Part 26 (1/2)
”I?” The Duke opened his eyes wide. Then he reflected that it might be something concerning the Countess, and waited.
”You are a gentleman,” said Claudius reflectively, and hardly addressing his visitor as he said it.
”Quite so,” said the Duke. ”It's a very fine word that.”
”And a man of honour,” continued Claudius in a meditative tone.
”The deuce and all, it's the same thing,” said the Duke, rather puzzled.
”Yes; in some countries it is. Now, what I want to ask you is this.
Could you, as a gentleman and a man of honour, swear in a court of law that you know me, and that I am the person I represent myself to be?
That is the question.”
The Duke was too much surprised to answer directly. He made a great fuss over his cigar, and got up and shut the window. Then he sat down in another chair.
”I don't know what you mean,” he said at last, to gain time.
”I mean what I say,” said Claudius. ”Could you swear, before the Supreme Court of the United States, for instance, that I am Claudius, sometime student, now Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Heidelberg in Germany? Could you swear that?”
”My dear boy,” said the other, ”what in the world are you driving at?”
The Duke realised that he could not conscientiously swear to any such statement as that proposed by Claudius; and, liking him as he did, he was much distressed at being put into such a corner.
”I will tell you afterwards what it is about, Duke,” said Claudius. ”I am serious, and I would like you to answer the question, though I foresee that you will say you could not swear to anything of the kind.”
”Honestly, Claudius, though there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that you are what you appear to be, I could not conscientiously swear it in evidence. I do not know anything about you. But Barker could.”
”No, he could not. He knows no more about me than you do, saving that he met me two or three days sooner. He met me in Heidelberg, it is true, but he made no inquiries whatever concerning me. It never entered his head that I could be anything but what I professed to be.”
”I should think not, indeed,” said the Duke warmly.
”But now that I am here in the flesh, these lawyers are making trouble.
One of them was here a little while since, and he wanted doc.u.mentary evidence of my ident.i.ty.”
”Who was the lawyer?”
”A Mr. Screw, one of the executors of the will.”
”Who is the other executor?” asked the Duke quickly.
”Barker's father.”
The Englishman's face darkened, and he puffed savagely at his cigar. He had been angry with Barker the day before. Now he began to suspect him of making trouble.
”What sort of evidence did the man want?” he asked at length.
”Any sort of doc.u.mentary evidence would do. He asked me for my certificate of birth, and I told him he could not have it. And then he went so far as to remark in a very disagreeable way that he could not authorise me to draw upon the estate until I produced evidence.”
”Well, that is natural enough.”
”It would have been so at first. But they had accepted the mere signature to my letter from Heidelberg as proof of my existence, and I got word in Baden in July that I might draw as much as I pleased. And now they turn upon me and say I am not myself. Something has happened.