“Why,” exclaimed Cater as he glanced over the sheet, “I’m sole executor and I get the lot! Who are these witnesses?”
“Oh, they’re all right. Longshore hands just hereabout. You’ll get ‘em any day at the ‘Ship and Anchor.’”
Cater put the will in his breast-pocket. “You’d best get out o’ this, my man,” he said. “You’ve had me for ten pound, and the further you get from me the safer you’ll be.”
“What?” said Greer with a chuckle. “Not even grateful! Shockin’!” He took his way downstairs, and Cater followed. At the door Flint, a counterpart of Cater, except that his dress was more slovenly, stood ragefully.
“Ah, cousin,” said Cater, standing on the threshold and preventing his entrance, “this is a very sad loss!”
“Sad loss!” Flint replied with disgust. “A lot you think of the loss — as much as I do, I reckon. I want to come in.”
“Then you sha’n’t!” Cater replied, with a prompt change of manner. “You shan’t! I’m sole executor, and I’ve got the will in my pocket.” He pulled it out sufficiently far to show the end of the paper, and then returned it. “As executor I’m in charge of the property, and responsible. It’s vested in me till the will’s put into effect. That’s law. And it’s a bad thing for anybody to interfere with an executor. That’s law too.”
Flint was angry, but cautious. “Well,” he said, “you’re uncommon high, with your will and your executor’s law and your ‘sad loss,’ I must say. What’s your game?”
For answer Cater began to shut the door.
“Just you look out!” cried Flint. “You haven’t heard the last of this! You may be executor or it may be a lie. You may have the will or you may not; anyway I know better than to run the risk of putting myself in the wrong now. But I’ll watch you, and I’ll watch this house, and I’ll be about when the will comes to be proved! And if that ain’t done quick, I’ll apply for administration myself, and see the thing through!”
III
SAMUEL GREER sheered off as the cousinly interview ended, well satisfied with himself. Ten pounds was a fortune to him, and he meant having a good deal more. He did nothing further till the following morning, when he presented himself at the shop of Jarvis Flint.
“Good mornin’, Mr. Flint,” said Samuel Greer, grinning and squinting affably. “I couldn’t help noticin’ as you had a few words yesterday with Mr. Cater after the sad loss.”
“Well?”
“It ‘appens as I’ve seen the will as Mr. Cater was talkin’ of, an’ I thought p’raps it ‘ud save you makin’ mistakes if I told you of it.”
“What about it?” Jarvis Flint was not disposed to accept Greer altogether on trust.
“Well it do seem a scandalous thing, certainly, but what Mr. Cater said was right. He do take the personal property, subjick to debts, an’ he do take the freehold prim’ses. An’ he is the ‘xecutor.”
“Was the will witnessed?”
“Yes — two waterside chaps well know’d thereabouts.”
“Was it made by a lawyer?”
“No — all in the lamented corpse’s ‘and-writin’.”
“Umph!” Flint maintained his hard stare in Greer’s face. “Anything else?”
“Well, no, Mr. Flint, sir, p’raps not. But I wonder if there might be sich a thing as a codicil?”
“Is there?”
“Oh, I was a-wonderin’, that’s all. It might make a deal o’ difference in the will, mightn’t it? And p’raps Mr. Cater mightn’t know anythink about the codicil.”
“What do you mean? Is there a codicil?”
“Well, reely, Mr. Flint,” answered Greer with a deprecatory grin— “reely it ain’t business to give information for nothink, is it?”
“Business or not, if you know anything you’ll find you’ll have to tell it. I’m not going to let Cater have it all his own way, if he is executor. My lawyer’ll be on the job before you’re a day older, my man, and you won’t find it pay to keep things too quiet.”
“But it can’t pay worse than to give information for nothink,” persisted Greer. “Come, now, Mr. Flint, s’pose (I don’t say there is, mind — I only say s’pose) — s’pose there was a codicil, and s’pose that codicil meant a matter of a few thousand pound in your pocket. And s’pose some person could tell you where to put your hand on that codicil, what might you be disposed to pay that person?”
“Bring me the codicil,” answered Flint, “and if it’s all right I’ll give you — well, say five shillings.”
