Antony Bartle leaned back in his easy chair and chuckled—something, some idea, seemed to be affording him amusement.
“I’m eighty years old,” he remarked. “No, I’m more, to be exact. I shall be eighty-two come February. When you’ve lived as long as that, young Mr. Pratt, you’ll know that this life is a game of topsy-turvy—to some folks, at any rate. Just so!”
“You didn’t come here to tell me that, Mr. Bartle,” said Pratt. He was an essentially practical young man who dined at half-past six every evening, having lunched on no more than bread-and-cheese and a glass of ale, and he also had his evenings well mapped out. “I know that already, sir.”
“Aye, aye, but you’ll know more of it later on,” replied Bartle. “Well—you know, too, no doubt, that the late John Mallathorpe was a bit—only a bit—of a book-collector; collected books and pamphlets relating to this district?”
“I’ve heard of it,” answered the clerk.
“He had that collection in his private room at the mill,” continued the old bookseller, “and when the new folks took hold, I persuaded them to sell it to me. There wasn’t such a lot—maybe a hundred volumes altogether—but I wanted what there was. And as they were of no interest to them, they sold ’em. That’s some months ago. I put all the books in a corner—and I never really examined them until this very afternoon. Then—by this afternoon’s post—I got a letter from a Barford man who’s now out in America. He wanted to know if I could supply him with a nice copy of Hopkinson’s History of Barford. I knew there was one in that Mallathorpe collection, so I got it out, and examined it. And in the pocket inside, in which there’s a map, I found—what d’ye think?”
“Couldn’t say,” replied Pratt. He was still thinking of his dinner, and of an important engagement to follow it, and he had not the least idea that old Antony Bartle was going to tell him anything very important. “Letters? Banknotes? Something of that sort?”
The old bookseller leaned nearer, across the corner of the desk, until his queer, wrinkled face was almost close to Pratt’s sharp, youthful one. Again he lifted the claw-like finger: again he tapped the clerk’s arm.
“I found John Mallathorpe’s will!” he whispered. “His—will!”
Linford Pratt jumped out of his chair. For a second he stared in speechless amazement at the old man; then he plunged his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets, opened his mouth, and let out a sudden exclamation.
“No!” he said. “No! John Mallathorpe’s—will? His—will!”
“Made the very day on which he died,” answered Bartle, nodding emphatically.
“Queer, wasn’t it? He might have had some—premonition, eh?”
Pratt sat down again.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Here in my pocket,” replied the old bookseller, tapping his rusty coat. “Oh, it’s all right, I assure you. All duly made out, signed, and witnessed. Everything in order, I know!—because a long, a very long time ago, I was like you, an attorney’s clerk. I’ve drafted many a will, and witnessed many a will, in my time. I’ve read this, every word of it—it’s all right. Nothing can upset it.”
“Let’s see it,” said Pratt, eagerly.
“Well—I’ve no objection—I know you, of course,” answered Bartle, “but I’d rather show it first to Mr. Eldrick. Couldn’t you telephone up to his house and ask him to run back here?”
“Certainly,” replied Pratt. “He mayn’t be there, though. But I can try. You haven’t shown it to anybody else?”
“Neither shown it to anybody, nor mentioned it to a soul,” said Bartle. “I tell you it’s not much more than half an hour since I found it. It’s not a long document. Do you know how it is that it’s never come out?” he went on, turning eagerly to Pratt, who had risen again. “It’s easily explained. The will’s witnessed by those two men who were killed at the same time as John Mallathorpe! So, of course, there was nobody to say that it was in evidence. My notion is that he and those two men—Gaukrodger and Marshall, his manager and cashier—had signed it not long before the accident, and that Mallathorpe had popped it into the pocket of that book before going out into the yard. Eh? But see if you can get Mr. Eldrick down here, and we’ll read it together. And I say—this office seems uncommonly stuffy—can you open the window a bit or something?—I feel oppressed, like.”
Pratt opened a window which looked out on the street. He glanced at the old man for a moment and saw that his face, always pallid, was even paler than usual.
“You’ve been talking too much,” he said. “Rest yourself, Mr. Bartle, while I ring up Mr. Eldrick’s house. If he isn’t there, I’ll try his club—he often turns in there for an hour before going home.”
He went out by a private door to the telephone box, which stood in a lobby used by various occupants of the building. And when he had rung up Eldrick’s private house and was waiting for the answer, he asked himself what this discovery would mean to the present holders of the Mallathorpe property, and his curiosity—a strongly developed quality in him—became more and more excited. If Eldrick was not at home, if he could not get in touch with him, he would persuade old Bartle to let him see his find—he would cheerfully go late to his dinner if he could only get a peep at this strangely discovered document. Romance! Why, this indeed was romance; and it might be—what else? Old Bartle had already chuckled about topsy-turvydom: did that mean that—
The telephone bell rang: Eldrick had not yet reached his house. Pratt got on to the club: Eldrick had not been there. He rang off, and went back to the private room.
“Can’t get hold of him, Mr. Bartle,” he began, as he closed the door. “He’s not at home, and he’s not at the
