Collected works of j s f.., p.367
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 367
“No need,” Triffitt hastened to say. “I’ve a cold meat pie, uncut, and plenty of bread, and cheese. And there’s bottled ale, and whisky, and I’ll get you some supper ready at once. So” — he went on, as he began to bustle about— “you did find — something?”
Davidge rubbed his hands and winked first at Milsey and then at Triffitt.
“Wait till tomorrow!” he said. “There’ll be strange news for you newspaper gentlemen before tomorrow night.”
CHAPTER XXII
YEA AND NAY
MR. HALFPENNY, FACE to face with the fact that Barthorpe Herapath meant mischief about the will, put on his thinking-cap and gave himself up to a deep and serious consideration of the matter. He thought things over as he journeyed home to his house in the country; he spent an evening in further thought; he was still thinking when he went up to town next morning. The result of his cogitations was that after giving certain instructions in his office as to the next steps to be taken towards duly establishing Jacob Herapath’s will, he went round to Barthorpe Herapath’s office and asked to see him.
Barthorpe himself came out of his private room and showed some politeness in ushering his caller within. His manner seemed to be genuinely frank and unaffected: Mr. Halfpenny was considerably puzzled by it. Was Barthorpe playing a part, or was all this real? That, of course, must be decided by events: Mr. Halfpenny was not going to lose any time in moving towards them, whatever they might turn out to be. He accordingly went straight to the point.
“My dear sir,” he began, bending confidentially towards Barthorpe, who had taken a seat at his desk and was waiting for his visitor to speak, “you have entered a caveat against the will in the Probate Registry.”
“I have,” answered Barthorpe, with candid alacrity. “Of course!”
“You intend to contest the matter?” inquired Mr. Halfpenny.
“Certainly!” replied Barthorpe.
Mr. Halfpenny gathered a good deal from the firm and decisive tone in which this answer was made. Clearly there was something in the air of which he was wholly ignorant.
“You no doubt believe that you have good reason for your course of action,” he observed.
“The best reasons,” said Barthorpe.
Mr. Halfpenny ruminated a little, silently.
“After all,” he said at last, “there are only two persons really concerned — your cousin, Miss Wynne, and yourself. I propose to make an offer to you.”
“Always willing to be reasonable, Mr. Halfpenny,” answered Barthorpe.
“Very good,” said Mr. Halfpenny. “Of course, I see no possible reason for doubting the validity of the will. From our side, litigation must go on in the usual course. But I have a proposal to make to you. It is this — will you meet your cousin at my office, with all the persons — witnesses to the will, I mean — and state your objections to the will? In short, let us have what we may call a family discussion about it — it may prevent much litigation.”
Barthorpe considered this suggestion for a while.
“What you really mean is that I should come to your offices and tell my cousin and you why I am fighting this will,” he said eventually. “That it?”
“Practically — yes,” assented Mr. Halfpenny.
“Whom do you propose to have present?” asked Barthorpe.
“Yourself, your cousin, myself, the two witnesses, and, as a friend of everybody concerned, Professor Cox-Raythwaite,” replied Mr. Halfpenny. “No one else is necessary.”
“And you wish me to tell, plainly, why I refuse to believe that the will is genuine?” asked Barthorpe.
“Certainly — yes,” assented Mr. Halfpenny.
Barthorpe hesitated, eyeing the old lawyer doubtfully.
“It will be a painful business — for my cousin,” he said.
“If — I really haven’t the faintest notion of what you mean!” exclaimed Mr. Halfpenny. “But if — if it will be painful for your cousin to hear this — whatever it is — in private, it would be much more painful for her to hear it in public. I gather, of course, that you have some strange revelation to make. Surely, it would be most considerate to her to make it in what we may call the privacy of the family circle, Cox-Raythwaite and myself.”
“I haven’t the least objection to Cox-Raythwaite’s presence, nor yours,” said Barthorpe. “Very good — I’ll accept your proposal — it will, as you say, save a lot of litigation. Now — when?”
