” exclaimed Mr. Tertius. “He can’t!”
“He can — if he wishes,” replied Mr. Halfpenny, “though at present I don’t know on what possible grounds. But, if he does, he can at once enter a caveat in the Probate Registry. The effect of that — supposing he does it — will be that when I take the will to be proved, progress will be stopped. Very well — I shall then, following the ordinary practice, issue and serve upon Barthorpe Herapath a document technically known as a ‘warning.’ On service of this warning, Barthorpe, if he insists upon his opposition, must enter an appearance. There will then be an opportunity for debate and attempt at agreement between him and ourselves. If that fails, or does not take place, I shall then issue a writ to establish the will. And that being done, why, then, my dear sir, the proceedings — ah, the proceedings would follow — substantially — the — er — usual course of litigation in this country.”
“And that,” asked Mr. Tertius, deeply interested and wholly innocent, “that would be —— ?”
“Well, there are two parties in this case — supposed case,” continued Mr. Halfpenny, “Barthorpe Herapath, Margaret Wynne. After the issue of the writ I have just spoken of, each party would put in his or her pleas, and the matter would ultimately go to trial in the Probate Division of the High Court, most likely before a judge and a special jury.”
“And how long would all this take?” asked Mr. Tertius.
“Ah! — um!” replied Mr. Halfpenny, tapping the tips of his gloves together. “That, my dear sir, is a somewhat difficult question to answer. I believe that all readers of the newspapers are aware that our Law Courts are somewhat congested — the cause lists are very full. The time which must elapse before a case can actually come to trial varies, my dear Tertius, varies enormously. But if — as in the matter we are supposing would probably be the case — if all the parties concerned were particularly anxious to have the case disposed of without delay, the trial might be arrived at within three or four months — that is, my dear sir, if the Long Vacation did not intervene. But — speaking generally — a better, more usual, more probable estimate would be, say six, seven, eight, or nine months.”
“So long?” exclaimed Mr. Tertius. “I thought that justice was neither denied, sold, nor delayed!”