Greer grinned again and shook his head. “No, reely, Mr. Flint,” he said, “we can’t do business on terms like them. Fifty pound down in my hand now, and it’s done. Fifty ‘ud be dirt cheap. And the longer you are a-considerin’ — well, you know, Mr. Cater might get hold of it, and then, why, s’pose it got burnt and never ‘eard of agen?”
Flint glared with round eyes. “You get out!” he said. “Go on! Fifty pound, indeed! Fifty pound, without my knowing whether you’re telling lies or not! Out you go! I know what to do now, my man!”
Greer grinned once more, and slouched out. He had not expected to bring Flint to terms at once. Of course the man would drive him away at first, and, having got scent of the existence of the codicil, and supposing it to be somewhere concealed about the old house at Bermondsey Wall, he would set his lawyer to warn his cousin that the thing was known, and that he, as executor, would be held responsible for it. But the trump card, the codicil itself, was carefully stowed in the lining of Greer’s hat, and Cater knew nothing about it. Presently Flint, finding Cater obdurate, would approach the wily Greer again, and then he could be squeezed. Meanwhile the hat-lining was as safe a place as any in which to keep the paper. Perhaps Flint might take a fancy to have him waylaid at night and searched, in which case a pocket would be an unsafe repository.
Flint, on his part, was in good spirits. Plainly there was a codicil, favourable to himself. Certainly he meant neither to pay Greer for discovering it — at any rate no such sum as fifty pounds — nor to abate a jot of his rights. Flint had a running contract with a shady solicitor, named Lugg, in accordance with which Lugg received a yearly payment and transacted all his legal business — consisting chiefly of writing threatening letters to unfortunate debtors. Also, as I think I have mentioned, Dorrington was working for him at the time, and working at very cheap rates. Flint resolved, to begin with, to set Dorrington and Lugg to work. But first Dorrington — who, as a matter of fact, was in Flint’s back office during the interview with Greer. Thus it was that in an hour or two Dorrington found himself in active pursuit of Samuel Greer, with instructions to watch him closely, to make him drunk if possible, and to get at his knowledge of the codicil by any means conceivable.
IV
ON the morning of the day after his talk with Flint, Samuel Greer ruminated doubtfully on the advisability of calling on the ship-store dealer again, or waiting in dignified silence till Flint should approach him. As he ruminated he rubbed his chin, and so rubbing it found it very stubbly. He resolved on the luxury of a penny shave, and, as he walked the street, kept his eyes open for a shop where the operation was performed at that price. Mr. Flint, at any rate, could wait till his chin was smooth. Presently, in a turning by Abbey Street, Bermondsey, he came on just such a barber’s shop as he wanted. Within, two men were being shaved already, and another waiting; and Greer felt himself especially fortunate in that three more followed at his heels. He was ahead of their turns, anyhow. So he waited patiently.
The man whose turn was immediately before his own did not appear to be altogether sober. A hiccough shook him from time to time; he grinned with a dull glance at a comic paper held upside down in his hand, and when he went to take his turn at a chair his walk was unsteady. The barber had to use his skill to avoid cutting him, and he opened his mouth to make remarks at awkward times. Then Greer’s turn came at the other chair, and when his shave was half completed he saw the unsteady customer rise, pay his penny, and go out.
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“Beginnin’ early in the mornin’!” observed one customer.
The barber laughed. “Yes,” he said. “He wants to get a proper bust on before he goes to bed, I s’pose.”
Samuel Greer’s chin being smooth at last, he rose and turned to where he had hung his hat. His jaw dropped, and his eyes almost sprang out to meet each other as he saw — a bare peg! The unsteady customer had walked off with the wrong hat — his hat, and — the paper concealed inside!
“Lor!” cried the dismayed Greer, “he’s took my hat!”
All the shopful of men set up a guffaw at this. “Take ‘is then,” said one. “It’s a blame sight better one than yourn!”
But Greer, without a hat, rushed into the street, and the barber, without his penny, rushed after him. “Stop ‘im!” shouted Greer distractedly. “Stop thief!”
