Kitabı oku: «The Herapath Property», sayfa 4
CHAPTER VII
IS THERE A WILL?
When Triffitt hurried off with his precious budget of news Selwood lingered on the step of the office watching his retreating figure, and wondering about the new idea which the reporter had put into his mind. It was one of those ideas which instantly arouse all sorts of vague, sinister possibilities, but Selwood found himself unable to formulate anything definite out of any of them. Certainly, if Mr. Herapath died at, or before, twelve o’clock midnight, he could not have been in Portman Square at one o’clock in the morning! Yet, according to all the evidence, he had been there, in his own house, in his own study. His coachman had seen him in the act of entering the house; there was proof that he had eaten food and drunk liquor in the house. The doctor must have made a mistake—and yet, Selwood remembered, he had spoken very positively. But if he had not made a mistake?—what then? How could Jacob Herapath be lying dead in his office at Kensington and nibbling at a sandwich in Portman Square at one and the same hour? Clearly there was something wrong, something deeply mysterious, something–
At that point of his surmisings and questionings Selwood heard himself called by Barthorpe Herapath, and he turned to see that gentleman standing in the hall dangling a bunch of keys, which Selwood instantly recognized.
“We have just found these keys,” said Barthorpe. “You remember the inspector said he found no keys in my uncle’s pockets? We found these pushed away under some loose papers on the desk. It looks as if he’d put them on the desk when he sat down, and had displaced them when he fell out of his chair. Of course, they’re his—perhaps you recognize them?”
“Yes,” answered Selwood, abruptly. “They’re his.”
“I want you to come with me while I open his private safe,” continued Barthorpe. “At junctures like these there are always things that have got to be done. Now, did you ever hear my uncle speak of his will—whether he’d made one, and, if so, where he’d put it? Hear anything?”
“Nothing,” replied Selwood. “I never heard him mention such a thing.”
“Well, between ourselves,” said Barthorpe, “neither did I. I’ve done all his legal work for him for a great many years—ever since I began to practice, in fact—and so far as I know, he never made a will. More than once I’ve suggested that he should make one, but like most men who are in good health and spirits, he always put it off. However, we must look over his papers both here and at Portman Square.”
Selwood made no comment. He silently followed Barthorpe into the private room in which his late employer had so strangely met his death. The body had been removed by that time, and everything bore its usual aspect, save for the presence of the police inspector and the detective, who were peering about them in the mysterious fashion associated with their calling. The inspector was looking narrowly at the fastenings of the two windows and apparently debating the chances of entrance and exit from them; the detective, armed with a magnifying glass, was examining the edges of the door, the smooth backs of chairs, even the surface of the desk, presumably for finger-marks.
“I shan’t disturb you,” said Barthorpe, genially. “Mr. Selwood and I merely wish to investigate the contents of this safe. There’s no likelihood of finding what I’m particularly looking for in any of his drawers in that desk,” he continued, turning to Selwood. “I knew enough of his habits to know that anything that’s in there will be of a purely business nature—referring to the estate. If he did keep anything that’s personal here, it’ll be in that safe. Now, which is the key? Do you know?”
He handed the bunch of keys to Selwood. And Selwood, who was feeling strangely apathetic about the present proceedings, took them mechanically and glanced carelessly at them. Then he started.
“There’s a key missing!” he exclaimed, suddenly waking into interest. “I know these keys well enough—Mr. Herapath was constantly handing them to me. There ought to be six keys here—the key of this safe, the key of the safe at Portman Square, the latch-key for this office, the key of this room, the latch-key of the house, and a key of a safe at the Alpha Safe Deposit place. That one—the Safe Deposit key—is missing.”
Barthorpe knitted his forehead, and the two police officials paused in their tasks and drew near the desk at which Selwood was standing.
“Are you certain of that?” asked Barthorpe.
“Sure!” answered Selwood. “As I say, I’ve been handling these keys every day since I came to Mr. Herapath.”
“When did you handle them last?”
“Yesterday afternoon: not so very long before Mr. Herapath went down to the House. That was in Portman Square. He gave them to me to get some papers out of the safe there.”
“Was that Safe Deposit key there at that time?”
“They were all there—all six. I’m certain of it,” asserted Selwood. “This is the key of this safe,” he went on, selecting one.
“Open the safe, then,” said Barthorpe. “Another safe at the Alpha, eh?” he continued, musingly. “I never knew he had a safe there. Did you ever know him to use it?”
