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Page 71
"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 foot-bridge. But--the matter
had to be faced.
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