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Page 7
"Only one in the world that he ever mentioned--his grandson--a young
barrister in London," answered Eldrick. "We've just been wiring to him.
Here, Pratt, you take these messages now, and get them off. Then we'll
see about making all arrangements. By-the-by," he added, as Pratt moved
towards the door, "you don't know what--what he came to see me about?"
"Haven't the remotest idea, sir," answered Pratt, readily and glibly.
"He died--just as I've told you--before he could tell me anything."
He went downstairs, and out into the street, and away to the General
Post Office, only conscious of one thing, only concerned about one
thing--that he was now the sole possessor of a great secret. The
opportunity which he had so often longed for had come. And as he hurried
along through the gathering fog he repeated and repeated a fragment of
the recent conversation between the man who was now dead, and
himself--who remained very much alive.
"You haven't shown it to anybody else?" Pratt had asked.
"Neither shown it to anybody, nor mentioned it to a soul," Antony Bartle
had answered. So, in all that great town of Barford, he, Linford Pratt,
he, alone out of a quarter of a million people, knew--what? The
magnitude of what he knew not only amazed but exhilarated him. There
were such possibilities for himself in that knowledge. He wanted to be
alone, to think out those possibilities; to reckon up what they came to.
Of one thing he was already certain--they should be, must be, turned to
his own advantage.
It was past eight o'clock before Pratt was able to go home to his
lodgings. His landlady, meeting him in the hall, hoped that his dinner
would not be spoiled: Pratt, who relied greatly on his dinner as his one
great meal of the day, replied that he fervently hoped it wasn't, but
that if it was it couldn't be helped, this time. For once he was
thinking of something else than his dinner--as for his engagement for
that evening, he had already thrown it over: he wanted to give all his
energies and thoughts and time to his secret. Nevertheless, it was
characteristic of him that he washed, changed his clothes, ate his
dinner, and even glanced over the evening newspaper before he turned to
the real business which was already deep in his brain. But at last, when
the maid had cleared away the dinner things, and he was alone in his
sitting-room, and had lighted his pipe, and mixed himself a drop of
whisky-and-water--the only indulgence in such things that he allowed
himself within the twenty-four hours--he drew John Mallathorpe's will
from his pocket, and read it carefully three times. And then he began to
think, closely and steadily.
First of all, the will was a good will. Nothing could upset it. It was
absolutely valid. It was not couched in the terms which a solicitor
would have employed, but it clearly and plainly expressed John
Mallathorpe's intentions and meanings in respect to the disposal of his
property. Nothing could be clearer. The properly appointed trustees were
to realize his estate. They were to distribute it according to his
specified instructions. It was all as plain as a pikestaff. Pratt, who
was a good lawyer, knew what the Probate Court would say to that will if
it were ever brought up before it, as he did, a quite satisfactory will.
And it was validly executed. Hundreds of people, competent to do so,
could swear to John Mallathorpe's signature; hundreds to Gaukrodger's;
thousands to Marshall's--who as cashier was always sending his signature
broadcast. No, there was nothing to do but to put that into the hands of
the trustees named in it, and then....
Pratt thought next of the two trustees. They were well-known men in the
town. They were comparatively young men--about forty. They were men of
great energy. Their chief interests were in educational matters--that,
no doubt, was why John Mallathorpe had appointed them trustees. Wyatt
had been plaguing the town for two years to start commercial schools:
Charlesworth was a devoted champion of technical schools. Pratt knew how
the hearts of both would leap, if he suddenly told them that enormous
funds were at their disposal for the furtherance of their schemes. And
he also knew something else--that neither Charlesworth nor Wyatt had the
faintest, remotest notion or suspicion that John Mallathorpe had ever
made such a will, or they would have moved heaven and earth, pulled down
Normandale Grange and Mallathorpe's Mill, in their efforts to find it.
But the effect--the effect of producing the will--now? Pratt, like
everybody else, had been deeply interested in the Mallathorpe affair.
There was so little doubt that John Mallathorpe had died intestate, such
absolute certainty that his only living relations were his deceased
brother's two children and their mother, that the necessary proceedings
for putting Harper Mallathorpe and his sister Nesta in possession of the
property, real and personal, had been comparatively simple and speedy.
But--what was it worth? What would the two trustees have been able to
hand over to the Mayor and Corporation of Barford, if the will had been
found as soon as John Mallathorpe died? Pratt, from what he remembered
of the bulk and calculations at the time, made a rapid estimate. As near
as he could reckon, the Mayor and Corporation would have got about
�300,000.
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