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Read books online » Mystery & Crime » The Talleyrand Maxim by J. S. Fletcher (book reader for pc .TXT) 📖

Book online «The Talleyrand Maxim by J. S. Fletcher (book reader for pc .TXT) đŸ“–Â». Author J. S. Fletcher



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line?”

 

“Decidedly I do!” replied Byner. “Where is he to be found?’

 

“I couldn’t say wheer he lives,” answered the landlord. “But it’ll be

somewhere close about; anyway, he’ll be in here tonight. Bill Thomson t’

feller’s name is—decent young feller enough.”

 

“I must contrive to see him, certainly,” said Byner. “Well, now, can you

show me this Stubbs’ Lane and the neighbourhood?”

 

“Just step along t’ road a bit and I’ll join you in a few o’ minutes,”

assented Pickard. “We’d best not be seen leavin t’ house together, or

our folk’ll think it’s a put-up job. Walk forrard a piece.”

 

Byner strolled along the road a little way, and leaned over a wall until

Mr. Pickard, wearing his white billycock hat and accompanied by a fine

fox-terrier, lounged up with his thumbs in the armholes of his

waistcoat. Together they went a little further along.

 

“Now then!” said the landlord, crossing the road towards the entrance of

a narrow lane which ran between two high stone walls. “This here is

Stubbs’ Lane—so called, I believe, ‘cause an owd gentleman named

similar used to hev a house here ‘at’s been pulled down. Ye see, it runs

up fro’ this high-road towards yon terrace o’ houses. Folks hereabouts

calls that terrace t’ World’s End, ‘cause they’re t’ last houses afore

ye get on to t’ open moorlands. Now, that night ‘at Parrawhite wor

aimin’ to meet Pratt, it wor i’ this very lane. Pratt, when he left t’

tram-car, t’ other side o’ my place, ‘ud come up t’ road, and up this

lane. And it wor at t’ top o’ t’ lane ‘at Bill Thomson see’d Pratt and

Parrawhite cross into what Bill called t’ owd quarry ground.”

 

“Can we go into that?” asked Byner.

 

“Nowt easier!” said Pickard. “It’s a sort of open space where t’ childer

goes and plays about: they hev’n’t worked no stone theer for many a long

year—all t’ stone’s exhausted, like.”

 

He led Byner along the lane to its further end, pointed out the place

where Thomson said he had seen Pratt and Parrawhite, and indicated the

terrace of houses in which Pratt lived. Then he crossed towards the old

quarries.

 

“Don’t know what they should want to come in here for—unless it wor to

talk very confidential,” said Pickard. “But lor bless yer!—it ‘ud be

quiet enough anywheer about this neighbourhood at that time o’ neet.

However, this is wheer Bill Thomson says he see’d ‘em come.”

 

He led the way amongst the disused quarries, and Byner, following,

climbed on a mound, now grown over with grass and weed, and looked about

him. To his town eyes the place was something novel. He had never seen

the like of it before. Gradually he began to understand it. The stone

had been torn out of the earth, sometimes in square pits, sometimes in

semi-circular ones, until the various veins and strata had become

exhausted. Then, when men went away, Nature had stepped in to assert her

rights. All over the despoiled region she had spread a new clothing of

green. Turf had grown on the flooring of the quarries; ivy and bramble

had covered the deep scars; bushes had sprung up; trees were already

springing. And in one of the worn-out excavations some man had planted a

kitchen-garden in orderly and formal rows and plots.

 

“Dangerous place that there!” said Pickard suddenly. “If I’d known o’

that, I shouldn’t ha’ let my young ‘uns come to play about here. They

might be tummlin’ in and drownin’ theirsens! I mun tell my missis to

keep ‘em away!”

 

Byner turned—to find the landlord pointing at the old shaft which had

gradually become filled with water. In the morning sunlight its surface

glittered like a plane of burnished metal, but when the two men went

nearer and gazed at it from its edge, the water was black and

unfathomable to the eye.

 

“Goodish thirty feet o’ water in that there!” surmised Pickard. “It’s

none safe for childer to play about—theer’s nowt to protect ‘em. Next

time I see Mestur Shepherd I shall mak’ it my business to tell him so;

he owt either to drain that watter off or put a fence around it.”

 

“Is Mr. Shepherd the property-owner?” asked Byner.

 

“Aye!—it’s all his, this land,” answered Pickard. He pointed to a

low-roofed house set amidst elms and chestnuts, some distance off across

the moor. “Lives theer, does Mestur Shepherd—varry well-to-do man, he

is.”

 

“How could that water be drained off?” asked Byner with assumed

carelessness.

 

“Easy enough!” replied Pickard. “Cut through yon ledge, and let it run

into t’ far quarry there. A couple o’ men ‘ud do that job in a day.”

 

Byner made no further remark. He and Pickard strolled back to the _Green

Man_ together. And declining the landlord’s invitation to step inside

and take another glass, but promising to see him again very soon, the

inquiry agent walked on to the tram-car and rode down to Barford to keep

his appointment with Eldrick and Collingwood at the barrister’s

chambers.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DIRECT CHARGE

 

While Byner was pursuing his investigations in the neighbourhood of the

Green Man, Collingwood was out at Normandale Grange, discussing

certain matters with Nesta Mallathorpe. He had not only thought long and

deeply over his conversation with Cobcroft the previous evening, but had

begun to think about the crucial point of the clerk’s story as soon as

he spoke in the morning, and the result of his meditations was that he

rose early, intercepted Cobcroft before he started for Mallathorpe’s

Mill and asked his permission to re-tell the story to Miss Mallathorpe.

