Kitabı oku: «The Middle of Things», sayfa 9
CHAPTER XVII
THE CLAIMANT
Carless and Driver practised their profession of the law in one of the old houses on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields—a house so old that it immediately turned Viner's thought to what he had read of the days wherein Inigo Jones exercised his art up the stately frontages, and duels were fought in the gardens which London children now sport in. In one of these houses lived Blackstone; in another Erskine; one ancient roof once sheltered John Milton; another heard the laughter of Nell Gwynn; up the panelled staircase which Mr. Pawle and his companion were presently conducted, the feet of many generations had trod. And the room into which they were duly conducted was so old-world in appearance with its oaken walls and carving and old-fashioned furniture that nothing but the fact that its occupants wore twentieth century garments would have convinced Viner that he had not been suddenly thrown back to the days of Queen Anne.
Lord Ellingham was already there when they arrived—in conference with his solicitor, Mr. Carless, a plump, rosy, active gentleman who wore mutton-chop whiskers and—secretly—prided himself on his likeness to the type of fox-hunting squire. It was very evident to Viner that both solicitor and client were in a state of expectancy bordering on something very like excitement; and Mr. Carless, the preliminary greetings being over, plunged at once into the subject.
"I say, Pawle," he exclaimed, turning at once to his fellow-practitioner, "this appears to be a most extraordinary business! His lordship has just been telling me all about the two calls he had yesterday—first from two men whom he'd never seen before—then from you two, who were also strangers. He has also told me what both lots of his callers had to say, and hang me if I ever heard of two such curious unfoldings coming one on top of the other. Sounds like a first-class mystery!"
"You forget," remarked Mr. Pawle with a glance at Lord Ellingham, "that we don't know—Mr. Viner and myself—what it was that his lordship's first couple of callers told him. He left that until today."
Mr. Carless looked at his client, who nodded his head as if in assent to something in the glance.
"Well, as I'm now in possession of the facts," said he, "I'll tell you, Pawle—His Lordship has given me a clear account of what his first callers said, and what you and Mr. Viner added to it. The two men whom you saw coming away from Ellingham House were Methley and Woodlesford, two solicitors who are in partnership in Edgware Road—I know of them: I think we've had conveyancing business with them once or twice. Quite a respectable firm—in a smallish way, you know, but all right so far as I know anything of them. Now, they came to Lord Ellingham yesterday afternoon with a most extraordinary story. His lordship tells me that he learned from your talk with him yesterday afternoon that you are pretty well acquainted, you and Mr. Viner, with his family history, so I'll go straight to the point. What do you think Methley and Woodlesford came to tell him? You'd never guess!"
"I won't try!" answered Mr. Pawle. "What, then?"
Mr. Carless smiled grimly.
"That the long-lost Lord Marketstoke was alive and in England!" he said. "Here, in fact, in London!"
Mr. Pawle smiled too. But his smile was not grim—it was, rather, the smile of a man who hears what he has been expecting to hear.
"I thought it would be something of that sort!" he exclaimed. "Aye, I fancied that would be the game!"
"You think it a game?" suggested Mr. Carless.
"And a highly dangerous one—as somebody will find out," responded Mr. Pawle. "But—what did these fellows really say!"
"His lordship will correct me if I miss anything pertinent," answered Mr. Carless with a glance at his client. "They said this—that they had been called upon by a gentleman now staying at one of the private residential hotels in Lancaster Gate, who was desirous of legal assistance in an important matter and had been recommended to them by a fellow-boarder at the hotel. He then told them that though he was now passing under the name of Cave—"
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle, with a snort which denoted a certain sort of surprised satisfaction. "Ah, to be sure! Cave, of course! But I interrupt you—pray proceed."
"I see your point," remarked Mr. Carless with a smile. "Well—although he was passing under the name of Cave, he was, in strict reality, the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared from England many years ago, who was never heard of again, and whose death had been presumed. He was, therefore, the rightful Earl of Ellingham, and as such entitled to the estates. He proceeded to tell Methley and Woodlesford his adventures.
