The Herapath Property Part 16

"Not particularly. I remember that he came--at first, I took it, as a visitor. Then I found he'd had rooms of his own given him, and that he was there as a permanency."

"Settled down--just as he has been ever since?"

"Just! Never any difference that I've known of, all these years."

"Did Jacob ever tell you who he was?"

"Never! I never remember my uncle speaking of him in any particular fashion--to me. He was simply--there. Sometimes, you saw him; sometimes, you didn't see him. At times, I mean, you'd meet him at dinner--other times, you didn't."

Burchill paused for a while; when he asked his next question he seemed to adopt a more particular and pressing tone.

"Now--have you the least idea who Tertius is?" he asked.

"Not the slightest!" affirmed Barthorpe. "I never have known who he is.

I never liked him--I didn't like his sneaky way of going about the house--I didn't like anything of him--and he never liked me. I always had a feeling--a sort of intuition--that he resented my presence--in fact, my existence."

"Very likely," said Burchill, with a dry laugh. "Well--has it ever struck you that there was a secret between Tertius and Jacob Herapath?"

Barthorpe started. At last they were coming to something definite.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "So--that's the secret you mentioned in that letter?"

"Never mind," replied Burchill. "Answer my question."

"No, then--it never did strike me."

"Very well," said Burchill. "There is a secret."

"There is?"

"There is! And," whispered Burchill, rising and coming nearer to his visitor, "it's a secret that will put you in possession of the whole of the Herapath property! And--I know it."

Barthorpe had by this time realized the situation. And he was thinking things over at a rapid rate. Burchill had asked Jacob Herapath for ten thousand pounds as the price of his silence; therefore----

"And, of course, you want to make something out of your knowledge?" he said presently.

"Of course," laughed Burchill. He opened a box of cigars, selected one and carefully trimmed the end before lighting it. "Of course!" he repeated. "Who wouldn't? Besides, you'll be in a position to afford me something when you come into all that."

"The will?" suggested Barthorpe.

Burchill threw the burnt-out match into the fire.

"The will," he said slowly, "will be about as valuable as that--when I've fixed things up with you. Valueless!"

"You mean it?" exclaimed Barthorpe incredulously. "Then--your signature?"

"Look here!" said Burchill. "The only thing between us is--terms! Fix up terms with me, and I'll tell you the whole truth. And then--you'll see!"

"Well--what terms?" demanded Barthorpe, a little suspiciously. "If you want money down----"

"You couldn't pay in cash down what I want, nor anything like it," said Burchill. "I may want an advance that you can pay--but it will only be an advance. What I want is ten per cent. on the total value of Jacob Herapath's property."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Barthorpe. "Why I believe he'll cut up for a good million and a half!"

"That's about the figure--as I've reckoned it," a.s.sented Burchill. "But you'll have a lot left when you've paid me ten per cent."

Barthorpe fidgeted in his chair.

"When did you find out this secret?" he asked.

"Got an idea of it just before I left Jacob, and worked it all out, to the last detail, after I left," replied Burchill. "I tell you this for a certainty--when I've told you all I know, you'll know for an absolute fact, that the Herapath property is--yours!"

"Well!" said Barthorpe. "What do you want me to do?"

Burchill moved across to a desk and produced some papers.

"I want you to sign certain doc.u.ments," he said, "and then I'll tell you the whole story. If the story's no good, the doc.u.ments are no good.

How's that?"

"That'll do!" answered Barthorpe. "Let's get to business."

It was one o'clock in the morning when Barthorpe left Calengrove Mansions. But the eyes that had seen him enter saw him leave, and the shadow followed him through the sleeping town until he, too, sought his own place of slumber.

CHAPTER XIII

ADJOURNED

Ever since Triffitt had made his lucky scoop in connection with the Herapath Mystery he had lived in a state of temporary glory, with strong hopes of making it a permanent one. Up to the morning of the event, which gave him a whole column of the _Argus_ (big type, extra leaded), Triffitt, as a junior reporter, had never accomplished anything notable. As he was fond of remarking, he never got a chance. Police-court cases--county-court cases--fires--coroners' inquests--street accidents--they were all exciting enough, no doubt, to the people actively concerned in them, but you never got more than twenty or thirty lines out of their details. However, the chance did come that morning, and Triffitt made the most of it, and the news editor (a highly exacting and particular person) blessed him moderately, and told him, moreover, that he could call the Herapath case his own. Thenceforth Triffitt ate, drank, smoked, and slept with the case; it was the only thing he ever thought of. But at half-past one on the afternoon of the third day after what one may call the actual start of the affair, Triffitt sat in a dark corner of a tea-shop in Kensington High Street, munching ham sandwiches, sipping coffee, and thinking lugubriously, if not despairingly. He had spent two and a half hours in the adjacent Coroner's Court, listening to all that was said in evidence about the death of Jacob Herapath, and he had heard absolutely nothing that was not quite well known to him when the Coroner took his seat, inspected his jurymen, and opened the inquiry. Two and a half hours, at the end of which the court adjourned for lunch--and the affair was just as mysterious as ever, and not a single witness had said a new thing, not a single fresh fact had been brought forward out of which a fellow could make good, rousing copy!

"Rotten!" mumbled Triffitt into his cup. "Extra rotten! Somebody's keeping something back--that's about it!"

Just then another young gentleman came into the alcove in which Triffitt sat disconsolate--a pink-cheeked young gentleman, who affected a tweed suit of loud checks and a sporting coat, and wore a bit of feather in the band of his rakish billyc.o.c.k. Triffitt recognized him as a fellow-scribe, one of the youthful bloods of an opposition journal, whom he sometimes met on the cricket-field; he also remembered that he had caught a glimpse of him in the Coroner's Court, and he hastened to make room for him.

"Hullo!" said Triffitt.

"What-ho!" responded the pink young gentleman. He beckoned knowingly to a waitress, and looked at her narrowly when she came. "Got such a thing as a m.u.f.fin?" he asked.

"m.u.f.fins, sir--yes, sir," replied the waitress, "Fresh m.u.f.fins."

"Pick me out a nice, plump, newly killed m.u.f.fin" commanded Triffitt's companion. "Leave it in its natural state--that is to say, cold--split it in half put between the halves a thick, generous slice of that cold ham I see on your counter, and produce it with a pot of fresh--and very hot--China tea. That's all."

"Plenty too, I should think!" muttered Triffitt. "Fond of indigestion, Carver?"

"I don't think you've ever been in Yorkshire, have you, Triffitt?" asked Mr. Carver, settling himself comfortably. "You haven't had that pleasure?--well, if you'd ever gone to a football match on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon in a Yorkshire factory district, you'd have seen men selling m.u.f.fin-and-ham sandwiches--fact! And I give you my word that if you want something to fill you up during the day, something to tide over the weary wait between breakfast and dinner, a fat m.u.f.fin with a thick slice of ham is the best thing I know."