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Page 12
When the boy had gone Collingwood locked up the shop from the house
side, put the key in his pocket, and went into the kitchen.
"Mrs. Clough," he said. "I want to see the clothes which my grandfather
was wearing when he was brought home last night. Where are they?"
"They're in that little room aside of his bed-chamber, Mestur
Collingwood," replied the housekeeper. "I laid 'em all there, on the
clothes-press, just as they were taken off of him, by Lawyer Eldrick's
orders--he said they hadn't been examined, and wasn't to be, till you
came. Nobody whatever's touched 'em since."
Collingwood went upstairs and into the little room--a sort of box-room
opening out of that in which the old man lay. There were the clothes; he
went through the pockets of every garment. He found such things as keys,
a purse, loose money, a memorandum book, a bookseller's catalogue or
two, two or three letters of a business sort--but there was no big
folded paper, covered with writing, such as Jabey Naylor had described.
The mention of that paper had excited Collingwood's curiosity. He
rapidly summed up what he had learned. His grandfather had found a
paper, closely written upon, in a book which had been the property of
John Mallathorpe, deceased. The discovery had surprised him, for he had
given voice to an exclamation of what was evidently astonishment. He had
put the paper in his pocket. Then he had written a letter--to Mrs.
Mallathorpe of Normandale Grange. When his shop-boy had posted that
letter, he himself had gone out--to his solicitor. What, asked
Collingwood, was the reasonable presumption? The old man had gone to
Eldrick to show him the paper which he had found.
He lingered in the little room for a few minutes, thinking. No one but
Pratt had been with Antony Bartle at the time of his seizure and sudden
death. What sort of a fellow was Pratt? Was he honest? Was his word to
be trusted? Had he told the precise truth about the old man's death? He
was evidently a suave, polite, obliging sort of fellow, this clerk, but
it was a curious thing that if Antony Bartle had that paper, whatever it
was--in his pocket when he went to Eldrick's office it should not be in
his pocket still--if his clothing had really remained untouched. Already
suspicion was in Collingwood's mind--vague and indefinable, but there.
He was half inclined to go straight back to Eldrick & Pascoe's and tell
Eldrick what Jabey Naylor had just told him. But he reflected that while
Naylor went out to post the letter, the old bookseller might have put
the paper elsewhere; locked it up in his safe, perhaps. One thing,
however, he, Collingwood, could do at once--he could ask Mrs.
Mallathorpe if the letter referred to the paper. He was fully acquainted
with all the facts of the Mallathorpe history; old Bartle, knowing they
would interest his grandson, had sent him the local newspaper accounts
of its various episodes. It was only twelve miles to Normandale
Grange--a motor-car would carry him there within the hour. He glanced at
his watch--just ten o 'clock.
An hour later, Collingwood found himself standing in a fine oak-panelled
room, the windows of which looked out on a romantic valley whose thickly
wooded sides were still bright with the red and yellow tints of autumn.
A door opened--he turned, expecting to see Mrs. Mallathorpe. Instead, he
found himself looking at a girl, who glanced inquiringly at him, and
from him to the card which he had sent in on his arrival.
CHAPTER IV
THE FORTUNATE POSSESSORS
Collingwood at once realized that he was in the presence of one of the
two fortunate young people who had succeeded so suddenly--and, according
to popular opinion, so unexpectedly--to John Mallathorpe's wealth. This
was evidently Miss Nesta Mallathorpe, of whom he had heard, but whom he
had never seen. She, however, was looking at him as if she knew him, and
she smiled a little as she acknowledged his bow.
"My mother is out in the grounds, with my brother," she said, motioning
Collingwood towards a chair. "Won't you sit down, please?--I've sent for
her; she will be here in a few minutes."
Collingwood sat down; Nesta Mallathorpe sat down, too, and as they
looked at each other she smiled again.
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