The Talleyrand Maxim Part 34

He pointed over the level sward to the slight figure of a woman in black, who was obviously taking a near cut up to the Grange. Nesta looked wonderingly across the park as the car cleared the gate and went on up the drive.

"Who can she be?" she said musingly. "A woman from a long way--to see me?"

"She'll get to the house soon after we reach it," said Eldrick. "Let's attend to this more pressing business first. We should know what's afoot here in a minute or two."

But it was somewhat difficult to make out or to discover what really was afoot. The car stopped at the hall door: the second car came close behind it; Nesta, Collingwood, Eldrick, Byner, and the detectives poured into the hall--encountered a much mystified-looking butler, a couple of footmen, and the groom whose services Esther Mawson had requisitioned, and who, weary of waiting for her, had come up to the house.

"What's all this?" asked Eldrick, taking the situation into his own hands. "What's the matter? Why did you send for the police?"

"Mrs. Mallathorpe's orders, sir," answered the butler, with an apologetic glance at his young mistress. "Really, sir, I don't know--exactly--what is the matter! We are all so confused! What happened was, that not very long after Miss Mallathorpe had left for town in the carriage, Esther Mawson, the maid, came downstairs from Mrs.

Mallathorpe's room, and was crossing the lower part of the hall, when Mrs. Mallathorpe suddenly appeared up there and called to me and James to stop her and lock her up, as she'd stolen money and jewels! We were to lock her up and telephone for the police, sir, and to add that Mr.

Pratt was here."

"Well?" demanded Eldrick.

"We did lock her up, sir! She's in my pantry," continued the butler, ruefully. "We've got her in there because there are bars to the windows--she can't get out of that. A terrible time we had, too, sir--she fought us like--like a maniac, protesting all the time that Mrs. Mallathorpe had given her what she had on her. Of course, sir, we don't know what she may have on her--we simply obeyed Mrs. Mallathorpe."

"Where is Mrs. Mallathorpe?" asked Collingwood. "Is she safe?"

"Oh, quite safe, sir!" replied the butler. "She returned to her room after giving those orders. Mrs. Mallathorpe appeared to be--quite calm, sir."

Prydale pushed himself forward--unceremoniously and insistently.

"Keep that woman locked up!" he said. "First of all--where's Pratt?"

"Mrs. Mallathorpe said he would be found in a room in the old part of the house," answered the butler, shaking his head as if he were thoroughly mystified. "She said you would find him fast asleep--Mawson had drugged him!"

Prydale looked at Byner and at his fellow-detectives. Then he turned to the butler.

"Come on!" he said brusquely. "Take us there at once!" He glanced at Eldrick. "I'm beginning to see through it, Mr. Eldrick!" he whispered.

"This maid's caught Pratt for us. Let's hope he's still----"

But before he could say more, and just as the butler opened a door which led into a corridor at the rear of the hall, a sharp crack which was unmistakably that of a revolver, rang through the house, waking equally sharp echoes in the silent room. And at that, Nesta hurried up the stairway to her mother's apartment, and the men, after a hurried glance at each other, ran along the corridor after the butler and the footmen.

Pratt came out of his stupor much sooner than Esther Mawson had reckoned on. According to her previous experiments with the particular drug which she had administered to him, he ought to have remained in a profound and an undisturbed slumber until at least five o'clock. But he woke at four--woke suddenly, sharply, only conscious at first of a terrible pain in his head, which kept him groaning and moaning in his chair for a minute or two before he fairly realized where he was and what had happened. As the pain became milder and gave way to a dull throbbing and a general sense of discomfort, he looked round out of aching eyes and saw the bottle of sherry. And so dull were his wits that his only thought at first was that the wine had been far stronger than he had known, and that he had drunk far too much of it, and that it had sent him to sleep--and just then his wandering glance fell on some papers which Esther Mawson had taken from one of his pockets and thrown aside as of no value.

He leapt to his feet, trembling and sweating. His hands, shaking as if smitten with a sudden palsy, went to his pockets--he tore off his coat and turned his pockets out, as if touch and feeling were not to be believed, and his eyes must see that there was really nothing there.

Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the papers on the floor and found nothing but letters, and odd sc.r.a.ps of unimportant memoranda. He stamped his feet on those things, and began to swear and curse, and finally to sob and whine. The shock of his discovery had driven all his stupefaction away by that time, and he knew what had happened. And his whining and sobbing was not that of despair, but the far worse and fiercer sobbing and whining of rage and terrible anger. If the woman who had tricked him had been there he would have torn her limb from limb, and have glutted himself with revenge. But--he was alone.

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 doc.u.ment 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 a.s.sure 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 doc.u.ment 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----"

Nesta interrupted her mother.

"Does any one know the terms of that will?" she asked, looking at Eldrick. "Tell me!--if you know. Hus.h.!.+" she went on, as Mrs. Mallathorpe tried to speak again. "I will know!"

"Yes!" answered Eldrick. "Esther Mawson knows them. She read the will carefully. She told Prydale just now what they were. With the exception of three legacies of ten thousand pounds each to your mother, your brother, and yourself, John Mallathorpe left everything he possessed to the town of Barford for an educational trust."

"Then," asked Nesta quietly, as she made a peremptory sign to her mother to be silent, "we--never had any right to be here--at all?"

"I'm afraid not," replied Eldrick.

"Then of course we shall go," said Nesta. "That's certain! Do you hear that, mother? That's my decision. It's final!"

"You can do what you like," retorted Mrs. Mallathorpe sullenly. "I am not going to be frightened by anything that Esther Mawson says. Nor by what you say!" she continued, turning on Eldrick. "All that has got to be proved. Who can prove it? What can prove it? Do you think I am going to give up my rights without fighting for them? I shall swear that every word of Esther Mawson's is a lie! No one can bring forward a will that doesn't exist. And what concern is it of yours, Mr. Eldrick? What right have you?"

"You are quite right, Mrs. Mallathorpe," said Eldrick. "It is no concern of mine. And so----"

He turned to the door--and as he turned the door opened, to admit the old butler who looked apologetically but earnestly at Nesta as he stepped forward.

"A Mrs. Gaukrodger wishes to see you on very particular business," he murmured. "She's been waiting some little time--something, she says, about some papers she has just found--belonging to the late Mr. John Mallathorpe."

Collingwood, who was standing close to Nesta, caught all the butler said.

"Gaukrodger!" he exclaimed, with a quick glance at Eldrick. "That was the name of the manager--a witness. See the woman at once," he whispered to Nesta.

"Bring Mrs. Gaukrodger in, d.i.c.kenson," said Nesta. "Stay--I'll come with you, and bring her in myself."

She returned a moment later with a slightly built, rather careworn woman dressed in deep mourning--the woman in black whom they had seen crossing the park--who looked nervously round her as she entered.

"What is it you have for me, Mrs. Gaukrodger?" asked Nesta. "Papers belonging to the late Mr. John Mallathorpe? How--where did you get them?"