“Today is Tuesday,” said Mr. Halfpenny. “What do you say to next Friday morning, at ten o’clock?”
“Friday will do,” answered Barthorpe. “I will be there at ten o’clock. I shall leave it to you to summon all the parties concerned. By the by, have you Burchill’s address?”
“I have,” replied Mr. Halfpenny. “I will communicate with him at once.”
Barthorpe nodded, rose from his seat, and walked with his visitor towards the door of his private room.
“Understand, Mr. Halfpenny,” he said, “I’m agreeing to this to oblige you. And if the truth is very painful to my cousin, well, as you say, it’s better for her to hear it in private than in a court of justice. All right, then — Friday at ten.”
Mr. Halfpenny went back to his own office, astonished and marvelling. What on earth were these revelations which Barthorpe hinted at — these unpleasant truths which would so wound and hurt Peggie Wynne? Could it be possible that there really was some mystery about that will of which only Barthorpe knew the secret? It was incomprehensible to Mr. Halfpenny that any man could be so cool, so apparently cocksure about matters as Barthorpe was unless he felt absolutely certain of his own case. What that case could be, Mr. Halfpenny could not imagine — the only thing really certain was that Barthorpe seemed resolved on laying it bare when Friday came.
“God bless me! — it’s a most extraordinary complication altogether!” mused Mr. Halfpenny, once more alone in his own office. “It’s very evident to me that Barthorpe Herapath is absolutely ignorant that he’s suspected, and that the police are at work on him! What a surprise for him if the thing comes to a definite head, and — but let us see what Friday morning brings.”
Friday morning brought Barthorpe to Mr. Halfpenny’s offices in good time. He came alone; a few minutes after his arrival Peggie Wynne, nervous and frightened, came, attended by Mr. Tertius and Professor Cox-Raythwaite. All these people were at once ushered into Mr. Halfpenny’s private room, where polite, if constrained, greetings passed. At five minutes past ten o’clock Mr. Halfpenny looked at Barthorpe.
“We’re only waiting for Mr. Burchill,” he remarked. “I wrote to him after seeing you, and I received a reply from him in which he promised to be here at ten this morning. It’s now — —”
But at that moment the door opened to admit Mr. Frank Burchill, who, all unconscious of the fact that more than one pair of sharp eyes had followed him from his flat to Mr. Halfpenny’s office, and that their owners were now in the immediate vicinity, came in full of polite self-assurance, and executed formal bows while he gracefully apologised to Mr. Halfpenny for being late.
“It’s all right, all right, Mr. Burchill,” said the old lawyer, a little testy under the last-comer’s polite phrases, all of which he thought unnecessary. “Five or ten minutes won’t make any great difference. Take a seat, pray: I think if we all sit around this centre table of mine it will be more convenient. We can begin at once now, Mr. Barthorpe Herapath — I have already given strict instructions that we are not to be disturbed, on any account. My dear — perhaps you will sit here by me? — Mr. Tertius, you sit next to Miss Wynne — Professor — —”
Mr. Halfpenny’s dispositions of his guests placed Peggie and her two companions on one side of a round table; Barthorpe and Burchill at the other — Mr. Halfpenny himself sat at the head. And as soon as he had taken his own seat, he looked at Barthorpe.
“This, of course,” he began, “is a quite informal meeting. We are here, as I understand matters, to hear why you, Mr. Barthorpe Herapath, object to your late uncle’s will, and why you intend to dispute it. So I suppose the next thing to do will be to ask you to state your grounds.”
But Barthorpe shook his head with a decisive motion.
“No,” he answered. “Not at all! The first thing to do, Mr. Halfpenny, in my opinion, is to hear what is to be said in favour of the will. The will itself, I take it, is in your possession. I have seen it — I mean, I have seen the document which purports to be a will of the late Jacob Herapath — so I admit its existence. Two persons are named on that document as witnesses: Mr. Tertius, Mr. Burchill. They are both present now; at your request. I submit that the proper procedure is to question them both as to the circumstances under which this alleged will was made.”