Cobcroft raised no objection, and when Collingwood had been to his

chambers and seen his letters, he chartered a car and rode out to

Normandale where he told Nesta of what he had learned and of his own

conclusions. And Nesta, having listened carefully to all he had to tell,

put a direct question to him.

 

“You think this document which Pratt told me he holds is my late uncle’s

will?” she said. “What do you suppose its terms to be?”

 

“Frankly—these, or something like these,” replied Collingwood. “And I

get at my conclusions in this way. Your uncle died intestate—consequently,

everything in the shape of real estate came to your brother and everything

in personal property to your brother and yourself. Now, supposing that

the document which Pratt boasts of holding is the will, one fact is very

certain—the property, real or personal, is not disposed of in the way

in which it became disposed of because of John Mallathorpe’s intestacy.

He probably disposed of it in quite another fashion. Why do I think that?

Because the probability is that Pratt said to your mother, ‘I have got

John Mallathorpe’s will! It doesn’t leave his property to your son and

daughter. Therefore, I have all of you at my mercy. Make it worth my

while, or I will bring the will forward.’ Do you see that situation?”

 

“Then,” replied Nesta, after a moment’s reflection, “you do think that

my mother was very anxious to get that document—a will—from Pratt?”

 

Collingwood knew what she was thinking of—her mind was still uneasy

about Pratt’s account of the affair of the footbridge. But—the matter

had to be faced.

 

“I think your mother would naturally be very anxious to secure such a

document,” he said. “You must remember that according to Pratt’s story

to you, she tried to buy it from him—just as you did yourself, though

you, of course, had no idea of what it was you wanted to buy.”

 

“What I wanted to buy,” she answered readily, “was necessity from

further interference! But—is there no way of compelling Pratt to give

up that document—whatever it is? Can’t he be made to give it up?”

 

“A way is may be being made, just now—through another affair,” replied

Collingwood. “At present matters are vague. One couldn’t go to Pratt and

demand something at which one is, after all, only guessing. Your mother,

of course, would deny that she knows what it is that Pratt holds.

But—there is the possibility of the duplicate to which Cobcroft

referred. Now, I want to put the question straight to you—supposing

that duplicate will can be found—and supposing—to put it plainly–its

terms dispossess you of all your considerable property—what then?”

 

“Do you want the exact truth?” she asked. “Well, then, I should just

welcome anything that cleared up all this mystery! What is it at

present, this situation, but intolerable? I know that my

mother is in Pratt’s power, and likely to remain so as long as ever this

goes on—probably for life. She will not give me her confidence. What is

more, I am certain that she is giving it to Esther Mawson—who is most

likely hand-in-glove with Pratt. Esther Mawson is always with her. I am

almost sure that she communicates with Pratt through Esther Mawson. It

is all what I say—intolerable! I had rather lose every penny that has

come into my hands than have this go on.”

 

“Answer me a plain question,” said Collingwood. “Is your mother fond of

money, position—all that sort of thing?”

 

“She is fond of power!” replied Nesta. “It pleased her greatly when we

came into all this wealth to know that she was the virtual

administrator. Even if she could only do it by collusion with Pratt, she

would make a fight for all that she—and I—hold. It’s useless to deny

that. Don’t forget,” she added, looking appealingly at Collingwood,

“don’t forget that she has known what it was to be poor—and if one does

come into money—I suppose one doesn’t want to lose it again.”

 

“Oh, it’s natural enough!” agreed Collingwood. “But—if things are as I

think, Pratt would be an incubus, a mill-stone, for ever. Anyway, I came

out to tell you what I’ve learned, and what I have an idea may be the

truth, and above all, to get your definite opinion. You want the Pratt

influence out of the way—at any cost?”

 

“At any cost!” she affirmed. “Even if I have to go back to earning my

own living! Whatever pleasure in life could there be for me, knowing

that at the back of all this there is that—what?”

 

“Pratt!” answered Collingwood. “Pratt! He’s the shadow—with his deep

schemes. However, as I said—there may be—developing at this

moment—another way of getting at Pratt. Gentlemen like Pratt, born

schemers, invariably forget one very important factor in life—the

unexpected! Even the cleverest and most subtle schemer may have his

delicate machinery broken to pieces by a chance bit of mere dust getting

into it at an unexpected turn of the wheels. And to turn to plainer

language—I’m going back to Barford now to hear what another man has to

say concerning certain of Pratt’s recent movements.”

 

Eldrick was already waiting when Collingwood reached his chambers: Byner

came there a few moments later. Within half an hour the barrister had

told his story of Cobcroft, and the inquiry agent his of his visit to

the Green Man and the quarries. And the solicitor listened quietly and

attentively to both, and in the end turned to Collingwood.

 

“I’ll withdraw my opinion about the nature of the document which Pratt

got hold of,” he said. “What he’s got is what you think—John

Mallathorpe’s will!”

 

“If I may venture an opinion,” remarked Byner, “that’s dead certain!”

 

“And now,” continued Eldrick, “we’re faced with a nice situation! Don’t

either of you forget this fact. Not out of willingness on her part, but

because she’s got to do it, Mrs. Mallathorpe and Pratt are partners in

that affair. He’s got the will—but she knows its contents.

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