The Talleyrand Maxim Part 7

"I know this!" she said. "I'll discuss nothing, and do nothing, till I've seen that will!"

Pratt rose, too, nodding his head as if quite satisfied. He took up the copy, tore it in two pieces, and carefully dropped them into the glowing fire.

"I shall be at my lodgings at any time after five-thirty tomorrow evening," he answered quietly. "Call there. You have the address. And you can then read the will with your own eyes. I shan't bring it here.

The game's in my hands, Mrs. Mallathorpe."

Within a few minutes he was out in the park again, and making his way to the little railway station in the valley below. He felt triumphant--he knew that the woman he had just left was at his mercy and would accede to his terms. And all the way back to town, and through the town to his lodgings, he considered and perfected the scheme he was going to suggest to Mrs. Mallathorpe on the morrow.

Pratt lived in a little hamlet of old houses on the very outskirts of Barford--on the edge of a stretch of Country honeycombed by stone-quarries, some in use, some already worked out. It was a lonely neighbourhood, approached from the nearest tramway route by a narrow, high-walled lane. He was half-way along that lane when a stealthy foot stole to his side, and a hand was laid on his arm--just as stealthily came the voice of one of his fellow-clerks at Eldrick & Pascoe's.

"A moment, Pratt! I've been waiting for you. I want--a word or two--in private!"

CHAPTER VI

THE UNEXPECTED

Pratt started when he heard that voice and felt the arresting hand. He knew well enough to whom they belonged--they were those of one James Parrawhite, a little, weedy, dissolute chap who had been in Eldrick & Pascoe's employ for about a year. It had always been a mystery to him and the other clerks that Parrawhite had been there at all, and that being there he was allowed to stop. He was not a Barford man. n.o.body knew anything whatever about him, though his occasional references to it seemed to indicate that he knew London pretty thoroughly. Pratt shrewdly suspected that he was a man whom Eldrick had known in other days, possibly a solicitor who had been struck off the rolls, and to whom Eldrick, for old times' sake, was disposed to extend a helping hand.

All that any of them knew was that one morning some fifteen months previously, Parrawhite, a complete stranger, had walked into the office, asked to see Eldrick, had remained closeted with him half an hour, and had been given a job at two pounds a week, there and then. That he was a clever and useful clerk no one denied, but no one liked him.

He was always borrowing half-crowns. He smelt of rum. He was altogether undesirable. It was plain to the clerks that Pascoe disliked him. But he was evidently under Eldrick's protection, and he did his work and did it well, and there was no doubt that he knew more law than either of the partners, and was better up in practice than Pratt himself. But--he was not desirable ... and Pratt never desired him less than on this occasion.

"What are you after--coming on a man like that!" growled Pratt.

"You," replied Parrawhite. "I knew you'd got to come up this lane, so I waited for you. I've something to say."

"Get it said, then!" retorted Pratt.

"Not here," answered Parrawhite. "Come down by the quarry--n.o.body about there."

"And suppose I don't?" asked Pratt.

"Then you'll be very sorry for yourself--tomorrow," replied Parrawhite.

"That's all!"

Pratt had already realized that this fellow knew something. Parrawhite's manner was not only threatening but confident. He spoke as a man speaks who has got the whip hand. And so, still growling, and inwardly raging and anxious, he turned off with his companion into a track which lay amongst the stone quarries. It was a desolate, lonely place; no house was near; they were as much alone as if they had been in the middle of one of the great moors outside the town, the lights of which they could see in the valley below them. In the grey sky above, a waning moon gave them just sufficient light to see their immediate surroundings--a gra.s.s-covered track, no longer used, and the yawning mouths of the old quarries, no longer worked, the edges of which were thick with gorse and bramble. It was the very place for secret work, and Pratt was certain that secret work was at hand.

"Now then!" he said, when they had walked well into the wilderness.

"What is it? And no nonsense!"

"You'll get no nonsense from me," sneered Parrawhite. "I'm not that sort. This is what I want to say. I was in Eldrick's office last night all the time you were there with old Bartle."

This swift answer went straight through Pratt's defences. He was prepared to hear something unpleasant and disconcerting, but not that.

And he voiced the first thought that occurred to him.

"That's a lie!" he exclaimed. "There was n.o.body there!"

"No lie," replied Parrawhite. "I was there. I was behind the curtain of that recess--you know. And since I know what you did, I don't mind telling you--we're in the same boat, my lad!--what I was going to do.

