by Grant Allen
The will we had proved —— but I must not anticipate.
When we parted, Harold kissed me on the forehead, and murmured rather sadly, ‘Now, I suppose it’s all up. Lois, I must go. These rogues have been too much for us.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ I answered, new hope growing stronger and stronger within me. ‘I see a way out. I have found a clue. I believe, dear Harold, the right will still be vindicated.’
And red-eyed as I was, I jumped into a hansom, and called to the cabman to drive at once to Lady Georgina’s.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNPROFESSIONAL DETECTIVE
‘Is Lady Georgina at home?’ The discreet man-servant in sober black clothes eyed me suspiciously. ‘No, miss,’ he answered. ‘That is to say — no, ma’am. Her ladyship is still at Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst’s — the late Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst, I mean — in Park Lane North. You know the number, ma’am?’
‘Yes, I know it,’ I replied, with a gasp; for this was indeed a triumph. My one fear had been lest Lord Southminster should already have taken possession — why, you will see hereafter; and it relieved me to learn that Lady Georgina was still at hand to guard my husband’s interests. She had been living at the house, practically, since her brother’s death. I drove round with all speed, and flung myself into my dear old lady’s arms.
‘Kiss me,’ I cried, flushed. ‘I am your niece!’ But she knew it already, for our movements had been fully reported by this time (with picturesque additions) in the morning papers. Imagination, ill-developed in the English race, seems to concentrate itself in the lower order of journalists.
She kissed me on both cheeks with unwonted tenderness. ‘Lois,’ she cried, with tears in her eyes, ‘you’re a brick!’ It was not exactly poetical at such a moment, but from her it meant more than much gushing phraseology.
‘And you’re here in possession!’ I murmured.
I’VE HELD THE FORT BY MAIN FORCE.
The Cantankerous Old Lady nodded. She was in her element, I must admit. She dearly loved a row — above all, a family row; but to be in the thick of a family row, and to feel herself in the right, with the law against her — that was joy such as Lady Georgina had seldom before experienced. ‘Yes, dear,’ she burst out volubly, ‘I’m in possession, thank Heaven. And what’s more, they won’t oust me without a legal process. I’ve been here, off and on, you know, ever since poor dear Marmy died, looking after things for Harold; and I shall look after them still, till Bertie Southminster succeeds in ejecting me, which won’t be easy. Oh, I’ve held the fort by main force, I can tell you; held it like a Trojan. Bertie’s in a precious great hurry to move in, I can see; but I won’t allow him. He’s been down here this morning, fatuously blustering, and trying to carry the post by storm, with a couple of policemen.’
‘Policemen!’ I cried. ‘To turn you out?’
‘Yes, my dear, policemen: but (the Lord be praised) I was too much for him. There are legal formalities to fulfil yet; and I won’t budge an inch, Lois, not one inch, my dear, till he’s fulfilled every one of them. Mark my words, child, that boy’s up to some devilry.’
‘He is,’ I answered.
‘Yes, he wouldn’t be in such a rampaging hurry to get in — being as lazy as he’s empty-headed — takes after Gwendoline in that — if he hadn’t some excellent reason for wishing to take possession: and depend upon it, the reason is that he wants to get hold of something or other that’s Harold’s. But he sha’n’t if I can help it; and, thank my stars, I’m a dour woman to reckon with. If he comes, he comes over my old bones, child. I’ve been overhauling everything of Marmy’s, I can tell you, to checkmate the boy if I can; but I’ve found nothing yet, and till I’ve satisfied myself on that point, I’ll hold the fort still, if I have to barricade that pasty-faced scoundrel of a nephew of mine out by piling the furniture against the front door — I will, as sure as my name’s Georgina Fawley!’
‘I know you will, dear,’ I assented, kissing her, ‘and so I shall venture to leave you, while I go out to institute another little enquiry.’
‘What enquiry?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s only a surmise,’ I said, hesitating. ‘I’ll tell you about it later. I’ve had time to think while I’ve been coming back in the train, and I’ve thought of many things. Mount guard till I return, and mind you don’t let Lord Southminster have access to anything.’
‘I’ll shoot him first, dear.’ And I believe she meant it.
