Part 20 (1/2)

”Yes, Miss Granger,” he answered, ”I saw you.”

”And you were going by without speaking to me; it was very rude of you--what is the matter?”

”Not so rude as it was of you to arrange to walk out with me and then to go and see Mr. Davies instead.”

”I could not help it, Mr. Bingham; it was an old engagement, which I had forgotten.”

”Quite so, ladies generally have an excuse for doing what they want to do.”

”It is not an excuse, Mr. Bingham,” Beatrice answered, with dignity; ”there is no need for me to make excuses to you about my movements.”

”Of course not, Miss Granger; but it would be more polite to tell me when you change your mind--next time, you know. However, I have no doubt that the Castle has attractions for you.”

She flashed one look at him and turned to go, and as she did so his heart relented; he grew ashamed.

”Miss Granger, don't go; forgive me. I do not know what has become of my manners, I spoke as I should not. The fact is, I was put out at your not coming. To tell you the honest truth, I missed you dreadfully.”

”You missed me. That is very nice of you; one likes to be missed. But, if you missed me for one afternoon, how will you get on a week hence when you go away and miss me altogether?”

Beatrice spoke in a bantering tone, and laughed as she spoke, but the laugh ended in something like a sigh. He looked at her for a moment, looked till she dropped her eyes.

”Heaven only knows!” he answered sadly.

”Let us go in,” said Beatrice, in a constrained voice; ”how chill the air has turned.”

CHAPTER XV

ONLY GOOD-NIGHT

Five more days pa.s.sed, all too quickly, and once more Monday came round.

It was the 22nd of October, and the Michaelmas Sittings began on the 24th. On the morrow, Tuesday, Geoffrey was to return to London, there to meet Lady Honoria and get to work at Chambers. That very morning, indeed, a brief, the biggest he had yet received--it was marked thirty guineas--had been forwarded to him from his chambers, with a note from his clerk to the effect that the case was expected to be in the special jury list on the first day of the sittings, and that the clerk had made an appointment for him with the solicitors for 5.15 on the Tuesday. The brief was sent to him by his uncle's firm, and marked, ”With you the Attorney-General, and Mr. Candleton, Q.C.,” the well-known leader of the Probate and Divorce Court Bar. Never before had Geoffrey found himself in such honourable company, that is on the back of a brief, and not a little was he elated thereby.

But when he came to look into the case his joy abated somewhat, for it was one of the most perplexing that he had ever known. The will contested, which was that of a Yorks.h.i.+re money-lender, disposed of property to the value of over 80,000, and was propounded by a niece of the testator who, when he died, if not actually weak in his mind, was in his dotage, and superst.i.tious to the verge of insanity. The niece to whom all the property was left--to the exclusion of the son and daughter of the deceased, both married, and living away from home--stayed with the testator and looked after him. Shortly before his death, however, he and this niece had violently quarrelled on account of an intimacy which the latter had formed with a married man of bad repute, who was a discharged lawyer's clerk. So serious had been the quarrel that only three days before his death the testator had sent for a lawyer and formally, by means of a codicil, deprived the niece of a sum of 2,000 which he had left her, all the rest of his property being divided between his son and daughter. Three days afterwards, however, he duly executed a fresh will, in the presence of two servants, by which he left all his property to the niece, to the entire exclusion of his own children. This will, though very short, was in proper form and was written by n.o.body knew whom. The servants stated that the testator before signing it was perfectly acquainted with its contents, for the niece had made him repeat them in their presence. They also declared, however, that he seemed in a terrible fright, and said twice, ”It's behind me; it's behind me!”

Within an hour of the signing of the will the testator was found dead, apparently from the effects of fear, but the niece was not in the room at the time of death. The only other remarkable circ.u.mstance in the case was that the disreputable lover of the niece had been seen hanging about the house at dusk, the testator having died at ten o'clock at night.

There was also a further fact. The son, on receiving a message from the niece that his father was seriously worse, had hurried with extraordinary speed to the house, pa.s.sing some one or something--he could not tell what--that seemed to be running, apparently from the window of the sick man's room, which was on the ground floor, and beneath which footmarks were afterwards found. Of these footmarks two casts had been taken, of which photographs were forwarded with the brief. They had been made by naked feet of small size, and in each case the little joint of the third toe of the right foot seemed to be missing. But all attempts to find the feet that made them had hitherto failed. The will was contested by the next of kin, for whom Geoffrey was one of the counsel, upon the usual grounds of undue influence and fraud; but as it seemed at present with small prospect of success, for, though the circ.u.mstances were superst.i.tious enough, there was not the slightest evidence of either. This curious case, of which the outlines are here written, is briefly set out, because it proved to be the foundation of Geoffrey's enormous practice and reputation at the Bar.

He read the brief through twice, thought it over well, and could make little of it. It was perfectly obvious to him that there had been foul play somewhere, but he found himself quite unable to form a workable hypothesis. Was the person who had been seen running away concerned in the matter?--if it was a person. If so, was he the author of the footprints? Of course the ex-lawyer's clerk had something to do with it, but what? In vain did Geoffrey cudgel his brains; every idea that occurred to him broke down somewhere or other.

”We shall lose this,” he said aloud in despair; ”suspicious circ.u.mstances are not enough to upset a will,” and then, addressing Beatrice, who was sitting at the table, working:

”Here, Miss Granger, you have a smattering of law, see if you can make anything of this,” and he pushed the heavy brief towards her.

Beatrice took it with a laugh, and for the next three-quarters of an hour her fair brow was puckered up in a way quaint to see. At last she finished and shut the brief up. ”Let me look at the photographs,” she said.

Geoffrey handed them to her. She very carefully examined first one and then the other, and as she did so a light of intelligence broke out upon her face.

”Well, Portia, have you got it?” he asked.