The Herapath Property Part 21

Mr. Tertius turned to Professor c.o.x-Raythwaite.

"What do you think of this, c.o.x-Raythwaite?" he asked, almost piteously.

"I mean--what do you think's best to be done?"

The Professor, who had stood apart with Selwood during the episode which had just concluded, pulling his great beard and looking very big and black and formidable, jerked his thumb in the direction of the old lawyer.

"Do what Halfpenny says," he growled. "See this other witness. And--but here, I'll have a word with you in the hall."

He said good-bye in a gruffly affectionate way to Peggie, patted her shoulder and her head as if she were a child, and followed the two other men out. Peggie, left alone with Selwood, turned to him. There was something half-appealing in her face, and Selwood suddenly drove his hands deep into his pockets, clenched them there, and put a tight hold on himself.

"It's all different!" exclaimed Peggie, dropping into a chair and clasping her hands on her knees. "All so different! And I feel so utterly helpless."

"Scarcely that," said Selwood, with an effort to speak calmly. "You've got Mr. Tertius, and Mr. Halfpenny, and the Professor, and--and if there's anything--anything I can do, don't you know, why, I----"

Peggie impulsively stretched out a hand--and Selwood, not trusting himself, affected not to see it. To take Peggie's hand at that moment would have been to let loose a flood of words which he was resolved not to utter just then, if ever. He moved across to the desk and pretended to sort and arrange some loose papers.

"We'll--all--all--do everything we can," he said, trying to keep any tremor out of his voice. "Everything you know, of course."

"I know--and I'm grateful," said Peggie. "But I'm frightened."

Selwood turned quickly and looked sharply at her.

"Frightened?" he exclaimed. "Of what?"

"Of something that I can't account for or realize," she replied. "I've a feeling that everything's all wrong--and strange. And--I'm frightened of Mr. Burchill."

"What!" snapped Selwood. He dropped the papers and turned to face her squarely. "Frightened of--Burchill? Why?"

"I--don't--know," she answered, shaking her head. "It's more an idea--something vague. I was always afraid of him when he was here--I've been afraid of him ever since. I was very much afraid when he came here the other day."

"You saw him?" asked Selwood.

"I didn't see him. He merely sent up that card. But," she added, "I was afraid even then."

Selwood leaned back against the desk, regarding her attentively.

"I don't think you're the sort to be afraid without reason," he said.

"Of course, if you have reason, I've no right to ask what it is. All the same, if this chap is likely to annoy you, you've only to speak and--and----"

"Yes?" she said, smiling a little. "You'd----"

"I'll punch his head and break his neck for him!" growled Selwood.

"And--and I wish you'd say if you have reasons why I should. Has--has he annoyed you?"

"No," answered Peggie. She regarded Selwood steadily for a minute; then she spoke with sudden impulse. "When he was here," she said, "I mean before he left my uncle, he asked me to marry him."

Selwood, in spite of himself, could not keep a hot flush from mounting to his cheek.

"And--you?" he said.

"I said no, of course, and he took my answer and went quietly away,"

replied Peggie. "And that--that's why I'm frightened of him."

"Good heavens! Why?" demanded Selwood. "I don't understand. Frightened of him because he took his answer, went away quietly, and hasn't annoyed you since? That--I say, that licks me!"

"Perhaps," she said. "But, you see, you don't know him. It's just because of that--that quiet--that--oh, I don't quite know how to explain!--that--well, silence--that I'm afraid--yes, literally afraid.

There's something about him that makes me fear. I used to wish that my uncle had never employed him--that he had never come here. And--I'd rather be penniless than that my uncle had ever got him--him!--to witness that will!"

Selwood found no words wherewith to answer this. He did not understand it. Nevertheless he presently found words of another sort.

"All right!" he muttered doggedly. "I'll watch him--or, I'll watch that he--that--well, that no harm comes to--you know what I mean, don't you?"

"Yes," murmured Peggie, and once more held out an impulsive hand. But Selwood again pretended to see nothing, and he began another energetic a.s.sault upon the papers which Jacob Herapath would never handle again.

CHAPTER XVII

THE LAW

Once within a taxi-cab and on their way to Maida Vale, Mr. Halfpenny turned to his companion with a shake of the head which implied a much mixed state of feeling.

"Tertius!" he exclaimed. "There's something wrong! Quite apart from what we know, and from what we were able to communicate to the police, there's something wrong. I feel it--it's in the air, the--the whole atmosphere. That fellow Barthorpe is up to some game. What? Did you notice his manner, his att.i.tude--everything? Of course!--who could help it? He--has some scheme in his head. Again I say--what?"

Mr. Tertius stirred uneasily in his seat and shook his head.

"You haven't heard anything from New Scotland Yard?" he asked.

"Nothing--so far. But they are at work, of course. They'll work in their own way. And," continued Mr. Halfpenny, with a grim chuckle, "you can be certain of this much, Tertius--having heard what we were able to tell them, having seen what we were able to put before them, with respect to the doings of that eventful night, they won't let Master Barthorpe out of their ken--not they! It is best to let them pursue their own investigations in their own manner--they'll let us know what's been done, sure enough, at the right time."

"Yes," a.s.sented Mr. Tertius. "Yes--so I gather--I am not very conversant with these things. I confess there's one thing that puzzles me greatly though, Halfpenny. That's the matter of the man who came out of the House of Commons with Jacob that night. You remember that the coachman, Mountain, told us--and said at the inquest also--that he overheard what Jacob said to that man--'The thing must be done at once, and you must have everything ready for me at noon tomorrow,' or words to that effect. Now that man must be somewhere at hand--he must have read the newspapers, know all about the inquest--why doesn't he come forward?"

Mr. Halfpenny chuckled again and patted his friend's arm.

"Ah!" he said. "But you don't know that he hasn't come forward! The probability is, Tertius, that he has come forward, and that the people at New Scotland Yard are already in possession of whatever story he had to tell. Oh, yes, I quite expect that--I also expect to hear, eventually, another piece of news in relation to that man."

"What's that?" asked Mr. Tertius.

"Do you remember that, at the inquest, Mountain, the coachman, said that there was another bit of evidence he had to give which he'd forgotten to tell Mr. Barthorpe when he questioned him? Mountain"--continued Mr.

Halfpenny--"went on to say that while Jacob Herapath and the man stood talking in Palace Yard, before Jacob got into his brougham, Jacob took some object from his waistcoat pocket and handed it, with what looked like a letter, to the man? Eh?"

"I remember very well," replied Mr. Tertius.

"Very good," said Mr. Halfpenny. "Now I believe that object to have been the key of Jacob's safe at the Safe Deposit, which, you remember, could not be found, but which young Selwood affirmed had been in Jacob's possession only that afternoon. The letter I believe to have been a formal authority to the Safe Deposit people to allow the bearer to open that safe. I've thought all that out," concluded Mr. Halfpenny, with a smile of triumph, "thought it out carefully, and it's my impression that that's what we shall find when the police move. I believe that man has revealed himself to the police, has told them--whatever it is he has to tell, and that his story probably throws a vast flood of light on the mystery. So I say--let us not at present concern ourselves with the actual murder of our poor friend: the police will ferret that out! What we're concerned with is--the will! That will, Tertius, must be proved, and at once."

"I am as little conversant with legal matters as with police procedure,"

observed Mr. Tertius. "What is the exact course, now, in a case of this sort?"