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A very good stroke of business! That was the burden of them. Nobody, least of all his dead aunt, had known in what perilous straits Charles stood. His activities, carefully concealed from the world, had landed him where the shadow of a prison loomed ahead.
Exposure and ruin had stared him in the face unless he could in a few short months raise a considerable sum of money. Well – that was all right now. Charles smiled to himself. Thanks to – yes, call it a practical joke – nothing criminal about that – he was saved. He was now a very rich man. He had no anxieties on the subject, for Mrs Harter had never made any secret of her intentions.
Chiming in very appositely with these thoughts, Elizabeth put her head round the door and informed him that Mr Hopkinson was here and would like to see him.
About time, too, Charles thought. Repressing a tendency to whistle, he composed his face to one of suitable gravity and repaired to the library. There he greeted the precise old gentleman who had been for over a quarter of a century the late Mrs Harter’s legal adviser.
The lawyer seated himself at Charles’ invitation and with a dry cough entered upon business matters.
‘I did not quite understand your letter to me, Mr Ridgeway. You seemed to be under the impression that the late Mrs Harter’s will was in our keeping?’
Charles stared at him.
‘But surely – I’ve heard my aunt say as much.’
‘Oh! quite so, quite so. It was in our keeping.’
‘Was?’
‘That is what I said. Mrs Harter wrote to us, asking that it might be forwarded to her on Tuesday last.’
An uneasy feeling crept over Charles. He felt a far-off premonition of unpleasantness.
‘Doubtless it will come to light amonst her papers,’ continued the lawyer smoothly.
Charles said nothing. He was afraid to trust his tongue. He had already been through Mrs Harter’s papers pretty thoroughly, well enough to be quite certain that no will was amongst them. In a minute or two, when he had regained control of himself, he said so. His voice sounded unreal to himself, and he had a sensation as of cold water trickling down his back.
‘Has anyone been through her personal effects?’ asked the lawyer.
Charles replied that her own maid, Elizabeth, had done so. At Mr Hopkinson’s suggestion, Elizabeth was sent for. She came promptly, grim and upright, and answered the questions put to her.
She had been through all her mistress’s clothes and personal belongings. She was quite sure that there had been no legal document such as a will amongst them. She knew what the will looked like – her mistress had had it in her hand only the morning of her death.
‘You are sure of that?’ asked the lawyer sharply.
‘Yes, sir. She told me so, and she made me take fifty pounds in notes. The will was in a long blue envelope.’
‘Quite right,’ said Mr Hopkinson.
‘Now I come to think of it,’ continued Elizabeth, ‘that same blue envelope was lying on this table the morning after – but empty. I laid it on the desk.’
‘I remember seeing it there,’ said Charles.
He got up and went over to the desk. In a minute or two he turned round with an envelope in his hand which he handed to Mr Hopkinson. The latter examined it and nodded his head.
‘That is the envelope in which I despatched the will on Tuesday last.’
Both men looked hard at Elizabeth.
‘Is there anything more, sir?’ she inquired respectfully.
‘Not at present, thank you.’
Elizabeth went towards the door.
‘One minute,’ said the lawyer. ‘Was there a fire in the grate that evening?’
‘Yes, sir, there was always a fire.’
‘Thank you, that will do.’
Elizabeth went out. Charles leaned forward, resting a shaking hand on the table.
‘What do you think? What are you driving at?’
Mr Hopkinson shook his head.
‘We must still hope the will may turn up. If it does not –’
‘Well, if it does not?’
‘I am afraid there is only one conclusion possible. Your aunt sent for that will in order to destroy it. Not wishing Elizabeth to lose by that, she gave her the amount of her legacy in cash.’
‘But why?’ cried Charles wildly. ‘Why?’
Mr Hopkinson coughed. A dry cough.
‘You have had no – er – disagreement with your aunt, Mr Ridgeway?’ he murmured.
Charles gasped.
‘No, indeed,’ he cried warmly. ‘We were on the kindest, most affectionate terms, right up to the end.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Hopkinson, not looking at him.
It came to Charles with a shock that the lawyer did not believe him. Who knew what this dry old stick might not have heard? Rumours of Charles’ doings might have come round to him. What more natural than that he should suppose that these same rumours had come to Mrs Harter, and the aunt and nephew should have had an altercation on the subject?
But it wasn’t so! Charles knew one of the bitterest moments of his career. His lies had been believed. Now that he spoke the truth, belief was withheld. The irony of it!
Of course his aunt had never burnt the will! Of course –
His thoughts came to a sudden check. What was that picture rising before his eyes? An old lady with one hand clasped to her heart . . . something slipping . . . a paper . . . falling on the red-hot embers . . .
Charles’ face grew livid. He heard a hoarse voice – his own – asking:
‘If that will’s never found –?’
‘There is a former will of Mrs Harter’s still extant. Dated September 1920. By it Mrs Harter leaves everything to her niece, Miriam Harter, now Miriam Robinson.’
What was the old fool saying? Miriam? Miriam with her nondescript husband, and her four whining brats. All his cleverness – for Miriam!
The telephone rang sharply at his elbow. He took up the receiver. It was the doctor’s voice, hearty and kindly.
‘That you Ridgeway? Thought you’d like to know. The autopsy’s just concluded. Cause of death as I surmised. But as a matter of fact the cardiac trouble was much more serious than I suspected when she was alive. With the utmost care, she couldn’t have lived longer than two months at the outside. Thought you’d like to know. Might console you more or less.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Charles, ‘would you mind saying that again?’
‘She couldn’t have lived longer than two months,’ said the doctor in a slightly louder tone. ‘All things work out for the best, you know, my dear fellow –’
But Charles had slammed back the receiver on its hook. He was conscious of the lawyer’s voice speaking from a long way off.
‘Dear me, Mr Ridgeway, are you ill?’
Damn them all! The smug-faced lawyer. That poisonous old ass Meynell. No hope in front of him – only the shadow of the prison wall . . .
He felt that Somebody had been playing with him – playing with him like a cat with a mouse. Somebody must be laughing . . .
Chapter 12
Within a Wall
‘Within a Wall’ was first published in Royal Magazine, October 1925.
It was Mrs Lemprière who discovered the existence of Jane Haworth. It would be, of course. Somebody once said that Mrs Lemprière was easily the most hated woman in London, but that, I think, is an exaggeration. She has certainly a knack of tumbling on the one thing you wish to keep quiet about, and she does it with real genius. It is always an accident.
In this case we had been having tea in Alan Everard’s studio. He gave these teas occasionally, and used to stand about in corners, wearing very old clothes, rattling the coppers in his trouser pockets and looking profoundly miserable.
I do not suppose anyone will dispute Everard’s claim to genius at this date. His two most famous pictures, Colour, and The Connoisseur, which belong to his early period, before he became a fashionable portrait painter, were purchased by the nation last ye
ar, and for once the choice went unchallenged. But at the date of which I speak, Everard was only beginning to come into his own, and we were free to consider that we had discovered him.
It was his wife who organized these parties. Everard’s attitude to her was a peculiar one. That he adored her was evident, and only to be expected. Adoration was Isobel’s due. But he seemed always to feel himself slightly in her debt. He assented to anything she wished, not so much through tenderness as through an unalterable conviction that she had a right to her own way. I suppose that was natural enough, too, when one comes to think of it.