“I have no objections to that,” answered Mr. Halfpenny. “I have no objection — neither, I am sure, has Miss Wynne — to anything you propose. Well, we take it for granted that this document exists — it is, of course, in my safe keeping. Every person has seen it, one time or another. We have here the two gentlemen who witnessed Jacob Herapath’s signature and each other’s. So I will first ask the elder of the two to tell us what he recollects of the matter. Now, Mr. Tertius?”
Mr. Tertius, who since his arrival had shown as much nervousness as would probably have signalised his appearance in a witness-box, started at this direct appeal.
“You — er, wish me — —” he began, with an almost blank stare at Mr. Halfpenny. “You want me to — —”
“Come, come!” said Mr. Halfpenny. “This is as I have already said, an informal gathering. We needn’t have any set forms or cut-and-dried procedure. I want you — we all want you — to tell us what you remember about the making of Jacob Herapath’s will. Tell us in your own way, in whatever terms you like. Then we shall hear what your fellow-witness has to say.”
“Perhaps you’ll let me suggest something,” broke in Barthorpe, who had obviously been thinking matters over. “Lay the alleged will on the table before you, Mr. Halfpenny — question the two opposed witnesses on it. That will simplify things.”
Mr. Halfpenny considered this proposition for a moment or two; then having whispered to Peggie and received her assent, he went across to a safe and presently returned with the will, which he placed on a writing-pad that lay in front of him.
“Now, Mr. Tertius,” he said. “Look at this will, which purports to have been made on the eighteenth day of April last. I understand that Jacob Herapath called you into his study on the evening of that day and told you that he wanted you and Mr. Burchill, his secretary, to witness his signature to a will which he had made — had written out himself. I understand also that you did witness his signature, attached your own, in Mr. Herapath’s presence and Mr. Burchill’s presence, and that Mr. Burchill’s signature was attached under the same conditions. Am I right in all this?”
“Quite right,” replied Mr. Tertius. “Quite!”
“Is this the document which Jacob Herapath produced?”
“It is — certainly.”
“Was it all drawn out then? — I am putting these questions to you quite informally.”
“It was all written out, except the signatures. Jacob showed us that it was so written, though he did not allow us to see the wording. But he showed us plainly that there was nothing to do but to sign. Then he laid it on the desk, covered most of the sheet of paper with a piece of blotting paper and signed his name in our presence — I stood on one side of him, Mr. Burchill on the other. Then Mr. Burchill signed in his place — beneath mine.”
“And this,” asked Mr. Halfpenny, pointing to the will, “this is your signature?”
“Most certainly!” answered Mr. Tertius.
“And this,” continued Mr. Halfpenny, “is Jacob Herapath’s? — and this Mr. Burchill’s? You have no doubt about it?”
“No more than that I see and hear you,” replied Mr. Tertius. “I have no doubt.”
Mr. Halfpenny turned from Mr. Tertius to Barthorpe Herapath. But Barthorpe’s face just then revealed nothing. Therefore the old lawyer turned towards Burchill. And suddenly a sharp idea struck him. He would settle one point to his own satisfaction at once, by one direct question. And so he — as it were by impulse — thrust the will before and beneath Burchill’s eyes, and placed his finger against the third signature.
“Mr. Burchill,” he said, “is that your writing?”
Burchill, calm and self-possessed, glanced at the place which Mr. Halfpenny indicated, and then lifted his eyes, half sadly, half deprecatingly.
“No!” he replied, with a little shake of the head;”No, Mr. Halfpenny, it is not!”
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ACCUSATION
THE OLD LAWYER, who had bent forward across the table in speaking to Burchill, pulled himself up sharply on receiving this answer, and for a second or two stared with a keen, searching gaze at the man he had questioned, who, on his part, returned the stare with calm assurance. A deep silence had fallen on the room; nothing broke it until Professor Cox-Raythwaite suddenly began to tap the table with the ends of his fingers. The sound roused Mr. Halfpenny to speech and action. He bent forward again towards Burchill, once more laying a hand on the will.
