‘From the man you call a nigger?’
His smile spread broader over his face than ever. ‘Well, we borrow from the Jews, yah know,’ he said pleasantly, ‘so why the jooce shouldn’t we borrow from the heathen also? Spoiling the Egyptians, don’t yah see?—the same as we used to read about in the Scripchah when we were innocent kiddies. Like marriage, quite. You borrow in haste—and repay at leisure.’
He strolled off and took his seat. I was glad to get rid of him at the main line junction.
In accordance with my usual merciful custom, I spare you the details of our visit to Agra, Muttra, Benares. At Calcutta, Elsie left me. Her health was now quite restored, dear little soul— I felt I had done that one good thing in life if no other—and she could no longer withstand the higher mathematics, which were beckoning her to London with invisible fingers. For myself, having so far accomplished my original design of going round the world with twopence in my pocket, I could not bear to draw back at half the circuit; and Mr. Elworthy having willingly consented to my return by Singapore and Yokohama, I set out alone on my homeward journey.
Harold wrote me from London that all was going well. He had found the will which I drew up at Florence in his uncle’s escritoire, and everything was left to him; but he trusted, in spite of this untoward circumstance, long absence might have altered my determination. ‘Dear Lois,’ he wrote, ‘I expect you to come back to England and marry me!’
I was brief, but categorical. Nothing, meanwhile, had altered my resolve. I did not wish to be considered mercenary. While he was rich and honoured, I could never take him. If, some day, fortune frowned—but, there—let us not forestall the feet of calamity: let us await contingencies.
Still, I was heavy in heart. If only it had been otherwise! To say the truth, I should be thrown away on a millionaire; but just think what a splendid managing wife a girl like me would have made for a penniless pauper!
At Yokohama, however, while I dawdled in curiosity shops, a telegram from Harold startled me into seriousness. My chance at last! I knew what it meant; that villain Higginson!
‘Come home at once. I want your evidence to clear my character. Southminster opposes the will as a forgery. He has a strong case; the experts are with him.’
Forgery! That was clever. I never thought of that. I suspected them of trying to forge a will of their own; but to upset the real one—to throw the burden of suspicion on Harold’s shoulders—how much subtler and craftier!
I saw at a glance it gave them every advantage. In the first place, it put Harold virtually in the place of the accused, and compelled him to defend instead of attacking—an attitude which prejudices people against one from the outset. Then, again, it implied positive criminality on his part, and so allowed Lord Southminster to assume the air of injured innocence. The eldest son of the eldest brother, unjustly set aside by the scheming machinations of an unscrupulous cousin! Primogeniture, the ingrained English love for keeping up the dignity of a noble family, the prejudice in favour of the direct male line as against the female—all were astutely utilised in Lord Southminster’s interest. But worst of all, it was I who had typewritten the will—I, a friend of Harold’s, a woman whom Lord Southminster would doubtless try to exhibit as his fiancée. I saw at once how much like conspiracy it looked: Harold and I had agreed together to concoct a false document, and Harold had forged his uncle’s signature to it. Could a British jury doubt when a Lord declared it?
Fortunately, I was just in time to catch the Canadian steamer from Japan to Vancouver. But, oh, the endless breadth of that broad Pacific! How time seemed to lag, as each day one rose in the morning, in the midst of space; blue sky overhead; behind one, the hard horizon; in front of one, the hard horizon; and nothing else visible: then steamed on all day, to arrive at night, where?—why, in the midst of space; starry sky overhead; behind one, the dim horizon; in front of one, the dim horizon; and nothing else visible. The Nile was child’s play to it.
Day after day we steamed, and night after night were still where we began—in the centre of the sea, no farther from our starting-point, no nearer to our goal, yet for ever steaming. It was endlessly wearisome; who could say what might be happening meanwhile in England?
At last, after months, as it seemed, of this slow torture, we reached Vancouver. There, in the raw new town, a telegram awaited me. ‘Glad to hear you are coming. Make all haste. You may be just in time to arrive for the trial.’
Just in time! I would not waste a moment. I caught the first train on the Canadian Pacific, and travelled straight through, day and night, to Montreal and Quebec, without one hour’s interval.