You thought I'd gone--with the others. But I hadn't. I'd merely done what I've done several times without being found out--slipped in there--to wait until you'd gone. Why? Because friend Eldrick, as you know, is culpably careless about leaving loose cash in the unlocked drawer of his desk, culpably careless, too, about never counting it.

And--a stray sovereign or half-sovereign is useful to a man who only gets two quid a week. Understand?"

"So you're a thief?" said Pratt bitterly.

"I'm precisely what you are--a thief!" retorted Parrawhite. "You stole John Mallathorpe's will last night. I heard everything, I tell you!--and saw everything. I heard the whole business--what the old man said--what you, later, said to Eldrick. I saw old Bartle die--I saw you take the will from his pocket, read it, and put it in your pocket. I know all!--except the terms of the will. But--I've a pretty good idea of what those terms are. Do you know why? Because I watched you set off to Normandale by the eight-twenty train tonight!"

"Hang you for a dirty sneak!" growled Pratt.

Parrawhite laughed, and flourished a heavy stick which he carried.

"Not a bit of it!" he said, almost pleasantly. "I thought you were more of a philosopher--I fancied I'd seen gleams--mere gleams--of philosophy in you at times. Fortunes of war, my boy! Come now--you've seen enough of me to know I'm an adventurer. This is an adventure of the sort I love. Go into it heart and soul, man! Own up!--you've found out that the will leaves the property away from the present holders, and you've been to Normandale to--bargain? Come, now!"

"What then!" demanded Pratt.

"Then, of course, I come in at the bargaining," answered Parrawhite.

"I'm going to have my share. That's a certainty. You'd better take my advice. Because you're absolutely in my power. I've nothing to do but to tell Eldrick tomorrow morning."

"Suppose I tell Eldrick tomorrow morning of what you've told me?"

interjected Pratt.

"Eldrick will believe me before you," retorted Parrawhite, imperturbably. "I'm a much cleverer, more plausible man than you are, my friend--I've had an experience of the world which you haven't, I can easily invent a fine excuse for being in that room. For two pins I'll incriminate you! See? Be reasonable--for if it comes to a contest of brains, you haven't a rabbit's chance against a fox. Tell me all about the will--and what you've done. You've got to--for, by the Lord Harry!--I'm going to have my share. Come, now!"

Pratt stood, in a little hollow wherein they had paused, and thought, rapidly and angrily. There was no doubt about it--he was trapped. This fearful scoundrel at his side, who boasted of his cleverness, would stick to him like a leach--he would have to share. All his own smart schemes for exploiting Mrs. Mallathorpe, for ensuring himself a competence for life, were knocked on the head. There was no helping it--he would have to tell--and to share. And so, sullenly, resentfully, he told.

Parrawhite listened in silence, taking in every point. Pratt, knowing that concealment was useless, told the truth about everything, concisely, but omitting nothing.

"All right!" remarked Parrawhite at the end, "Now, then, what terms do you mean to insist on?"

"What's the good of going into that?" growled Pratt. "Now that you've stuck your foot in it, what do my terms matter?"

"Quite right," agreed Parrawhite, "They don't. What matter is--our terms. Now let me suggest--no, insist on--what they must be. Cas.h.!.+ Do you know why I insist on that? No? Then I'll tell you. Because this young barrister chap, Collingwood, has evidently got some suspicion of--something."

"I can't see it," said Pratt uneasily. "He was only curious to know what that letter was about."

"Never mind," continued Parrawhite. "He had some suspicion--or he wouldn't have gone out there almost as soon as he reached Barford after his grandfather's death. And even if suspicion is put to sleep for awhile, it can easily be reawakened, so--cas.h.!.+ We must profit at once--before any future risk arises. But--what terms were you thinking of?"

"Stewards.h.i.+p of this estate for life," muttered Pratt gloomily.

"With the risk of some discovery being made, some time, any time!"

sneered Parrawhite. "Where are your brains, man? The old fellow, John Mallathorpe, probably made a draft or two of that will before he did his fair copy--he may have left those drafts among his papers."

"If he did, Mrs. Mallathorpe 'ud find 'em," said Pratt slowly. "I don't believe there's the slightest risk. I've figured everything out. I don't believe there's any danger from Collingwood or from anybody--it's impossible! And if we take cash now--we're selling for a penny what we ought to get pounds for."

"The present is much more important than the future, my friend,"