"He had, he said, never at any time from boyhood been on good terms with his father: there had always been mutual dislike. As he grew to manhood, his father had thwarted him in every conceivable way. He himself as a young man, had developed radical and democratic ideas—this had caused a further widening of the breach. Eventually he had made up his mind to clear out of England altogether. He had a modest amount of money of his own, a few thousands which had been left him by his mother. So he took this and quietly disappeared.
"According to his own account he became a good deal of a rolling stone, going to various out-of-the-way parts of the earth, and taking particular pains, wherever he went, to conceal his identity. He told these people Methley and Woodlesford, that he had at one time or another lived and traded in South Africa, India, China, Japan and the Malay Settlement—finally he had settled down in Australia. He had kept himself familiar with events at home—knew of his father's death, and he saw no end of advertisements for himself. He was aware that legal proceedings were taken as regards the presumption of his death and the administration of the estates; he was also aware of the death of his younger brother and that title and estates were now in possession of his nephew—His Lordship there. In fact, he was very well up in the whole story, according to Methley and Woodlesford," said Mr. Carless, with a smile. "And Lord Ellingham believed that Methley and Woodlesford were genuinely convinced by him."
"Seemed so, anyway, both of 'em," agreed Lord Ellingham.
"However," continued Mr. Carless, "Methley and Woodlesford, like you and I, Pawle, are limbs of the law. They asked two very pertinent questions. First—why had he come forward after this long interval? Second—what evidence had he to support and prove his claim?"
"Good!" muttered Mr. Pawle. "And I'll be bound he had some excellent replies ready for them."
"He had," said Mr. Carless. "He answered as regards the first question that of late things had not gone well with him. He was still comfortably off, but he had lost a lot of money in Australia through speculation. He replied to the second by producing certain papers and documents."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle, nudging Viner. "Now we're warming to it!"
"And according to what Methley and Woodlesford told Lord Ellingham," continued Mr. Carless, "these papers and documents are of a very convincing nature. They said to His Lordship frankly that they were greatly surprised by them. They had thought that this man might possibly be a bogus claimant, who had somehow gained a thorough knowledge of the facts he was narrating, but the papers he produced, which, he alleged, had never been out of his possession since his secret flight from London, were—well, staggering. After inspecting them, Methley and Woodlesford came to the conclusion that their caller really was what he claimed to be—the missing man!"
"What were the papers?" demanded Mr. Pawle.
"Oh!" replied Mr. Carless, looking at his client. "Letters, certificates, and the like,—all, according to Methley and Woodlesford, excellent proofs of identity."
"Did they show them to Your Lordship?" asked Mr. Pawle.
"Oh, no! they only told me of them," answered Lord Ellingham. "They said, of course, that they would be shown to me, or to Mr. Carless."
"Aye!" muttered Mr. Pawle. "Just so! Yes, and they will have to be shown!"
"That follows as a matter of course," observed Mr. Carless. "But now, Pawle, we come to the real point of the case. Methley and Woodlesford, having informed His Lordship of all this when they called on him yesterday afternoon then proceeded to tell him precisely what their client, the claimant, as we will now call him, really wanted, for he had been at some pains, considerable pains, to make himself clear on that point to them, and he desired them to make themselves clear to Lord Ellingham, whom he throughout referred to as his nephew. He had no desire, he told them, to recover his title, nor the estates. He did not care a cent—his own phrase—for the title. He was now sixty years of age. The life he had lived had quite unfitted him for the positions and duties of an English nobleman. He wanted to go back to the country in which he had settled. But as title and estates really were his, he wanted his nephew, the present holder, to make him a proper payment, in consideration of the receipt of which he would engage to preserve the silence which he had already kept so thoroughly and effectively for thirty-five years. Eh?"
"In plain language," said Mr. Pawle, "he wanted to be bought."
