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Page 16
But across the street, all unknown to Collingwood, Linford Pratt was
thinking a good deal. Collingwood had taken his car from a rank
immediately opposite Eldrick & Pascoe's windows; Pratt, whose desk
looked on to the street, had seen him drive away soon after ten o'clock
and return about half-past twelve. Pratt, who knew everybody in the
business centre of the town, knew the man who had driven Collingwood,
and when he went out to his lunch he asked him where he had been that
morning. The man, who knew no reason for secrecy, told him--and Pratt
went off to eat his bread and cheese and drink his one glass of ale and
to wonder why young Collingwood had been to Normandale Grange. He became
slightly anxious and uneasy. He knew that Collingwood must have made
some slight examination of old Bartle's papers. Was it--could it be
possible that the old man, before going to Eldrick's, had left some
memorandum of his discovery in his desk--or in a diary? He had said that
he had not shown the will, nor mentioned the will, to a soul--but he
might;--old men were so fussy about things--he might have set down in
his diary that he had found it on such a day, and under such-and-such
circumstances.
However, there was one person who could definitely inform him of the
reason of Collingwood's visit to Normandale Grange--Mrs. Mallathorpe. He
would see her at once, and learn if he had any grounds for fear. And so
it came about that at nine o'clock that evening, Mrs. Mallathorpe, for
the second time that day, found herself asked to see a limb of the law.
CHAPTER V
POINT-BLANK
Mrs. Mallathorpe was alone when Pratt's card was taken to her. Harper
and Nesta were playing billiards in a distant part of the big house.
Dinner had been over for an hour; Mrs. Mallathorpe, who had known what
hard work and plenty of it was, in her time, was trifling over the
newspapers--rest, comfort, and luxury were by no means boring to her.
She looked at the card doubtfully--Pratt had pencilled a word or two on
it: "Private and important business." Then she glanced at the butler--an
elderly man who had been with John Mallathorpe many years before the
catastrophe occurred.
"Who is he, Dickenson?" she asked. "Do you know him?"
"Clerk at Eldrick & Pascoe's, in the town, ma'am," replied the butler.
"I know the young man by sight."
"Where is he?" inquired Mrs. Mallathorpe.
"In the little morning room, at present, ma'am," said Dickenson.
"Take him into the study," commanded Mrs. Mallathorpe. "I'll come to him
presently." She was utterly at a loss to understand Pratt's presence
there. Eldrick & Pascoe were not her solicitors, and she had no business
of a legal nature in which they could be in any way concerned. But it
suddenly struck her that that was the second time she had heard
Eldrick's name mentioned that day--young Mr. Collingwood had said that
his grandfather's death had taken place at Eldrick & Pascoe's office.
Had this clerk come to see her about that?--and if so, what had she to
do with it? Before she reached the room in which Pratt was waiting for
her, Mrs. Mallathorpe was filled with curiosity. But in that curiosity
there was not a trace of apprehension; nothing suggested to her that her
visitor had called on any matter actually relating to herself or her
family.
The room into which Pratt had been taken was a small apartment opening
out of the library--John Mallathorpe, when he bought Normandale Grange,
had it altered and fitted to suit his own tastes, and Pratt, as soon as
he entered it, saw that it was a place in which privacy and silence
could be ensured. He noticed that it had double doors, and that there
were heavy curtains before the window. And during the few minutes which
elapsed between his entrance and Mrs. Mallathorpe's, he took the
precaution to look behind those curtains, and to survey his
surroundings--what he had to say was not to be overheard, if he could
help it.
Mrs. Mallathorpe looked her curiosity as soon as she came in. She did
not remember that she had ever seen this young man before, but she
recognized at once that he was a shrewd and sharp person, and she knew
from his manner that he had news of importance to give her. She quietly
acknowledged Pratt's somewhat elaborate bow, and motioned him to take a
chair at the side of the big desk which stood before the fireplace--she
herself sat down at the desk itself, in John Mallathorpe's old
elbow-chair. And Pratt thought to himself that however much young Harper
John Mallathorpe might be nominal master of Normandale Grange, the real
master was there, in the self-evident, quiet-looking woman who turned to
him in business-like fashion.
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