I cannot describe to you that journey across a continent I had never before seen. It was endless and hopeless. I only know that we crawled up the Rocky Mountains and the Selkirk Range, over spider-like viaducts, with interminable effort, and that the prairies were just the broad Pacific over again. They rolled on for ever. But we did reach Quebec—in time we reached it; and we caught by an hour the first liner to Liverpool.
At Prince’s Landing-stage another telegram awaited me. ‘Come on at once. Case now proceeding. Harold is in court. We need your evidence.—Georgina Fawley.’
I might still be in time to vindicate Harold’s character.
At Euston, to my surprise, I was met not only by my dear cantankerous old lady, but also by my friend, the magnificent Maharajah, dressed this time in a frock-coat and silk hat of Bond Street glossiness.
‘What has brought you to England?’ I asked, astonished. ‘The Jubilee?’
He smiled, and showed his two fine rows of white teeth. ‘That, nominally. In reality, the cricket season (I play for Berks). But most of all, to see dear Tillington safe through this trouble.’
‘He’s a brick!’ Lady Georgina cried with enthusiasm. ‘A regular brick, my dear Lois! His carriage is waiting outside to take you up to my house. He has stood by Harold—well, like a Christian!’
‘Or a Hindu,’ the Maharajah corrected, smiling.
‘And how have you been all this time, dear Lady Georgina?’ I asked, hardly daring to inquire about what was nearest to my soul—Harold.
The cantankerous old lady knitted her brows in a familiar fashion. ‘Oh, my dear, don’t ask: I haven’t known a happy hour since you left me in Switzerland. Lois, I shall never be happy again without you! It would pay me to give you a retaining fee of a thousand a year—honour bright, it would, I assure you. What I’ve suffered from the Gretchens since you’ve been in the East has only been equalled by what I’ve suffered from the Mary Annes and the Célestines. Not a hair left on my scalp; not one hair, I declare to you. They’ve made my head into a tabula rasa for the various restorers. George R. Sims and Mrs. S. A. Allen are going to fight it out between them. My dear, I wish you could take my maid’s place; I’ve always said——’
I finished the speech for her. ‘A lady can do better whatever she turns her hand to than any of these hussies.’
She nodded. ‘And why? Because her hands are hands; while as for the Gretchens and the Mary Annes, “paws” is the only word one can honestly apply to them. Then, on top of it all comes this trouble about Harold. So distressing, isn’t it? You see, at the point which the matter has reached, it’s simply impossible to save Harold’s reputation without wrecking Southminster’s. Pretty position that for a respectable family! The Ashursts hitherto have been quite respectable: a co-respondent or two, perhaps, but never anything serious. Now, either Southminster sends Harold to prison, or Harold sends Southminster. There’s a nice sort of dilemma! I always knew Kynaston’s boys were born fools; but to find they’re born knaves, too, is hard on an old woman in her hairless dotage. However, you’ve come, my child, and you’ll soon set things right. You’re the one person on earth I can trust in this matter.’
Harold go to prison! My head reeled at the thought. I staggered out into the o
pen air, and took my seat mechanically in the Maharajah’s carriage. All London swam before me. After so many months’ absence, the polychromatic decorations of our English streets, looming up through the smoke, seemed both strange and familiar. I drove through the first half mile with a vague consciousness that Lipton’s tea is the perfection of cocoa and matchless for the complexion, but that it dyes all colours, and won’t wash clothes.
After a while, however, I woke up to the full terror of the situation. ‘Where are you taking me?’ I inquired.
‘To my house, dear,’ Lady Georgina answered, looking anxiously at me; for my face was bloodless.
‘No, that won’t do,’ I answered. ‘My cue must be now to keep myself as aloof as possible from Harold and Harold’s backers. I must put up at an hotel. It will sound so much better in cross-examination.’
‘She’s quite right,’ the Maharajah broke in, with sudden conviction. ‘One must block every ball with these nasty swift bowlers.’
‘Where’s Harold?’ I asked, after another pause. ‘Why didn’t he come to meet me?’