"Precisely!" agreed Mr. Carless. "Of course, Methley and Woodlesford didn't quite put it in that light. They put it that their client had no wish to disturb his nephew, but suggested, kindly, that his nephew should make him a proper payment out of his abundance."
Mr. Pawle turned to Lord Ellingham.
"Did they mention a sum to Your Lordship?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Lord Ellingham, with a smile at Carless. "They did—tentatively."
"How much?" asked Mr. Pawle.
"One hundred thousand pounds!"
"On receipt of which, I suppose," observed Mr. Pawle dryly, "nothing would ever be heard again of your lordship's long-lost uncle, the rightful owner of all that Your Lordship possesses?"
Lord Ellingham laughed.
"So I gathered!" he answered.
"I wish I'd been present when Methley and Woodlesford put forward that proposition," exclaimed the old lawyer. "Did they seem serious?"
"Oh, I think they were quite serious," replied Lord Ellingham. "They seemed so; they spoke of it as what they called a domestic arrangement."
"Excellent phrase!" remarked Mr. Pawle. "And what said your lordship to their—or the claimant's proposition?"
"I told them that the matter was so serious that they and I must see my solicitors about it," answered Lord Ellingham, "and I arranged to meet them here at one o'clock today. They quite agreed that that was the proper thing to do, and went away. Then—you and Mr. Viner called."
"With, I understand, another extraordinary story," remarked Mr. Carless. "The particulars of which His Lordship has also told me. Now, Pawle, what do you really say about all this?"
Mr. Pawle smote his clenched right fist on the palm of his open left hand.
"I will tell you what I say, Carless!" he exclaimed with emphasis. "I say that whatever the papers and documents were which were produced by this man to Methley and Woodlesford, they were stolen from the body of John Ashton, who was foully murdered in Lonsdale Passage only last week. I'll stake all I have on that! Now, then, did this claimant steal them? Did he murder John Ashton for them? No—a thousand times no, for no man would have been such a fool as to come forward with them so soon after his victim's death! This claimant doesn't know how or where or when they were obtained—he doesn't suspect that murder's in it. Now, then—where did he get them? Who's at the back of him? Who—to be plain—who's making a cat's-paw of him? Find that out, and we shall know who murdered John Ashton!"
Viner, glancing at Lord Ellingham and at Mr. Carless, saw that Mr. Pawle's words had impressed them greatly, the solicitor especially. He nodded sympathetically, and Mr. Pawle went on speaking.
"Listen here, Carless!" he continued. "Mr. Viner and I have been investigating this case as far as we could, largely to save a man whom we both believe to be absolutely innocent of murder. I have come to certain conclusions. John Ashton, many years ago, fell in with the missing Lord Marketstoke, then living under the name of Wickham, in Australia, and they became close friends. At some time or other, Wickham told Ashton the real truth about himself, and when he died, left his little daughter—"
Carless looked sharply round.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "So there's a daughter?"
"There is a daughter, and her name is Avice—a name borne by a good many women of the Cave-Gray family," answered Mr. Pawle with a significant glance at his fellow-practitioner. "But let me go on: Wickham left his daughter, her mother being dead, in Ashton's guardianship. She was then about six years of age. Ashton sent her to school here in England. About twelve or thirteen years later, he came home and settled in Markendale Square. He brought Avice Wickham to live with him. He handed over to her a considerable sum, which, he said, her father had left in his hands for her. And then, secretly, Ashton went down to Marketstoke and evidently made certain inquiries and investigations. Whether he was going to reveal the truth as to what I have just told you, we don't know—probably he was. But he was murdered, and we all know when and where. And I say he was murdered for the sake of these very papers which we now know were produced to Methley and Woodlesford by this claimant. Now, then—"
Mr. Carless suddenly bent forward.
"A moment, Pawle!" he said. "If this man Wickham really was the lost Lord Marketstoke, and he's dead, and he left a daughter, and the daughter's alive—"
"Well?" demanded Mr. Pawle. "Well?"
