“Certainly not. To tell you the truth, I wish you would go away, and leave me.”
“Mr. Cheekey will hear all about it, and how will you be able to answer Mr. Cheekey?”
“I don’t care about Mr. Cheekey. Who is to tell Mr. Cheekey? Will you tell him?”
“I cannot take your part, you know, if you behave like this.”
As he spoke, Mr. Apjohn had stopped his walk, and was standing with his back close to the bookshelves, with the back of his head almost touching the set of Jeremy Taylor’s works. There were ten volumes of them, and he was standing exactly in front of them. Cousin Henry was just in front of him, doubting whether his enemy’s position had not been chosen altogether by accident, but still trembling at the near approach. He was prepared for a spring if it was necessary. Anything should be hazarded now, so that discovery might be avoided. Mr. Brodrick was still seated in the chair which he had at first occupied, waiting till that order should be given to him to go for the magistrate’s warrant.
Mr. Apjohn’s eye had caught the author’s name on the back of the book, and he remembered at once that he had seen the volume—a volume with Jeremy Taylor’s name on the back of it—lying on the old man’s table. “Jeremy Taylor’s Works. Sermons.” He remembered the volume. That had been a long time ago—six months ago; but the old man might probably take a long time over so heavy a book. “You will let me look at some of these,” he said, pointing with his thumb over his back.
“You shall not touch a book without a regular order,” said Cousin Henry.
Mr. Apjohn fixed the man’s eye for a moment. He was the smaller man of the two, and much the elder; but he was wiry, well set, and strong. The other was soft, and unused to much bodily exercise. There could be no doubt as to which would have the best of it in a personal struggle. Very quickly he turned round and got his hand on one of the set, but not on the right one. Cousin Henry dashed at him, and in the struggle the book fell to the ground. Then the attorney seized him by the throat, and dragged him forcibly back to the table. “Take them all out one by one, and shake them,” he said to the other attorney—“that set like the one on the floor. I’ll hold him while you do it.”
Mr. Brodrick did as he was told, and, one by one, beginning from the last volume, he shook them all till he came to volume 4. Out of that fell the document.
“Is it the will?” shouted Mr. Apjohn, with hardly breath enough to utter the words.
Mr. Brodrick, with a lawyer’s cautious hands, undid the folds, and examined the document. “It certainly is a will,” he said—“and is signed by my brother-in-law.”
XXII
How Cousin Henry Was Let Off Easily
It was a moment of great triumph and of utter dismay—of triumph to Mr. Apjohn, and of dismay to Cousin Henry. The two men at this moment—as Mr. Brodrick was looking at the papers—were struggling together upon the ground. Cousin Henry, in his last frantic efforts, had striven to escape from the grasp of his enemy so as to seize the will, not remembering that by seizing it now he could retrieve nothing. Mr. Apjohn had been equally determined that ample time should be allowed to Mr. Brodrick to secure any document that might be found, and, with the pugnacity which the state of fighting always produces, had held on to his prey with a firm grip. Now for the one man there remained nothing but dismay; for the other was the full enjoyment of the triumph produced by his own sagacity. “Here is the date,” said Mr. Brodrick, who had retreated with the paper to the furthest corner of the room. “It is undoubtedly my brother-in-law’s last will and testament, and, as far as I can see at a glance, it is altogether regular.”
“You dog!” exclaimed Mr. Apjohn, spurning Cousin Henry away from him. “You wretched, thieving miscreant!” Then he got up on to his legs and began to adjust himself, setting his cravat right, and smoothing his hair with his hands. “The brute has knocked the breath out of me,” he said. “But only to think that we should catch him after such a fashion as this!” There was a note of triumph in his voice which he found it impossible to repress. He was thoroughly proud of his achievement. It was a grand thing to him that Isabel Brodrick should at last get the property which he had so long been anxious to secure for her; but at the present moment it was a grander thing to have hit the exact spot in which the document had been hidden by sheer force of intelligence.
What little power of fighting there had ever been in Cousin Henry had now been altogether knocked out of him. He attempted no further struggle, uttered no denial, nor did he make any answer to the words of abuse which Mr. Apjohn had heaped on his head. He too raised himself from the floor, slowly collecting his limbs together, and seated himself in the chair nearest at hand, hiding his face with his hand.
“That is the most wonderful thing that ever came within my experience,” said Mr. Brodrick.
“That the man should have hidden the will?” asked Mr. Apjohn.
“Why do you say I hid it?” moaned Cousin Henry.
“You reptile!” exclaimed Mr. Apjohn.
“Not that he should have hidden it,” said the Hereford attorney, “but that you should have found it, and found it without any search;—that you should have traced it down to the very book in which the old man must have left it!”
“Yes,” said Cousin Henry. “He left it there. I did not
