Late, Late in the Evening

'Produce them, then,' I said. 'Meanwhile, perhaps you will be good enough to leave my house.'

'Your house?' he said. I rang for Barker to show him out. He went without any fuss and the next thing was a letter from our family lawyers. A man had been to see them claiming that he was my brother and heir to the estate.

'As you will know,' the letter said, 'the estate was entailed several generations ago and the entail has never been revoked. The man we interviewed has produced certain proofs of identity which could form the basis of long and expensive litigation should you decide to contest his claim in favour of your grandson, the apparent heir to the estate. We are of the opinion that in all likelihood the man is an impudent impostor, but proving this might be a matter of extreme difficulty in view of the papers in his possession and what appears to be his extensive knowledge of the family history. We await your further instructions.'

I was in a quandary, so I wrote back to the lawyers and asked their advice, but they merely reiterated that, in their opinion, I might find litigation both lengthy and expensive, with no certainty at the end that I should win my case. Then Ward came to see me again. I told him that he could not prove he was my brother. He replied that I would have infinite trouble proving that he was not.

'Look,' he said, 'I have reformed, I can assure you of that. I shan't be any trouble to you. All I want is an allowance and a home. I need not live here. You would not want that. If you will find me somewhere respectable and quiet and give the ten pounds a week, I'll trouble you no further and I won't even visit you any more. Come, Emilia, what do you say?'

'If you really are my brother, go ahead and claim your inheritance,' I said.

'Oh, the estate brings in little or nothing. I know that,' he said. 'Even if I had it, I could not afford to keep up the house and pay the servants. Why not make the best of a bad job and do as I suggest? It will save both of us trouble and you a great deal of money. You don't really want to go to law, you know.'

'What makes you think I can afford to pay you ten pounds a week?' I asked.

'Oh, I know our parents left very little, but you must be very well off since your husband died,' he answered.

'Be that as it may,' I said, 'it can hardly concern anybody but my heirs, and you can hardly expect to be one of those.'

'Oh, I don't, I don't, my dear sister,' he declared. 'I know that you have an adopted son. I suppose he will be the chief beneficiary.'

'You seem to have interested yourself vastly in my affairs,' I said angrily. 'However, since it seems just as well to clear the matter up between us once and for all, I may as well tell you that my adopted son, as you call him, has no claim on me whatever and he knows it. I do not say I shall leave him nothing. I am very fond of him. However, it will not and cannot be anything at all substantial because I have a duty to others bound to me by ties of blood; others whom my dear husband made me promise, before he died, that I would benefit.' (This, I confess, Mrs Bradley, was not quite true!) I went on:

'You rightly point out that most of what I have was left to me by him and my conscience would not permit me to dispose of it against his wishes. He was particularly anxious that not more than five thousand should go to Nigel. The boy is not of our kin and we have done much to further his interests, first my husband and now myself. The bulk of the money will go to my grandson.'

'And I am to get nothing? Oh, well, I did not expect very much. You could spare me fifty a month and not miss it, though, couldn't you, dear sister, if only for old times' sake?' he suggested.

'I have no pleasant memories of old times, so far as you are concerned,' I said.

'Will you do nothing for me? After all, I am prepared to give up all claim to the estate. That ought to be worth a modest thirty thousand pounds at your death. I should not expect to claim it before that.'

'Thirty thousand pounds?'

'Left to me in your will.' He paused and then said, astonishingly, 'You can add a clause specifying that I get it provided you die a natural death, of course.'

'I will talk it over with Nigel,' I said feebly. 'Meanwhile I will pay you five pounds a week and will make myself responsible for your board and lodging, but only on condition that you sign an undertaking not to molest me and not to make any further demands upon my purse.'

'Except for the thirty thousand, dear sister. That is my condition and the only one on which I shall accept your terms. Otherwise I'm out to make trouble,' he said. 'The estate is mine, and you know it. I could turn you out of this house tomorrow if I chose, and as for your dependents, whoever they are-you have children and grandchildren, I dare say-well, they can go hang, so far as I'm concerned. If you won't meet my terms, I'll damn well get a son of my own-I'm not past doing that, you know-so I advise you to think it over.'

Well, dear Mrs Bradley, I agreed to his terms, whether wisely or not I hardly know. The thirty thousand will still leave plenty for little Lionel and I am leaving only five thousand to Nigel, as he knows. My lawyers are not very happy about the arrangements, but since Ward is prepared to give up all claim to the estate I feel that he is entitled to some benefit. He now lodges with a most respectable couple in the village here. The wife's father is a substantial man and the couple have a very good house for such people. They let Ward have two upstairs rooms and his food, for all of which I pay, and until recently I had had no complaints from them about his behaviour.

To make certain that the Landgraves received their money I should much have preferred that Nigel should ride down the hill and deliver it to them personally in a sealed envelope containing coin of the realm, but Nigel lives in London, so now one of the servants takes it. The rest of the allowance, the five pounds a week remittance, I send Ward monthly in the form of money orders which he cashes at the village post-office and spends mostly, I believe, at the public house.

The first inkling I had that matters are no longer quite what they ought to be came in the form of a letter from Mrs Landgrave. It was very well put together, but I believe her education was superior to that of her husband, although I believe him to be a good sort of man in his way, sober and respectable, I mean. Well, in the letter Mrs Landgrave informed me that, while she had no wish to complain, they had become worried about certain changes in the conduct of 'Mr' Ward.

'He has always liked digging,' she wrote. 'At first he dug in the bit of our garden we let him have, but now he has dug up and destroyed all my husband's gladdies.' (Gladioli I suppose she meant.) Then he got into my father's chicken run,' she went on, 'and began to dig there. He said he was digging for buried treasure, which did not seem to us very likely. His latest has been to go digging on The Marsh and I think he must have been in the sheepwash, for he came back wet through, right to his hair, and plastered in mud, so we would be much obliged if