"Why, then, of course, that daughter," said Mr. Carless slowly, "that daughter is—"
A clerk opened the door and glanced at his employer.
"Mr. Methley and Mr. Woodlesford, sir," he announced. "By appointment."
CHAPTER XVIII
LET HIM APPEAR!
The meeting between the solicitors suggested to Viner and to Lord Ellingham, who looked on curiously while they exchanged formal greetings and explanations, a certain solemnity—each of them seemed to imply in look and manner that this was an unusually grave occasion. And Mr. Carless, assuming the direction of things, became almost judicial in his deportment.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, when they had all gathered about his desk. "Lord Ellingham has informed me of what passed between you and himself at his house yesterday. In plain language, the client whom you represent claims to be the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared so completely many years ago, and therefore the rightful Earl of Ellingham. Now, a first question—do you, as his legal advisers, believe in his claim?"
"Judging by the proofs with which he has furnished us, yes," answered Methley. "There seems to be no doubt of it."
"We'll ask for these proofs presently," remarked Mr. Carless. "But now a further question: Your client—whom we'll now call the claimant—had, I understand, no desire to take up his rightful position, and suggests that the secret shall remain a secret, and that he shall be paid a hundred thousand pounds to hold his tongue?"
"If you put it that way—yes," replied Methley.
"I don't know in what other way it could be put," said Mr. Carless grimly. "It's the plain truth. But now, if Lord Ellingham refuses that offer, does your client intend to commence proceedings?"
"Our instructions are—yes," answered Methley.
"Very good," said Mr. Carless. "Now, then—what are these proofs?"
Methley turned to his partner, who immediately thrust a hand in his breastpocket and produced a long envelope.
"I have them here," said Woodlesford. "Our client intrusted them to us so that we might show them to Lord Ellingham, if necessary. There are not many documents—they all relate to the period of our client's life before he left England. There are one or two important letters from his father, the seventh Earl, two or three from his mother; there is also his mother's will. There is one letter from his younger brother, to whom he had evidently, more than once, announced his determination of leaving home for a considerable time. There are two letters from your own firm, relating to some property which Lord Marketstoke disposed of before he left London. There is a schedule or memorandum of certain personal effects which he left in his rooms at Ellingham Hall: there is also a receipt from his bankers for a quantity of plate and jewellery which he had deposited with them before leaving—these things had been left him by his mother. There are also two documents which he seems to have considered it worth while to preserve all these years," concluded Woodlesford with a smile. "One is a letter informing him that he had been elected a member of the M.C.C.; the other is his commission as a justice of the peace for the county of Buckinghamshire."
As he detailed these things, Woodlesford laid each specified paper before Mr. Carless, and then they all gathered round, and examined each exhibit. The various documents were somewhat faded with age, and the edges of some were worn as if from long folding and keeping in a pocketbook. Mr. Carless hastily ran his eye over them.
"Very interesting, gentlemen," he remarked. "But you know, as well as I do, that these things don't prove your client to be the missing Lord Marketstoke. A judge and jury would want a lot more evidence than that. The mere fact that your man is in possession of all these documents proves nothing whatever. He may have stolen them!"
"From what we have seen of our client, Mr. Carless," observed Methley, with some stiffness of manner, "there is no need for such a suggestion."
"I dare say we shall all see a good deal of your client before this matter is settled, Mr. Methley," retorted Mr. Carless. "And even when I have seen a lot of him, I should still say the same—he may have stolen them! What else has he to prove that he's what he says he is?"
"He is fully conversant with his family history," said Woodlesford. "He can give a perfectly full and—so far as we can judge—accurate account of his early life and of his subsequent doings. He evidently knows all about Ellingham Hall, Marketstoke and the surroundings. I think if you were to examine him on these points, you would find that his memory is surprisingly fresh."