Thus it was that Dorrington, at this time of a far less well-groomed appearance than was his later wont, watching outside the barber’s, observed the mad bursting forth of Greer, followed by the barber. After the barber came the customers, one grinning furiously beneath a coating of lather.
“Stop ‘im!” cried Greer. “‘E’s got my ‘at! Stop ‘im!”
“You pay me my money,” said the barber, catching his arm. “Never mind yer ‘at — you can ‘ave ‘is. But just you pay me first.”
“Leave go! You’re responsible for lettin’ ‘im take it, I tell you! It’s a special ‘at — valuable; leave go!”
Dorrington stayed to hear no more. Three minutes before he had observed a slightly elevated navvy emerge from the shop and walk solemnly across the street under a hat manifestly a size or two too small for him. Now Dorrington darted down the turning which the man had taken. The hat was a wretched thing, and there must be some special reason for Greer’s wild anxiety to recover it, especially as the navvy must have left another, probably better, behind him. Already Dorrington had conjectured that Greer was carrying the codicil about with him, for he had no place else to hide it, and he would scarcely have offered so confidently to negotiate over it if it had been in the Bermondsey Wall house, well in reach of Paul Cater. So he followed the elevated navvy with all haste. He might never have seen him again were it not that the unconscious bearer of the fortunes of Flint (and, indeed, Dorrington) hesitated for a little while whether or not to enter the door of a public-house near St. Saviour’s Dock. In the end he decided to go on, and it was just as he had started that Dorrington sighted him again.
The navvy walked slowly and gravely on, now and again with a swerve to the wall or the curb, but generally with a careful and laboured directness. Presently he arrived at a dock-bridge, with a low iron rail. An incoming barge attracted his eye, and he stopped and solemnly inspected it. He leaned on the low rail for this purpose, and as he did so the hat, all too small, fell off. Had he been standing two yards nearer the centre of the bridge it would have dropped into the water. As it was it fell on the quay, a few feet from the edge, and a dockman, coining toward the steps by the bridge-side, picked it up and brought it with him.
“Here y’are, mate,” said the dockman, offering the hat.
The navvy took it in lofty silence, and inspected it narrowly. Then he said, “‘Ere — wot’s this? This ain’t my ‘at!” And he glared suspiciously at the dockman.
“Ain’t it?” answered the dockman carelessly. “Aw right then, keep it for the bloke it b’longs to. I don’t want it.”
“No,” returned the navvy with rising indignation, “but I want mine, though! Wotcher done with it? Eh? It ain’t a rotten old ‘un like this ‘ere. None o’ yer ‘alf-larks. Jist you ‘and it over, come on!”
“‘And wot over?” asked the dockman, growing indignant in his turn. “You drops yer ‘at over the bridge like some kid as can’t take care of it, and I brings it up for ye. ‘Stead o’ sayin’ ‘thank ye,’ like a man, y’ asks me for another ‘at! Go an’ bile yer face!” And he turned on his heel.
“No, ye don’t!” bawled the navvy, dropping the battered hat and making a complicated rush at the other’s retreating form. “Not much! You gimme my ‘at!” And he grabbed the dock-man anywhere, with both hands.
The dockman was as big as the navvy, and no more patient. He immediately punched his assailant’s nose; and in three seconds a mingled bunch of dockman and navvy was floundering about the street. Dorrington saw no more. He had the despised hat in his hand, and, general attention being directed to the action in progress, he hurried quietly up the nearest court.
V
SAMUEL GREER, having got clear of the barber by paying his penny, was in much perplexity, and this notwithstanding his acquisition of the navvy’s hat, a very decent bowler, which covered his head generously and rested on his ears. What should be the move now? His hat was clean gone, and the codicil with it. To find it again would be a hopeless task, unless by chance the navvy should discover his mistake and return to the barber’s to make a rectification of hats. So Samuel Greer returned once more to the barber’s, and for the rest of the day called again and again fruitlessly. At first the barber was vastly amused, and told the story to his customers, who laughed. Then the barber got angry at the continual worrying, and at the close of the day’s barbering he earned his night’s repose by pitching Samuel Greer neck and crop into the gutter. Samuel Greer gathered himself up disconsolately, surrounded his head with the navvy’s hat, and shuffled off to the “Ship and Anchor.”