‘My dear, how could he? He’s under examination. A cross-eyed Q.C. with an odious leer. Southminster’s chosen the biggest bully at the Bar to support his contention.’
‘Drive to some hotel in the Jermyn Street district,’ I cried to the Maharajah’s coachman. ‘That will be handy for the law courts.’
He touched his hat and turned. In a sort of dickey behind sat two gorgeous-turbaned Rajput servants.
That evening Harold came round to visit me at my rooms. I could see he was much agitated. Things had gone very badly. Lady Georgina was there; she had stopped to dine with me, dear old thing, lest I should feel lonely and give way; so had Elsie Petheridge. Mr. Elworthy sent a telegram of welcome from Devonshire. I knew at least that my friends were rallying round me in this hour of trial. The kind Maharajah himself would have come too, if I had allowed him, but I thought it inexpedient. They explained everything to me. Harold had propounded Mr. Ashurst’s will—the one I drew up at Florence—and had asked for probate. Lord Southminster intervened and opposed the grant of probate on the ground that the signatures were forgeries. He propounded instead another will, drawn some twenty years earlier, when they were both children, duly executed at the time, and undoubtedly genuine; in it, testator left everything without reserve to the eldest son of his eldest brother, Lord Kynaston.
‘Marmy didn’t know in those days that Kynaston’s sons would all grow up fools,’ Lady Georgina said tartly. ‘Besides which, that was before the poor dear soul took to plunging on the Stock Exchange and made his money. He had nothing to leave then but his best silk hat and a few paltry hundreds. Afterwards, when he’d feathered his nest in soap and cocoa, he discovered that Bertie—that’s Lord Southminster—was a first-class idiot. Marmy never liked Southminster, nor Southminster Marmy. For after all, with all his faults, Marmy was a gentleman; while Bertie—well, my dear, we needn’t put a name to it. So he altered his will, as you know, when he saw the sort of man Southminster turned out, and left practically everything he possessed to Harold.’
‘Who are the witnesses to the will?’ I asked.
‘There’s the trouble. Who do you think? Why, Higginson’s sister, who was Marmy’s masseuse, and a waiter—Franz Markheim—at the hotel at Florence, who’s dead they say—or, at least, not forthcoming.’
‘And Higginson’s sister forswears her signature,’ Harold added gloomily; ‘while the experts are, most of them, dead against the genuineness of my uncle’s.’
‘That’s clever,’ I said, leaning back, and taking it in slowly. ‘Higginson’s sister! How well they’ve worked it. They couldn’t prevent Mr. Ashurst from making this will, but they managed to supply their own tainted witnesses! If it had been Higginson himself now, he’d have had to be cross-examined; and in cross-examination, of course, we could have shaken his credit, by bringing up the episodes of the Count de Laroche-sur-Loiret and Dr. Fortescue-Langley. But his sister! What’s she like? Have you anything against her?’
‘My dear,’ Lady Georgina cried, ‘there the rogue has bested us. Isn’t it just like him? What do you suppose he has done? Why, provided himself with a sister of tried respectability and blameless character.’
‘And she denies that it is her handwriting?’ I asked.
‘Declares on her Bible oath she never signed the document.’
I was fairly puzzled. It was a stupendously clever dodge. Higginson must have trained up his sister for forty years in the ways of wickedness, yet held her in reserve for this supreme moment.
‘And where is Higginson?’ I asked.
Lady Georgina broke into a hysterical laugh. ‘Where is he, my dear? That’s the question. With consummate strategy, the wretch has disappeared into space at the last moment.’
‘That’s artful again,’ I said. ‘His presence could only damage their case. I can see, of course, Lord Southminster has no need of him.’
‘Southminster’s the wiliest fool that ever lived,’ Harold broke out bitterly. ‘Under that mask of imbecility, he’s a fox for trickiness.’
I bit my lip. ‘Well, if you succeed in evading him,’ I said, ‘you will have cleared your character. And if you don’t—then, Harold, our time will have come: you will have your longed-for chance of trying me.’