“I’ve been to it myself,” answered Selwood. “I took some documents there and deposited them, two days ago. There’s not very much in this safe,” he went on, throwing open the door. “It’s not long since I tidied it out—at his request. So far as I know, there are no private papers of any note there. He never made much use of this safe—in my presence, at any rate.”
“Well, we’ll see what there is, anyhow,” remarked Barthorpe. He began to examine the contents of the safe methodically, taking the various papers and documents out one by one and laying them in order on a small table which Selwood wheeled up to his side. Within twenty minutes he had gone through everything, and he began to put the papers back.
“No will there,” he murmured. “We’ll go on to Portman Square now, Mr. Selwood. After all, it’s much more likely that he’d keep his will in the safe at his own house—if he made one. But I don’t believe he ever made a will.”
Mr. Tertius and Peggie Wynne were still in the study when Barthorpe and Selwood drove up to the house. The driver of the taxi-cab had just gone away, and Mr. Tertius was discussing his information with Peggie. Hearing Barthorpe’s voice in the hall he gave her a warning glance.
“Quick!” he said hurriedly. “Attend to what I say! Not a word to your cousin about the man who has just left us. At present I don’t want Mr. Barthorpe Herapath to know what he told us. Be careful, my dear—not a word! I’ll tell you why later on—but at present, silence—strict silence!”
Barthorpe Herapath came bustling into the room, followed by Selwood, who, as it seemed to Peggie, looked utterly unwilling for whatever task might lay before him. At sight of Mr. Tertius, Barthorpe came to a sudden halt and frowned.
“I don’t want to discuss matters further, Mr. Tertius,” he said coldly. “I thought I had given you a hint already. My cousin and I have private matters to attend to, and I shall be obliged if you’ll withdraw. You’ve got private rooms of your own in this house, I believe—at any rate, until things are settled—and it will be best if you keep to them.”
Mr. Tertius, who had listened to this unmoved, turned to Peggie.
“Do you wish me to go away?” he asked quietly.
Barthorpe turned on him with an angry scowl.
“It’s not a question of what Miss Wynne wishes, but of what I order,” he burst out. “If you’ve any sense of fitness, you’ll know that until my uncle’s will is found and his wishes ascertained I’m master here, Mr. Tertius, and–”
“You’re not my master, Barthorpe,” exclaimed Peggie, with a sudden flash of spirit. “I know what my uncle’s wishes were as regards Mr. Tertius, and I intend to respect them. I’ve always been mistress of this house since my uncle brought me to it, and I intend to be until I find I’ve no right to be. Mr. Tertius, you’ll please to stop where you are!”
“I intend to,” said Mr. Tertius, calmly. “I never had any other intention. Mr. Barthorpe Herapath, I believe, will hardly use force to compel me to leave the room.”
Barthorpe bit his lips as he glanced from one to the other.
“Oh!” he said. “So that’s how things are? Very good, Mr. Tertius. No, I shan’t use physical force. But mind I don’t use a little moral force—a slight modicum of that would be enough for you, I’m thinking!”
“Do I understand that you are using threatening language to me?” asked Mr. Tertius, mildly.
Barthorpe sneered, and turned to Selwood.
“We’ll open this safe now,” he said. “You know which is the key, I suppose,” he went on, glaring at Peggie, who had retreated to the hearthrug and was evidently considerably put out by her cousin’s behaviour. “I suppose you never heard my uncle mention a will? We’ve searched his private safe at the office and there’s nothing there. Personally, I don’t believe he ever made a will—I never heard of it. And I think he’d have told me if—”
Mr. Tertius broke in upon Barthorpe’s opinions with a dry cough.
“It may save some unnecessary trouble if I speak at this juncture,” he said. “There is a will.”
Barthorpe’s ruddy cheeks paled in spite of his determined effort to appear unconcerned. He twisted round on Mr. Tertius with a startled eye and twitching lips.
“You—you say there is a will!” he exclaimed. “You say—what do you know about it?”
“When it was made, where it was made, where it now is,” answered Mr. Tertius.
“Where it now is!” repeated Barthorpe. “Where it now—is! And where is it, I should like to know?”
Mr. Tertius, who had gone up to Peggie, laid his hand reassuringly on her arm.
“Don’t be afraid, my dear,” he whispered. “Perhaps,” he continued, glancing at Barthorpe, “I had better tell you when and where it was made. About six months ago—in this room. One day Mr. Herapath called me in here. He had his then secretary, Mr. Burchill, with him. He took a document out of a drawer, told us that it was his will, signed it in our joint presence, and we witnessed his signature in each other’s presence. He then placed the will in an envelope, which he sealed. I do not know the terms of the will—but I know where the will is.”
