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Page 4
"Couldn't say," replied Pratt. He was still thinking of his dinner, and
of an important engagement to follow it, and he had not the least idea
that old Antony Bartle was going to tell him anything very important.
"Letters? Bank-notes? Something of that sort?"
The old bookseller leaned nearer, across the corner of the desk, until
his queer, wrinkled face was almost close to Pratt's sharp, youthful
one. Again he lifted the claw-like finger: again he tapped the clerk's
arm.
"I found John Mallathorpe's will!" he whispered. "His--will!"
Linford Pratt jumped out of his chair. For a second he stared in
speechless amazement at the old man; then he plunged his hands deep into
his trousers' pockets, opened his mouth, and let out a sudden
exclamation.
"No!" he said. "No! John Mallathorpe's--will? His--will!"
"Made the very day on which he died," answered Bartle, nodding
emphatically.
"Queer, wasn't it? He might have had some--premonition, eh?"
Pratt sat down again.
"Where is it?" he asked.
"Here in my pocket," replied the old bookseller, tapping his rusty coat.
"Oh, it's all right, I assure you. All duly made out, signed, and
witnessed. Everything in order, I know!--because a long, a very long
time ago, I was like you, an attorney's clerk. I've drafted many a will,
and witnessed many a will, in my time. I've read this, every word of
it--it's all right. Nothing can upset it."
"Let's see it," said Pratt, eagerly.
"Well--I've no objection--I know you, of course," answered Bartle, "but
I'd rather show it first to Mr. Eldrick. Couldn't you telephone up to
his house and ask him to run back here?"
"Certainly," replied Pratt. "He mayn't be there, though. But I can try.
You haven't shown it to anybody else?"
"Neither shown it to anybody, nor mentioned it to a soul," said Bartle.
"I tell you it's not much more than half an hour since I found it. It's
not a long document. Do you know how it is that it's never come out?" he
went on, turning eagerly to Pratt, who had risen again. "It's easily
explained. The will's witnessed by those two men who were killed at the
same time as John Mallathorpe! So, of course, there was nobody to say
that it was in evidence. My notion is that he and those two
men--Gaukrodger and Marshall, his manager and cashier--had signed it not
long before the accident, and that Mallathorpe had popped it into the
pocket of that book before going out into the yard. Eh? But see if you
can get Mr. Eldrick down here, and we'll read it together. And I
say--this office seems uncommonly stuffy--can you open the window a bit
or something?--I feel oppressed, like."
Pratt opened a window which looked out on the street. He glanced at the
old man for a moment and saw that his face, always pallid, was even
paler than usual.
"You've been talking too much," he said. "Rest yourself, Mr. Bartle,
while I ring up Mr. Eldrick's house. If he isn't there, I'll try his
club--he often turns in there for an hour before going home."
He went out by a private door to the telephone box, which stood in a
lobby used by various occupants of the building. And when he had rung up
Eldrick's private house and was waiting for the answer, he asked himself
what this discovery would mean to the present holders of the Mallathorpe
property, and his curiosity--a strongly developed quality in him--became
more and more excited. If Eldrick was not at home, if he could not get
in touch with him, he would persuade old Bartle to let him see his
find--he would cheerfully go late to his dinner if he could only get a
peep at this strangely discovered document. Romance! Why, this indeed
was romance; and it might be--what else? Old Bartle had already chuckled
about topsy-turvydom: did that mean that--
The telephone bell rang: Eldrick had not yet reached his house. Pratt
got on to the club: Eldrick had not been there. He rang off, and went
back to the private room.
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