‘That won’t do me much good,’ he answered, ‘if I have to wait fourteen years for you—at Portland.’
Next morning, in court, I heard Harold’s cross-examination. He described exactly where he had found the contested will in his uncle’s escritoire. The cross-eyed Q.C, a heavy man with bloated features and a bulbous nose, begged him, with one fat uplifted forefinger, to be very careful. How did he know where to look for it?
‘Because I knew the house well: I knew where my uncle was likely to keep his valuables.’
‘Oh, indeed; not because you had put it there?’
The court rang with laughter. My face grew crimson.
After an hour or two of fencing, Harold was dismissed. He stood down, baffled. Counsel recalled Lord Southminster.
The pea-green young man, stepping briskly up, gazed about him, open-mouthed, with a vacant stare. The look of cunning on his face was carefully suppressed. He wore, on the contrary, an air of injured innocence combined with an eye-glass.
‘You did not put this will in the drawer where Mr. Tillington found it, did you?’ counsel asked.
The pea-green young man laughed. ‘No, I certainly didn’t put it theah. My cousin Harold was man in possession. He took jolly good care I didn’t come neah the premises.’
‘Do you think you could forge a will if you tried?’
Lord Southminster laughed. ‘No, I don’t,’ he answered, with a well-assumed naïveté. ‘That’s just the difference between us, don’t yah know. I’m what they call a fool, and my cousin Harold’s a precious clevah fellah.’
There was another loud laugh.
‘That’s not evidence,’ the judge observed, severely.
It was not. But it told far more than much that was. It told strongly against Harold.
‘Besides,’ Lord Southminster continued, with engaging frankness, ‘if I forged a will at all, I’d take jolly good care to forge it in my own favah.’
My turn came next. Our counsel handed me the incriminated will. ‘Did you draw up this document?’ he asked.
I looked at it closely. The paper bore our Florentine water-mark, and was written with a Spread-Eagle. ‘I type-wrote it,’ I answered, gazing at it with care to make sure I recognised it.
Our counsel’s business was to uphold the will, not to cast aspersions upon it. He was evidently annoyed at my close examination. ‘You have no doubts about it?’ he said, trying to prompt me.
I hesitated. ‘No, no doubts,’ I answered, turning over the sheet and inspecting it s
till closer. ‘I type-wrote it at Florence.’
‘Do you recognise that signature as Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst’s?’ he went on.
I stared at it. Was it his? It was like it, certainly. Yet that k? and those s’s? I almost wondered.
Counsel was obviously annoyed at my hesitation. He thought I was playing into the enemy’s hands. ‘Is it his, or is it not?’ he inquired again, testily.
‘It is his,’ I answered. Yet I own I was troubled.
He asked many questions about the circumstances of the interview when I took down the will. I answered them all. But I vaguely felt he and I were at cross-purposes. I grew almost as uncomfortable under his gaze as if he had been examining me in the interest of the other side. He managed to fluster me. As a witness for Harold, I was a grotesque failure.
Then the cross-eyed Q.C., rising and shaking his huge bulk, began to cross-examine me. ‘Where did you type-write this thing, do you say?’ he said, pointing to it contemptuously.
‘In my office at Florence.’
‘Yes, I understand; you had an office in Florence—after you gave up retailing bicycles on the public roads; and you had a partner, I think—a Miss Petherick, or Petherton, or Pennyfarthing, or something?’
‘Miss Petheridge,’ I corrected, while the Court tittered.
‘Ah, Petheridge, you call it! Well, now answer this question carefully. Did your Miss Petheridge hear Mr. Ashurst dictate the terms of his last will and testament?’
‘No,’ I answered. ‘The interview was of a strictly confidential character. Mr. Ashurst took me aside into the back room at our office.’
‘Oh, he took you aside? Confidential? Well, now we’re getting at it. And did anybody but yourself see or hear any part whatsoever of this precious document?’
‘Certainly not,’ I replied. ‘It was a private matter.’
‘Private! oh, very! Nobody else saw it. Did Mr. Ashurst take it away from the office in person?’
The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK ™: 20 Modern and Classic Tales of Female Detectives Page 152