“That is not your signature?” he asked quietly.
Burchill shook his head — this time with a gesture of something very like contempt.
“It is not!” he answered.
“Did you see the late Jacob Herapath write — that?”
“I did not!”
“Did you see Mr. Tertius write — that?”
“I did not!”
“Have you ever seen this will, this document, before?”
“Never!”
Mr. Halfpenny drew the will towards himself with an impatient movement and began to replace it in the large envelope from which it had been taken.
“In short, you never assisted at the execution of this document — never saw Jacob Herapath make any will — never witnessed any signature of his to this?” he said testily. “That’s what you really say — what you affirm?”
“Just so,” replied Burchill. “You apprehend me exactly.”
“Yet you have just heard what Mr. Tertius says! What do you say to that, Mr. Burchill?”
“I say nothing to that, Mr. Halfpenny. I have nothing to do with what Mr. Tertius says. I have answered your questions.”
“Mr. Tertius says that he and you saw Jacob Herapath sign that document, saw each other sign it! What you say now gives Mr. Tertius the direct lie, and — —”
“Pardon me, Mr. Halfpenny,” interrupted Burchill quietly. “Mr. Tertius may be under some strange misapprehension; Mr. Tertius may be suffering from some curious hallucination. What I say is — I did not see the late Jacob Herapath sign that paper; I did not sign it myself; I did not see Mr. Tertius sign it; I have never seen it before!”
Mr. Halfpenny made a little snorting sound, got up from his chair, picked up the envelope which contained the will, walked over to his safe, deposited the envelope in some inner receptacle, came back, produced his snuff-box, took a hearty pinch of its contents, snorted again, and looked hard at Barthorpe.
“I don’t see the least use in going on with this!” he said. “We have heard what Mr. Tertius, as one witness, says; we have heard what Mr. Frank Burchill, as the other witness, says. Mr. Tertius says that he saw the will executed in Mr. Burchill’s presence; Mr. Burchill denies that in the fullest and most unqualified fashion. Why waste more time? We had better separate.”
But Barthorpe laughed, maliciously.
“Scarcely!” he said. “You brought us here. It was your own proposal. I assented. And now that we are here, and you have heard — what you have heard — I’m going to have my say. You have gone, all along, Mr. Halfpenny, on the assumption that the piece of paper which you have just replaced in your safe is a genuine will. That’s what you’ve said — I believe it’s what you say now. I don’t say so!”
“What do you say it is, then?” demanded Mr. Halfpenny.
Barthorpe slightly lowered his voice.
“I say it’s a forgery!” he answered. “That, I hope, is plain language. A forgery — from the first word to its last.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Halfpenny, a little sneeringly. “And who’s the forger, pray?”
“That man, there!” said Barthorpe, suddenly pointing to Mr. Tertius. “He’s the forger! I accuse him to his face of forging every word, every letter of it from the first stroke to the final one. And I’ll give you enough evidence to prove it — enough evidence, at any rate, to prove it to any reasonable man or before a judge and jury. Forgery, I tell you!”
Mr. Halfpenny sat down again and became very calm and judicial. And he had at once to restrain Peggie Wynne, who during Barthorpe’s last speech had manifested signs of a desire to speak, and had begun to produce a sealed packet from her muff.
“Wait, my dear,” said Mr. Halfpenny. “Do not speak just now — you shall have an opportunity later — leave this to me at present. So you say you can prove that this will is a forgery, Mr. Barthorpe Herapath?” he continued, turning to the other side of the table. “Very well — since I suggested that you should come here, you shall certainly have the opportunity. But just allow me to ask Mr. Tertius a question — Tertius, you have heard what Mr. Frank Burchill has just said?”
“I have!” replied Mr. Tertius. “And — I am amazed!”