Barthorpe’s voice sounded strangely husky as he got out one word:
“Where?”
Mr. Tertius took Peggie by the elbow and led her across the room to a recess in which stood an ancient oak bureau.
“This old desk,” he said, “belonged, so he always told me, to Jacob’s great-grandfather. There is a secret drawer in it. Here it is—concealed behind another drawer. You put this drawer out—so—and here is the secret one. And here—where I saw Jacob Herapath put it—is the will.”
Barthorpe, who had followed these proceedings with almost irrepressible eagerness, thrust forward a shaking hand. But Mr. Tertius quietly handed the sealed envelope to Peggie.
“This envelope,” he remarked, “is addressed to Miss Wynne.”
Barthorpe made an effort and controlled himself.
“Open it!” he said hoarsely. “Open it!”
Peggie fumbled with the seal of the envelope and then, with a sudden impulse, passed it to Selwood.
“Mr. Selwood!” she exclaimed imploringly. “You—I can’t. You open it, and—”
“And let him read it,” added Mr. Tertius.
Selwood, whose nerves had been strung to a high pitch of excitement by this scene, hastily slit open the envelope, and drew out a folded sheet of foolscap paper. He saw at a glance that there was very little to read. His voice trembled slightly as he began a recital of the contents.
“‘This is the last will of me, Jacob Herapath, of 500, Portman Square, London, in the County of Middlesex. I give, devise, and bequeath everything of which I die possessed, whether in real or personal estate, absolutely to my niece, Margaret Wynne, now resident with me at the above address, and I appoint the said Margaret Wynne the sole executor of this my will. And I revoke all former wills and codicils. Dated this eighteenth day of April, 1912.
“‘Jacob Herapath.’”
Selwood paused there, and a sudden silence fell—to be as suddenly broken by a sharp question from Barthorpe.
“The Witnesses?” he said. “The witnesses!”
Selwood glanced at the further paragraph which he had not thought it necessary to read.
“Oh, yes!” he said. “It’s witnessed all right.” And he went on reading.
“‘Signed by the testator in the presence of us both present at the same time who in his presence and in the presence of each other have hereunto set our names as witnesses.
“‘John Christopher Tertius, of 500, Portman Square, London: Gentleman.“‘Frank Burchill, of 331, Upper Seymour Street, London: Secretary.’”
As Selwood finished, he handed the will to Peggie, who in her turn hastily gave it to Mr. Tertius. For a moment nobody spoke. Then Barthorpe made a step forward.
“Let me see that!” he said, in a strangely quiet voice. “I don’t want to handle it—hold it up!”
For another moment he stood gazing steadily, intently, at the signatures at the foot of the document. Then, without a word or look, he twisted sharply on his heel, and walked swiftly out of the room and the house.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SECOND WITNESS
If any close observer had walked away with Barthorpe Herapath from the house in Portman Square and had watched his face and noted his manner, that observer would have said that his companion looked like a man who was either lost in a profound day-dream or had just received a shock that had temporarily deprived him of all but the mechanical faculties. And in point of strict fact, Barthorpe was both stunned by the news he had just received and plunged into deep speculation by a certain feature of it. He hurried along, scarcely knowing where he was going—but he was thinking all the same. And suddenly he pulled himself up and found that he had turned down Portman Street and was already in the thick of Oxford Street’s busy crowds. A passer-by into whom he jostled in his absent-mindedness snarled angrily, bidding him look where he was going—that pulled Barthorpe together and he collected his wits, asking himself what he wanted. The first thing that met his gaze on this recovery was a little Italian restaurant and he straightway made for the door.
“This is what I want,” he muttered. “Some place in which to sit down and think calmly.”
He slipped into a quiet corner as soon as he had entered the restaurant, summoned a waiter with a glance, and for a moment concentrated his attention on the bill of fare which the man put before him. That slight mental exercise restored him; when the waiter had taken his simple order and gone away, Barthorpe was fully himself again. And finding himself in as satisfactory a state of privacy as he could desire, with none to overlook or spy on him, he drew from an inner pocket a letter-case which he had taken from Jacob Herapath’s private safe at the estate office and into which he had cast a hurried glance before leaving Kensington for Portman Square.
From this letter-case he now drew a letter, and as he unfolded it he muttered a word or two.
“Frank Burchill, 331, Upper Seymour Street,” he said. “Um—but not Upper Seymour Street any longer, I think. Now let’s see what it all is—what it all means I’ve got to find out.”