I drove on in the same cab to Harold’s solicitor. There I laid my fresh doubts at once before him. He rubbed his bony hands. ‘You’ve hit it!’ he cried, charmed. ‘My dear madam, you’ve hit it! I never did like that will. I never did like the signatures, the witnesses, the look of it. But what could I do? Mr. Tillington propounded it. Of course it wasn’t my business to go dead against my own client.’
‘Then you doubted Harold’s honour, Mr. Hayes?’ I cried, flushing.
NEVER! HE ANSWERED. NEVER!
‘Never!’ he answered. ‘Never! I felt sure there must be some mistake somewhere, but not any trickery on — your husband’s part. Now, you supply the right clue. We must look into this, immediately.’
He hurried round with me at once in the same cab to the court. The incriminated will had been ‘impounded,’ as they call it; but, under certain restrictions, and subject to the closest surveillance, I was allowed to examine it with my husband’s solicitor, before the eyes of the authorities. I looked at it long with the naked eye and also with a small pocket lens. The paper, as I had noted before, was the same kind of foolscap as that which I had been in the habit of using at my office in Florence; and the typewriting — was it mine? The longer I looked at it, the more I doubted it.
After a careful examination I turned round to our solicitor. ‘Mr. Hayes,’ I said, firmly, having arrived at my conclusion, ‘this is not the document I type-wrote at Florence.’
‘How do you know?’ he asked. ‘A different machine? Some small peculiarity in the shape of the letters?’
‘No, the rogue who typed this will was too cunning for that. He didn’t allow himself to be foiled by such a scholar’s mate. It is written with a Spread Eagle, the same sort of machine precisely as my own. I know the type perfectly. But — —’ I hesitated.
‘But what?’
‘Well, it is difficult to explain. There is character in typewriting, just as there is in handwriting, only, of course, not quite so much of it. Every operator is liable to his own peculiar tricks and blunders. If I had some of my own typewritten manuscript here to show you, I could soon make that evident.’
‘I can easily believe it. Individuality runs through all we do, however seemingly mechanical. But are the points of a sort that you could make clear in court to the satisfaction of a jury?’
‘I think so. Look here, for example. Certain letters get habitually mixed up in typewriting; c and v stand next one another on the keyboard of the machine, and the person who typed this draft sometimes strikes a c instead of a v, or vice versâ. I never do that. The letters I tend to confuse are s and w, or else e and r, which also come very near one another in the arbitrary arrangement. Besides, when I type-wrote the original of this will, I made no errors at all; I took such very great pains about it.’
‘And this person did make errors?’
‘Yes; struck the wrong letter first, and then corrected it often by striking another rather hard on top of it. See, this was a v to begin with, and he turned it into a c. Besides, the hand that wrote this will is heavier than mine: it comes down thump, thump, thump, while mine glides lightly. And the hyphens are used with a space between them, and the character of the punctuation is not exactly as I make it.’
‘Still,’ Mr. Hayes objected, ‘we have nothing but your word. I’m afraid, in such a case, we could never induce a jury to accept your unsupported evidence.’
‘I don’t want them to accept it,’ I answered. ‘I am looking this up for my own satisfaction. I want to know, first, who wrote this will. And of one thi
ng I am quite clear: it is not the document I drew up for Mr. Ashurst. Just look at that x. The x alone is conclusive. My typewriter had the upper right-hand stroke of the small x badly formed, or broken, while this one is perfect. I remember it well, because I used always to improve all my lower-case x’s with a pen when I re-read and corrected. I see their dodge clearly now. It is a most diabolical conspiracy. Instead of forging a will in Lord Southminster’s favour, they have substituted a forgery for the real will, and then managed to make my poor Harold prove it.’
‘In that case, no doubt, they have destroyed the real one, the original,’ Mr. Hayes put in.
‘I don’t think so,’ I answered, after a moment’s deliberation. ‘From what I know of Mr. Ashurst, I don’t believe it is likely he would have left his will about carelessly anywhere. He was a secretive man, fond of mysteries and mystifications. He would be sure to conceal it. Besides, Lady Georgina and Harold have been taking care of everything in the house ever since he died.’