At the “Ship and Anchor” he found one Barker, a decayed and sodden lawyer’s clerk out of work. Greer’s temporary affluence enabling him to stand drinks, he was presently able, by putting artfully hypothetical cases, to extract certain legal information from Barker. Chiefly he learned that if a will or a codicil were missing, it might nevertheless be possible to obtain probate of it by satisfying the court with evidence of its contents and its genuineness. Here, at any rate, was a certain hope. He alone, apparently, of all persons, knew the contents of the codicil and the names of the witnesses; and since it was impossible to sell the codicil, now that it was gone, he might at least sell his evidence. He resolved to offer his evidence for sale to Flint at once, and take what he could get. There must be no delay, for possibly the navvy might find the paper in the hat and carry it to Flint, seeing that his name was beneficially mentioned in it, and his address given. Plainly the hat would not go back to the barber’s now. If the drunken navvy had found out his mistake he probably had not the least notion where he had been nor where the hat had come from, else he would have returned it during the day, and recovered his own superior property. So Samuel Greer went at once, late as it was, and knocked up Mr. Flint.
Flint congratulated himself, feeling sure that Greer had thought better of his business and had come to give his information for anything he could get. Greer, on his part, was careful to conceal the fact that the codicil had been in his possession and had been lost. All he said was that he had seen the codicil, that its date was nine months later than that of the will, and that it benefited Jarvis Flint to the extent of some ten thousand pounds; leaving Flint to suppose, if he pleased, that Cater, the executor, had the codicil, but would probably suppress it. Indeed this was the conclusion that Flint immediately jumped at.
And the result of the interview was this: Flint, with much grudging and reluctance, handed over as a preliminary fee the sum of one pound, the most he could be screwed up to. Then it was settled that Greer should come on the morrow and consult with Flint and his solicitor Lugg, the object of the consultation being the construction of a consistent tale and a satisfactory soi-disant copy of the codicil, which Greer was to swear to, if necessary, and armed with which Paul Cater might be confronted and brought to terms.
It may be wondered why, ere this, Flint had not received the genuine codicil itself, recovered by Dorrington from Greer’s hat. The fact was that Dorrington, as was his wont, was playing a little game of his own. Having possessed himself of the codicil, he was now in a position to make the most from both sides, and in a far m
ore efficient manner than the clumsy Greer. People of Jarvis Flint’s sordid character are apt, with all their sordid keenness, to be wonderfully shortsighted in regard to what might seem fairly obvious to a man of honest judgment. Thus it never occurred to Flint that a man like Dorrington, willing, for a miserable wage, to apply his exceptional subtlety to the furtherance of his employer’s rascally designs, would be at least as ready to swindle that master on his own account when the opportunity offered; would be, in fact, the more ready, in proportion to the stinginess wherewith his master had treated him.
Having found the codicil, Dorrington’s procedure was not to hand it over forthwith to Flint. It was this: first he made a careful and exact copy of the codicil; then he procured two men of his acquaintance, men of good credit, to read over the copy, word for word, and certify it as being an exact copy of the original by way of a signed declaration written on the back of the copy. Then he was armed at all points.
He packed the copy carefully away in his pocket-book, and with the original in his coat pocket, he called at the house in Bermondsey Wall, where Paul Cater had taken up his quarters to keep guard over everything till the will should be proved. So it happened that while Samuel Greer, Jarvis Flint, and Lugg, the lawyer, were building their scheme, Dorrington was talking to Paul Cater at Cater’s Wharf.
On the assurance that he had business of extreme importance, Cater took Dorrington into the room in which the old man had died. Cater was using this room as an office in which to examine and balance his uncle’s books, and the corpse had been carried to a room below to await the funeral. Dorrington’s clothes at this time, as I have hinted, were not distinguished by the excellence of cut and condition that was afterwards noticeable; in point of fact, he was seedy. But his assurance and his presence of mind were fully developed, and it was this very transaction that was to put the elegant appearance within his reach.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 206