The sheet of paper which he was handling was of the sort used by typists, but the letter itself was written by hand, and Barthorpe recognized the penmanship as that of his uncle’s ex-secretary, Burchill, second witness to the will which had just been exhibited to him. Then he read, slowly and carefully, what Burchill had written to Jacob Herapath—written, evidently, only a few days previously. For there was the date, plain enough.
“35c, Calengrove Mansions,
“Maida Vale, W.
“November 11th, 19—.
“Dear Sir,
“I don’t know that I am particularly surprised that you have up to now entirely ignored my letters of the 1st and the 5th instant. You probably think that I am not a person about whom any one need take much trouble; a mean cur, perhaps, who can do no more than snap at a mastiff’s heels. I am very well aware (having had the benefit of a year’s experience of your character and temperament) that you have very little respect for unmoneyed people and are contemptuous of their ability to interfere with the moneyed. But in that matter you are mistaken. And to put matters plainly, it will pay you far better to keep me a friend than to transform me into an enemy. Therefore I ask you to consider well and deeply the next sentence of this letter—which I will underline.
“I am in full possession of the secret which you have taken such vast pains to keep for fifteen years.
“I think you are quite competent to read my meaning, and I now confidently expect to hear that you will take pleasure in obliging me in the way which I indicated to you in my previous letters.
“Yours faithfully,“Frank Burchill.”
Barthorpe read this communication three times, pausing over every sentence, seeking to read the meanings, the implications, the subtly veiled threat. When he folded the square sheet and replaced it in the letter-case he half spoke one word:
“Blackmail!”
Then, staring in apparent idleness about the little restaurant, with its gilt-framed mirrors, its red, plush-covered seats, its suggestion of foreign atmosphere and custom, he idly drummed the tips of his fingers on the table, and thought. Naturally, he thought of the writer of the letter. Of course, he said to himself, of course he knew Burchill. Burchill had been Jacob Herapath’s private secretary for rather more than a year, and it was now about six months since Jacob had got rid of him. He, Barthorpe, remembered very well why Jacob had quietly dismissed Burchill. One day Jacob had said to him, with a dry chuckle:
“I’m getting rid of that secretary of mine—it won’t do.”
“What won’t do?” Barthorpe had asked.
“He’s beginning to make eyes at Peggie,” Jacob had answered with another chuckle, “and though Peggie’s a girl of sense, that fellow’s too good looking to have about a house. I never ought to have had him. However—he goes.”
Barthorpe, as he ate the cutlets and sipped the half-bottle of claret which the waiter presently brought him, speculated on these facts and memories. He was not very sure about Burchill’s antecedents: he believed he was a young man of good credentials and high respectability—personally, he had always wondered why old Jacob Herapath, a practical business man, should have taken as a private secretary a fellow who looked, dressed, spoke, and behaved like a play-actor. As it all came within the scope of things he mused on Burchill and his personal appearance, calling up the ex-secretary’s graceful and slender figure, his oval, olive-tinted face, his large, dark, lustrous eyes, his dark, curling hair, his somewhat affected dress, his tall, wide-brimmed hats, his taper fingers, his big, wide-ended cravats. It had once amused Barthorpe—and many other people—to see Jacob Herapath and his secretary together; nevertheless, Jacob had always spoken of Burchill as being thoroughly capable, painstaking, thorough and diligent. His airs and graces Jacob put down as a young man’s affectations—yet there came the time when they suited Jacob no longer.
“I catch him talking too much to Peggie,” he had added, in that conversation of which Barthorpe was thinking. “Better get rid of him before they pass the too-much stage.”
So Burchill had gone, and Barthorpe had heard no more of him until now. But what he had heard now was a revelation. Burchill had witnessed a will of Jacob Herapath’s, which, if good and valid and the only will in existence, would leave him, Barthorpe, a ruined man. Burchill had written a letter to Jacob Herapath asking for some favour, reward, compensation, as the price of his silence about a secret. What secret? Barthorpe could not even guess at it—but Burchill had said, evidently knowing what he was talking about, that Jacob Herapath had taken vast pains to keep it for fifteen years.
By the time Barthorpe had finished his lunch he had come to the conclusion that there was only one thing for him to do. He must go straight to Calengrove Mansions and interview Mr. Frank Burchill. In one way or another he must make sure of him, or, rather—though it was really the same thing—sure of what he could tell. And on the way there he would make sure of something else—in order to do which he presently commissioned a taxi-cab and bade its driver go first to 331, Upper Seymour Street.