‘But,’ Mr. Hayes objected, ‘the forger of this document, supposing it to be forged, must have had access to the original, since you say the terms of the two are identical; only the signatures are forgeries. And if he saw and copied it, why might he not also have destroyed it?’
A light flashed across me all at once. ‘The forger did see the original,’ I cried, ‘but not the fair copy. I have it all now! I detect their trick! It comes back to me vividly! When I had finished typing the copy at Florence from my first rough draft, which I had taken down on the machine before Mr. Ashurst’s eyes, I remember now that I threw the original into the waste-paper basket. It must have been there that evening when Higginson called and asked for the will to take it back to Mr. Ashurst. He called for it, no doubt, hoping to open the packet before he delivered it and make a copy of the document for this very purpose. But I refused to let him have it. Before he saw me, however, he had been left by himself for ten minutes in the office; for I remember coming out to him and finding him there alone: and during that ten minutes, being what he is, you may be sure he fished out the rough draft and appropriated it!’
WE SHALL HAVE HIM IN OUR POWER.
‘That is more than likely,’ my solicitor nodded. ‘You are tracking him to his lair. We shall have him in our power.’
I grew more and more excited as the whole cunning plot unravelled itself mentally step by step before me. ‘He must then have gone to Lord Southminster,’ I went on, ‘and told him of the legacy he expected from Mr. Ashurst. It was five hundred pounds — a mere trifle to Higginson, who plays for thousands. So he must have offered to arrange matters for Lord Southminster if Southminster would consent to make good that sum and a great deal more to him. That odious little cad told me himself on the Jumna they were engaged in pulling off “a big coup” between them. He thought then I would marry him, and that he would so secure my connivance in his plans; but who would marry such a piece of moist clay? Besides, I could never have taken anyone but Harold.’ Then another clue came home to me. ‘Mr. Hayes,’ I cried, jumping at it, ‘Higginson, who forged this will, never saw the real document itself at all; he saw only the draft: for Mr. Ashurst altered one word viva voce in the original at the last moment, and I made a pencil note of it on my cuff at the time: and see, it isn’t here, though I inserted it in the final clean copy of the will — the word ‘especially.’ It grows upon me more and more each minute that the real instrument is hidden somewhere in Mr. Ashurst’s house — Harold’s house — our house; and that because it is there Lord Southminster is so indecently anxious to oust his aunt and take instant possession.’
‘In that case,’ Mr. Hayes remarked, ‘we had better go back to Lady Georgina without one minute’s delay, and, while she still holds the house, institute a thorough search for it.’
No sooner said than done. We jumped again into our cab and started. As we drove back, Mr. Hayes asked me where I thought we were most likely to find it.
‘In a secret drawer in Mr. Ashurst’s desk,’ I answered, by a flash of instinct, without a second’s hesitation.
‘How do you know there’s a secret drawer?’
‘I don’t know it. I infer it from my general knowledge of Mr. Ashurst’s character. He loved secret drawers, ciphers, cryptograms, mystery-mongering.’
‘But it was in that desk that your husband found the forged document,’ the lawyer objected.
Once more I had a flash of inspiration or intuition. ‘Because White, Mr. Ashurst’s valet, had it in readiness in his possession,’ I answered, ‘and hid it there, in the most obvious and unconcealed place he could find, as soon as the breath was out of his master’s body. I remember now Lord Southminster gave himself away to some extent in that matter. The hateful little creature isn’t really clever enough, for all his cunning, — and with Higginson to back him, — to mix himself up in such tricks as forgery. He told me at Aden he had had a telegram from “Marmy’s valet,” to report progress; and he received another, the night Mr. Ashurst died, at Moozuffernuggar. Depend upon it, White was more or less in this plot; Higginson left him the forged will when they started for India; and, as soon as Mr. Ashurst died, White hid it where Harold was bound to find it.’
‘If so,’ Mr. Hayes answered, ‘that’s well; we have something to go upon. The more of them, the better. There is safety in numbers — for the honest folk. I never knew three rogues hold long together, especially when threatened with a criminal prosecution. Their confederacy breaks down before the chance of punishment. Each tries to screen himself by betraying the others.’
