Part 18 (1/2)
”Clarence, old man, it's very good of you to come right away like this. I hope it's not seriously inconvenienced you.”
”Not a bit. Between ourselves, I was sitting in the office twiddling my thumbs and wondering what I should do now I'd finished reading the paper.”
”I'll give you something to do. Sit down. You've heard what's happened to my uncle?”
”I remember your telling me you were with an uncle, but I don't know how many uncles you have nor to which of them you're referring.”
”I have, or, rather, had, only one uncle, and last night he committed suicide in the Brighton train.”
”Great Scott! Whatever for?”
”That's it. I'll tell you in as few words as possible what the position is. He's left a daughter, an only child, who is now an orphan, to whom I'm engaged to be married. To her he was not--well, all that a father might have been; he drank, and he womanised.”
”Did he? Nice man!”
”That's precisely what he was not--a nice man. She knew very little about his private affairs, though quite as much as she wanted. He may have killed himself because he was financially wrong, though, personally, I doubt it, or for any one of a score of reasons. You'll guess the state of mind she's in.”
”Naturally; in a case like that it's those who are left who suffer most.”
”Of course. She's anxious, before all else, to know where she stands--that is, to know the worst. His affairs were in the hands of a solicitor named Wilkes.”
”I know him--Stephen Wilkes; he's an able man.”
”Maybe. But she doesn't want him for her solicitor all the same for that, for reasons on which, later, I may enlarge. She's asked me if I knew anyone who would act for her. I suggested you.”
”Thank you, Rodney. You always were a fellow who'd do a chap a good turn if you would.”
”Nonsense! Do you think that I don't know you--even in the old schooldays? You're as clever a man as you'd be likely to meet in a long day's journey, and as dependable. You mayn't have the largest practice in London to-day, but you will have. What's more, I'd trust you with my bottom dollar, which is more than you can say of the general run of solicitors nowadays. I told her so.”
”I'll try my best to prove worthy of your commendation.”
”I've no fear of that, not the least. You may consider Miss Patterson your client, and me; and we may both of us turn out to be quite good clients before we've done. I've asked you to come here in order to give you your first instructions.”
”I'm all ears.”
”Mr. Wilkes is in possession of my uncle's will; he himself says so.
Miss Patterson wanted him to hand it over to me to pa.s.s on to her, but he declined. Can't you persuade him, acting on Miss Patterson's behalf, to produce the will at the earliest possible moment--say this afternoon at four, in her house in Russell Square--and make known its contents then and there? She'll not sleep till she knows the worst.”
”I can try what my persuasive powers will do. Presumably he knows its contents?”
”Presumably, since it is even probable that he drew it up.”
”By it he may be appointed to some office of trust.”
”Exactly. That's one of the things she wants to know; because, if he is, she'll leave no stone unturned to get him out of it. His relations with her father were such that she'll not be induced to have relations of any kind with him.”
”I see; that's how it is. Persons may be interested whose presence he may think desirable at the reading and who are not accessible at such short notice.”