The Sleuth of St. James's Square by Melville Davisson Post (any book recommendations TXT) 📖

My father walked about the room, his face in reflection. Gosford sat at his ease, transcribing a note on his portfolio. Old Gaeki had gone back to his chair and to his little case of bottles; he got them up on his knees, as though he would be diverted by fingering the tools of his profession. Lewis was in plain distress, for he held the law and its disposition to be inviolable; the boy stood with a find defiance, ennobled by the trust in his father's honor. One could not take his stratagem for a criminal act; he was only a child, for all his twenty years of life. And yet Lewis saw the elements of crime, and he knew that Gosford was writing down the evidence.

It was my father who broke the silence.

“Gosford,” he said, “what scheme were you and Marshall about?”

“You may wonder, sir,” replied the Englishman, continuing to write at his notes; “I shall not tell you.”

“But I will tell you,” said the boy. “My father thought that the states in this republic could not hold together very much longer. He believed that the country would divide, and the South set up a separate government. He hoped this might come about without a war. He was in horror of a war. He had traveled; he had seen nations and read their history, and he knew what civil wars were. I have heard him say that men did not realize what they were talking when they urged war.”

He paused and looked at Gosford.

“My father was convinced that the South would finally set up an independent government, but he hoped a war might not follow. He believed that if this new government were immediately recognized by Great Britain, the North would accept the inevitable and there would be no bloodshed. My father went to England with this scheme. He met Mr. Gosford somewhere—on the ship, I think. And Mr. Gosford succeeded in convincing my father that if he had a sum of money he could win over certain powerful persons in the English Government, and so pave the way to an immediate recognition of the Southern Republic by Great Britain. He followed my father home and hung about him, and so finally got his will. My father was careful; he wrote nothing; Mr. Gosford wrote nothing; there is no evidence of this plan; but my father told me, and it is true.”

My father stopped by the table and lifted his great shoulders.

“And so,” he said, “Peyton Marshall imagined a plan like that, and left its execution to a Mr. Gosford!”

The Englishman put down his pen and addressed my father.

“I would advise you, sir, to require a little proof for your conclusions. This is a very pretty story, but it is prefaced by an admission of no evidence, and it comes as a special pleading for a criminal act. Now, sir, if I chose, if the bequest required it, I could give a further explanation, with more substance; of moneys borrowed by the decedent in his travels and to be returned to me. But the will, sir, stands for itself, as Mr. Lewis will assure you.”

Young Marshall looked anxiously at the lawyer.

“Is that the law, sir?”

“It is the law of Virginia,” said Lewis, “that a will by a competent testator, drawn in form, requires no collateral explanation to support it.”

My father seemed brought up in a cul-de-sac. His face was tense and disturbed. He stood by the table; and now, as by accident, he put out his hand and took up the Japanese crystal supported by the necks of the three bronze storks. He appeared unconscious of the act, for he was in deep reflection. Then, as though the weight in his hand drew his attention, he glanced at the thing. Something about it struck him, for his manner changed. He spread the will out on the table and began to move the crystal over it, his face close to the glass. Presently his hand stopped, and he stood stooped over, staring into the Oriental crystal, like those practicers of black art who predict events from what they pretend to see in these spheres of glass.

Mr. Gosford, sitting at his ease, in victory, regarded my father with a supercilious, ironical smile.

“Sir,” he said, “are you, by chance, a fortuneteller?”

“A misfortune-teller,” replied my father, his face still held above the crystal. “I see here a misfortune to Mr. Anthony Gosford. I predict, from what I see, that he will release this bequest of moneys to Peyton Marshall's son.”

“Your prediction, sir,” said Gosford, in a harder note, “is not likely to come true.”

“Why, yes,” replied my father, “it is certain to come true. I see it very clearly. Mr. Gosford will write out a release, under his hand and seal, and go quietly out of Virginia, and Peyton Marshall's son will take his entire estate.”

“Sir,” said the Englishman, now provoked into a temper, “do you enjoy this foolery?”

“You are not interested in crystal-gazing, Mr. Gosford,” replied my father in a tranquil voice. “Well, I find it most diverting. Permit me to piece out your fortune, or rather your misfortune, Mr. Gosford! By chance you fell in with this dreamer Marshall, wormed into his confidence, pretended a relation to great men in England; followed and persuaded him until, in his ill-health, you got this will. You saw it written two years ago. When Marshall fell ill, you hurried here, learned from the dying man that the will remained and where it was. You made sure by pretending to write letters in this room, bringing your portfolio with ink and pen and a pad of paper. Then, at Marshall's death, you inquired of Lewis for legal measures to discover the dead man's will. And when you find the room ransacked, you run after the law.”

My father paused.

“That is your past, Mr. Gosford. Now let me tell your future. I see you in joy at the recovered will. I see you pleased at your foresight in getting a direct bequest, and at the care you urged on Marshall to leave no evidence of his plan, lest the authorities discover it. For I see, Mr. Gosford, that it was your intention all along to keep this sum of money for your own use and pleasure. But alas, Mr. Gosford, it was not to be! I see you writing this release; and Mr. Gosford”—my father's voice went up full and strong,—“I see you writing it in terror—sweat on your face!”

“The Devil take your nonsense!” cried the Englishman.

My father stood up with a twisted, ironical smile.

“If you doubt my skill, Mr. Gosford, as a fortune, or rather a misfortune-teller I will ask Mr. Lewis and Herman Gaeki to tell me what they see.”

The two men crossed the room and stooped over the paper, while my father held the crystal. The manner and the bearing of the men changed. They grew on the instant tense and fired with interest.

“I see it!” said the old doctor, with a queer foreign expletive.