"I have no doubt that it will come to his being examined on a great many points and in much detail," said Mr. Carless with a dry smile. "Of course, I shall be much interested in seeing him. You see, I remember the missing Lord Marketstoke very well indeed—he was often in here when I, as a lad of nineteen or twenty, was articled to my own father. And now, gentlemen, I'll ask you a question and commend it to your intelligence and common sense: if your client is this man he claims to be, why didn't he come straight to Carless and Driver, whom he would remember well enough, instead of going to Methley and Woodlesford? Come, now?"
Neither visitor answered this question, and Mr. Pawle suddenly turned on them with another.
"Did your client mention to you that he knew Carless and Driver as the family solicitors?" he asked.
"No, I can't say that he did," admitted Methley. "After all, thirty-five years' absence, you know—"
"You said just now that his memory was surprisingly fresh," interrupted Mr. Pawle.
"Surely," replied Woodlesford, "surely you can't expect a man who has been away from England all that time to remember everything!"
"I should have expected Lord Marketstoke to have gone straight to the family solicitors, anyway," retorted Mr. Pawle. "Obvious thing to do—if his story is a true one."
Woodlesford glanced at his partner, and repossessing himself of the documents, began to arrange them in the envelope from which he had drawn them.
"We cannot, of course, say positively who our client is or who he is not," he said. "All we can say is that he came to us with an introduction from an old client of ours whom we knew very well, and that his story seems to us to be quite credible. No doubt he can bring further proof. That he did not come here in the first instance—"
"I'll tell you why I, personally, am very much surprised that he didn't," interrupted Mr. Carless. "You told Lord Ellingham yesterday that your client saw no end of advertisements for him at the time of his father's death. Now, we, Carless and Driver, sent out those advertisements—our name was appended to every one of them, wherever they appeared. Why, then, when this man—if he is the real man—returned home, did he not come to us? For there are three persons in this office who—but wait!"
He touched a bell; the clerk who had announced Methley and Woodlesford put his head in at the door.
"Ask Mr. Portlethwaite to come here," commanded Mr. Carless. "And just find out if Mr. Driver is in his room. Portlethwaite can tell me when he comes."
An elderly, grey-haired man presently appeared and closed the door behind him as if aware of the sacred nature of the proceedings.
"Mr. Driver is out, Mr. Carless," he said. "You wanted me, I think?"
"Our senior clerk," observed Mr. Carless, by way of introduction. "Portlethwaite, you remember the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared some thirty-five years ago?"
Mr. Portlethwaite smiled.
"Quite well, Mr. Carless!" he answered. "As if it were yesterday. He used to come here a good deal, you know."
"Do you think you'd know him again, Portlethwaite, after all these years?" asked Mr. Carless. "Thirty-five years, mind!"
The elderly clerk smiled—more assuredly than before. Then he looked significantly at a corner of the room, and Mr. Carless took the hint, and rising from his chair, went aside with him. Portlethwaite whispered something in his employer's ear, and Carless suddenly laughed and nodded.
"To be sure—to be sure—I remember now!" he said aloud. "Thank you, Portlethwaite: that's all. Well, gentlemen," he continued, returning to his desk when the clerk had gone. "I think the best thing you can do is to bring your client here—if he is the real and genuine article, he will, I am sure, be very glad indeed to meet three persons who knew him quite intimately in the old days—Mr. Driver, Mr. Portlethwaite and myself. And I really don't know that there's any more to do or say."
The two visitors rose, and Methley looked at Mr. Carless in a questioning fashion.
"Am I to go away with the impression that you believe our client to be an impostor?" he said quietly.
"Frankly I do!" answered Mr. Carless.
"So do I!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "Emphatically so!"
"In that case," said Methley, "I see no advantage in bringing him here."
"Not even anything to your own advantage?" suggested Mr. Carless, with a keen glance which passed from one partner to the other. "You, as reputable practitioners of our profession, don't want to be mixed up with an impostor?"
"We should be very sorry to be mixed up in any way with an impostor, Mr. Carless!" said Methley.
Mr. Carless pursed his lips for a moment as if he were never going to open them again; then he suddenly relaxed them.