The domestic who answered Barthorpe’s double knock at that house shook her head when he designedly asked for Mr. Frank Burchill. Nobody of that name, she said. But on being assured that there once had been a lodger of that name in residence there, she observed that she would fetch her mistress, and disappeared to return with an elderly lady who also shook her head at sight of the caller.
“Mr. Burchill left here some time ago,” she said. “Nearly six months. I don’t know where he is.”
“Did he leave no address to which his letters were to be sent?” asked Barthorpe, affecting surprise.
“He said there’d be no letters coming—and there haven’t been,” answered the landlady. “And I’ve neither seen nor heard of him since he went.”
Something in her manner suggested to Barthorpe that she had no desire to renew acquaintance with her former lodger. This sent Barthorpe away well satisfied. It was precisely what he wanted. The three people whom he had left in Portman Square in all probability knew no other address than this at which to seek for Burchill when he was wanted; they would seek him there eventually and get no news. Luckily for himself, Barthorpe knew where he was to be found, and he went straight off up Edgware Road to find him.
Calengrove Mansions proved to be a new block of flats in the dip of Maida Vale; 35c was a top flat in a wing which up to that stage of its existence did not appear to be much sought after by would-be tenants. It was some time before Barthorpe succeeded in getting an answer to his ring and knock; when at last the door was opened Burchill himself looked out upon him, yawning, and in a dressing-gown. And narrowly and searchingly as Barthorpe glanced at Burchill he could not see a trace of unusual surprise or embarrassment in his face. He looked just as any man might look who receives an unexpected caller.
“Oh!” he said. “Mr. Barthorpe Herapath! Come in—do. I’m a bit late—a good bit late, in fact. You see, I’m doing dramatic criticism now, and there was an important première last night at the Hyperion, and I had to do a full column, and so—but that doesn’t interest you. Come in, pray.”
He led the way into a small sitting-room, drew forward an easy-chair, and reaching down a box of cigarettes from the mantelpiece offered its contents to his visitor. Barthorpe, secretly wondering if all this unconcerned behaviour was natural or merely a bit of acting, took a cigarette and dropped into the chair.
“I don’t suppose you thought of seeing me when you opened your door, Burchill?” he remarked good-humouredly, as he took the match which his host had struck for him. “Last man in the world you thought of seeing, eh?”
Burchill calmly lighted a cigarette for himself before he answered.
“Well,” he said at last, “I don’t know—you never know who’s going to turn up. But to be candid, I didn’t expect to see you, and I don’t know why you’ve come.”
Barthorpe slowly produced the letter-case from his pocket, took Burchill’s letter from it, and held it before him.
“That’s what brought me here,” he said significantly. “That! Of course, you recognize it.”
Burchill glanced at the letter without turning a hair. If he was merely acting, thought Barthorpe, he was doing it splendidly, and instead of writing dramatic criticism he ought to put on the sock and buskins himself. But somehow he began to believe that Burchill was not acting. And he was presently sure of it when Burchill laughed—contemptuously.
“Oh!” said Burchill. “Ah! So Mr. Jacob Herapath employs legal assistance—your assistance—in answering me? Foolish—foolish! Or, since that is, perhaps, too strong a word—indiscreet. Indiscreet—and unnecessary. Say so, pray, to Mr. Jacob Herapath.”
Barthorpe remained silent a moment; then he put the letter back in the case and gave Burchill a sharp steady look.
“Good gracious, man!” he said quietly. “Are you pretending? Or—haven’t you heard? Say—that—to Jacob Herapath? Jacob Herapath is dead!”
Burchill certainly started at that. What was more he dropped his cigarette, and when he straightened himself from picking it up his face was flushed a little.
“Upon my honour!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know. Dead! When? It must have been sudden.”
“Sudden!” said Barthorpe. “Sudden? He was murdered!”
There was no doubt that this surprised Burchill. At any rate, he showed all the genuine signs of surprise. He stood staring at Barthorpe for a full minute of silence, and when he spoke his voice had lost something of its usual affectation.
“Murdered?” he said. “Murdered! Are you sure of that? You are? Good heavens!—no, I’ve heard nothing. But I’ve not been out since two o’clock this morning, so how could I hear? Murdered–” he broke off sharply and stared at his visitor. “And you came to me—why?”
“I came to ask you if you remember witnessing my uncle’s will,” replied Barthorpe promptly. “Give me a plain answer. Do you remember?”
