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Page 95
And presently, after moving around his prison more like a wild beast
than a human being, his senses having deserted him for a while, he
regained some composure, and glanced about him for means of escape. He
went to the door and tried it. But the old, substantial oak stood firm
and fast--nothing but a crow-bar would break that door. And so he turned
to the mullioned window, set in a deep recess.
He knew that it was thirty or forty feet above the level of the
ground--but there was much thick ivy growing on the walls of Normandale
Grange, and it might be possible to climb down by its aid. With a great
effort he forced open one of the dirt-encrusted sashes and looked
out--and in the same instant he drew in his head with a harsh groan. The
window commanded a full view of the hall door--and he had seen Prydale,
and two other detectives, and the stranger from London whom he believed
to be a detective, hurrying from their motorcar into the house.
There was but one thing for it, now. Esther Mawson had robbed him of
everything that was on him in the way of papers and money. But in his
hip-pocket she had left a revolver which Pratt had carried, always
loaded, for some time. And now, without the least hesitation, he drew it
out and sent one of its bullets through his brain.
* * * * *
Eldrick and Collingwood, returning to the hall from the room in which
they and the detectives had found Pratt's dead body, stood a little
later in earnest conversation with Prydale, who had just come there from
an interview with Esther Mawson. Nesta Mallathorpe suddenly called to
them from the stairs, at the same time beckoning them to go up to her.
"Will you come with me and speak to my mother?" she said. "She knows you
are here, and she wants to say something about what has
happened--something about that document which Pratt said he possessed."
Eldrick and Collingwood exchanged glances without speaking. They
followed Nesta into her mother's sitting-room. And instead of the
semi-invalid whom they had expected to find there, they saw a woman who
had evidently regained not only her vivacity and her spirits but her
sense of authority and her inclination to exercise it.
"I am sorry that you gentlemen should have been drawn into all this
wretched business!" she exclaimed, as she pointed the two men to chairs.
"Everything must seem very strange, and indeed have seemed so for some
time. But I have been the victim of as bad a scoundrel as ever
lived--I'm not going to be so hypocritical as to pretend that I'm sorry
he's dead--I'm not! I only wish he'd met his proper fate--on the
scaffold. I don't know what you may have heard, or gathered--my daughter
herself, from what she tells me, has only the vaguest notions--but I
wanted to tell you, Mr. Eldrick, and you, Mr. Collingwood--seeing that
you're one a solicitor and the other a barrister, that Pratt invented a
most abominable plot against me, which, of course, hasn't a word of
truth in it, yet was so clever that----"
Eldrick suddenly raised his hand.
"Mrs. Mallathorpe!" he said quietly. "I think you had better let me
speak before you go any further. Perhaps we--Mr. Collingwood and I--know
more than you think. Don't trifle, Mrs. Mallathorpe, for your own and
your daughter's sake! Tell the truth--and answer a plain question, which
I assure you, is asked in your own interest. What have you done with
John Mallathorpe's will?"
Collingwood, anxious for Nesta, was watching her closely, and now he saw
her turn a startled and inquiring look on her mother, who, in her turn,
dashed a surprised glance at Eldrick. But if Mrs. Mallathorpe was
surprised, she was also indignant, or she simulated indignation, and she
replied to the solicitor's question with a sharp retort.
"What do you mean?--John Mallathorpe's will!" she exclaimed. "What do I
know of John Mallathorpe's will? There never was----"
"Mrs. Mallathorpe!" interrupted Eldrick. "Don't! I'm speaking in your
interest, I tell you! There was a will! It was made on the morning of
John Mallathorpe's death. It was found by Mr. Collingwood's late
grandfather, Antony Bartle: when he died suddenly in my office, it fell
into Pratt's hands. That is the document which Pratt held over you--and
not an hour ago, Esther Mawson took it from Pratt, and she gave it to
you. Again I ask you--what have you done with it?"
Mrs. Mallathorpe hesitated a moment. Then she suddenly faced Eldrick
with a defiant look. "Let them--let everybody--do what they like!" she
exclaimed. "It's burnt! I threw it in that fire as soon as I got it! And
now----"
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