"I tell you what it is, gentlemen!" he said. "I'm only anticipating matters in saying what I'm going to say, and I'm saying it because I feel sure you are quite sincere and genuine in this affair and are being deceived. If you will bring your client here, there are three of us in this office who, as my old clerk has just reminded me, can positively identify him on the instant if he is the man he claims to be. Positively, I say, and at once! There!"
"May one ask how?" said Woodlesford.
"No!" exclaimed Mr. Carless. "Bring him! Telephone an appointment—and we'll settle the matter as soon as he sets foot inside that door."
"May we tell him that?" asked Methley.
"You can do as you like," answered Mr. Carless. "Between ourselves, I shouldn't! But I assure you—we can tell in one glance! That's a fact!"
The two solicitors went away; and Viner, who had closely watched Methley during the interview, followed them out and hailed Methley in the corridor outside Mr. Carless' room.
"May I have a word with you?" he asked, drawing him aside. "I don't know if you remember, but I saw you the other night in the parlour of that old tavern in Notting Hill—you came in while I was there?"
"I had some idea that I remembered your face when we were introduced just now," said Methley. "Yes, I think I do remember—you were sitting in a corner near the hearth?"
"Just so," agreed Viner. "And I heard you ask the landlord a question about a gentleman whom you used to meet there sometimes—you left some specimen cigars with the landlord for him."
"Yes," assented Methley wonderingly.
"You never knew that man's name?" continued Viner. "Nor who he was? Just so—so I gathered. Then I'll tell you. There was a good reason why he had not been to that tavern for some nights. He was John Ashton, the man who was murdered in Lonsdale Passage!"
Viner was watching his man with all the keenness of which he was capable, and he saw that this announcement fell on Methley as an absolute surprise. He started as only a man can start who has astounding news given to him suddenly.
"God bless me!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean it! Of course, I know about that murder—our own district. And I saw Ashton's picture in the paper—but then there are so many elderly men of that type—broad features, trimmed grey beard! Dear me, dear me! A very pleasant, genial fellow. I'm astonished, Mr. Viner."
Viner resolved on a bold step—he would take it without consulting Mr. Pawle or anybody. He drew Methley further aside.
"Mr. Methley," he said. "You're a man of honour, and I trust you with a secret, to be kept until I release you from the obligation of secrecy. I have reasons for getting at the truth about Ashton's murder—so has Mr. Pawle. He and I have been making investigations and inquiries, and we are convinced, we are positive, that these papers which your partner now has in his pocket were stolen from Ashton's dead body—that, in fact, Ashton was murdered for the possession of them. And I tell you, for your own sake—find out who this client of yours is! That he was the actual murderer I don't believe for a second—he is probably a mere cat's-paw. But—who's behind him? If you can do anything to find out the truth, do it!"
That Methley was astonished beyond belief was so evident that Viner was now absolutely convinced of his sincerity. He stood staring open-mouthed for a moment: then he glanced at Woodlesford, who was waiting at some distance along the corridor.
"Mr. Viner!" he said. "You amaze me! Listen: my partner is as sound and honest a fellow as there is in all London. Let me tell him this—I'll engage for his secrecy. If you'll consent to that, I'll see that, without a word from us as to why, this man who claims to be the missing Lord Marketstoke is brought here. If what you say is true, we are not going to be partners to a crime. Let me tell Woodlesford—I'll answer for him."
Viner considered this proposition for a moment.
"Very well!" he said at last. "Tell him—I shall trust you both. Remember—it's between the three of us. I shan't say a word to Pawle, nor to Carless. You know there's a man's life at stake—Hyde's! Hyde is as innocent as I am—he's an old schoolfellow of mine."
"I understand," said Methley. "Very well, trust to me, Mr. Viner."
He went off with a reassuring nod, and Viner returned to Mr. Carless' room. The three men he had left there were deep in conversation, and as he entered, Mr. Carless smote his hand on the desk before him.
"This is certain!" he exclaimed. "We must have this Miss Avice Wickham here—at once!"