‘Higginson was the soul of this plot,’ I went on. ‘Of that you may be sure. He’s a wily old fox, but we’ll run him to earth yet. The more I think of it, the more I feel sure, from what I know of Mr. Ashurst’s character, he would never have put that will in so exposed a place as the one where Harold says he found it.’
We drew up at the door of the disputed house just in time for the siege. Mr. Hayes and I walked in. We found Lady Georgina face to face with Lord Southminster. The opposing forces were still at the stage of preliminaries of warfare.
‘Look heah,’ the pea-green young man was observing, in his drawling voice, as we entered; ‘it’s no use your talking, deah Georgey. This house is mine, and I won’t have you meddling with it.’
‘This house is not yours, you odious little scamp,’ his aunt retorted, raising her shrill voice some notes higher than usual; ‘and while I can hold a stick you shall not come inside it.’
‘Very well, then; you drive me to hostilities, don’t yah know. I’m sorry to show disrespect to your gray hairs — if any — but I shall be obliged to call in the police to eject yah.’
‘Call them in if you like,’ I answered, interposing between them. ‘Go out and get them! Mr. Hayes, while he’s gone, send for a carpenter to break open the back of Mr. Ashurst’s escritoire.’
‘A carpentah?’ he cried, turning several degrees whiter than his pasty wont. ‘What for? A carpentah?’
I spoke distinctly. ‘Because we have reason to believe Mr. Ashurst’s real will is concealed in this house in a secret drawer, and because the keys were in the possession of White, whom we believe to be your accomplice in this shallow conspiracy.’
He gasped and looked alarmed. ‘No, you don’t,’ he cried, stepping briskly forward. ‘You don’t, I tell yah! Break open Marmy’s desk! Why, hang it all, it’s my property.’
‘We shall see about that after we’ve broken it open,’ I answered grimly. ‘Here, this screw-driver will do. The back’s not strong. Now, your help, Mr. Hayes — one, two, three; we can prise it apart between us.’
Lord Southminster rushed up and tried to prevent us. But Lady Georgina, seizing both wrists, held him tight as in a vice with her dear skinny old hands. He writhed and struggled all in vain: he could not escape her. ‘I’ve often spanked you, Bertie,’ she cried, ‘and if you attempt to interfere, I’ll spank you again; that’s the long and the short of it!’
He broke from her and rushed
out, to call the police, I believe, and prevent our desecration of pooah Marmy’s property.
VICTORY.
Inside the first shell were several locked drawers, and two or three open ones, out of one of which Harold had fished the false will. Instinct taught me somehow that the central drawer on the left-hand side was the compartment behind which lay the secret receptacle. I prised it apart and peered about inside it. Presently I saw a slip-panel, which I touched with one finger. The pigeon-hole flew open and disclosed a narrow slit I clutched at something — the will! Ho, victory! the will! I raised it aloft with a wild shout. Not a doubt of it! The real, the genuine document!
We turned it over and read it. It was my own fair copy, written at Florence, and bearing all the small marks of authenticity about it which I had pointed out to Mr. Hayes as wanting to the forged and impounded document. Fortunately, Lady Georgina and four of the servants had stood by throughout this scene, and had watched our demeanour, as well as Lord Southminster’s.
We turned next to the signatures. The principal one was clearly Mr. Ashurst’s — I knew it at once — his legible fat hand, ‘Marmaduke Courtney Ashurst.’ And then the witnesses? They fairly took our breath away.
‘Why, Higginson’s sister isn’t one of them at all,’ Mr. Hayes cried, astonished.
A flush of remorse came over me. I saw it all now. I had misjudged that poor woman! She had the misfortune to be a rogue’s sister, but, as Harold had said, was herself a most respectable and blameless person. Higginson must have forged her name to the document; that was all; and she had naturally sworn that she never signed it. He knew her honesty. It was a master-stroke of rascality.
‘The other one isn’t here, either,’ I exclaimed, growing more puzzled. ‘The waiter at the hotel! Why, that’s another forgery! Higginson must have waited till the man was safely dead, and then used him similarly. It was all very clever. Now, who are these people who really witnessed it?’