Lawyer Penhallow was seated in his study, his day's work over, his
feet in slippers, after the comfortable but inelegant fashion which Sir
Walter Scott reprobates, amusing himself with a volume of old Reports.
He was a knowing man enough, a keen country lawyer but honest, and
therefore less ready to suspect the honesty of others. He had a great
belief in his young partner's ability, and, though he knew him to be
astute, did not think him capable of roguery.
It was at his request that Mr. Bradshaw had undertaken his journey,
which, as he believed,--and as Mr. Bradshaw had still stronger evidence
of a strictly confidential nature which led him to feel sure,--would
end in the final settlement of the great land claim in favor of their
client. The case had been dragging along from year to year, like an
English chancery suit; and while courts and lawyers and witnesses had
been sleeping, the property had been steadily growing. A railroad had
passed close to one margin of the township, some mines had been opened
in the county, in which a village calling itself a city had grown big
enough to have a newspaper and Fourth of July orations. It was plain
that the successful issue of the long process would make the heirs of
the late Malachi Withers possessors of an ample fortune, and it was also
plain that the firm of Penhallow and Bradshaw were like to receive, in
such case, the largest fee that had gladdened the professional existence
of its members.
Mr. Penhallow had his book open before him, but his thoughts were
wandering from the page. He was thinking of his absent partner, and the
probable results of his expedition. What would be the consequence if
all this property came into the possession of Silence Withers? Could she
have any liberal intentions with reference to Myrtle Hazard, the young
girl who had grown up with her, or was the common impression true, that
she was bent on endowing an institution, and thus securing for herself
a favorable consideration in the higher courts, where her beneficiaries
would be, it might be supposed, influential advocates? He could not help
thinking that Mr. Bradshaw believed that Myrtle Hazard would eventually
come to a part at least of this inheritance. For the story was, that he
was paying his court to the young lady whenever he got an opportunity,
and that he was cultivating an intimacy with Miss Cynthia Badlam.
“Bradshaw wouldn't make a move in that direction,” Mr. Penhallow said
to himself, “until he felt pretty sure that it was going to be a paying
business. If he was only a young minister now, there'd be no difficulty
about it. Let any man, young or old, in a clerical white cravat, step
up to Myrtle Hazard, and ask her to be miserable in his company through
this wretched life, and aunt Silence would very likely give them her
blessing, and add something to it that the man in the white cravat would
think worth even more than that was. But I don't know what she'll say
to Bradshaw. Perhaps he 'd better have a hint to go to meeting a little
more regularly. However, I suppose he knows what he's about.”
He was thinking all this over when a visitor was announced, and Mr.
Byles Gridley entered the study.
“Good evening, Mr. Penhallow,” Mr. Gridley said, wiping his forehead.
“Quite warm, is n't it, this evening?”
“Warm!” said Mr. Penhallow, “I should think it would freeze pretty
thick to-night. I should have asked you to come up to the fire and warm
yourself. But take off your coat, Mr. Gridley,--very glad to see you.
You don't come to the house half as often as you come to the office. Sit
down, sit down.”
Mr. Gridley took off his outside coat and sat down. “He does look warm,
does n't he?” Mr. Penhallow thought. “Wonder what has heated up the
old gentleman so. Find out quick enough, for he always goes straight to
business.”
“Mr. Penhallow,” Mr. Gridley began at once, “I have come on a very grave
matter, in which you are interested as well as myself, and I wish to lay
the whole of it before you as explicitly as I can, so that we may settle
this night before I go what is to be done. I am afraid the good standing
of your partner, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, is concerned in the
matter. Would it be a surprise to you, if he had carried his acuteness
in some particular case like the one I am to mention beyond the
prescribed limits?”
The question was put so diplomatically that there was no chance for an
indignant denial of the possibility of Mr. Bradshaw's being involved in
any discreditable transaction.
“It is possible,” he answered, “that Bradshaw's keen wits may have
betrayed him into sharper practice than I should altogether approve in
any business we carried on together. He is a very knowing young man, but
I can't think he is foolish enough, to say nothing of his honesty, to
make any false step of the kind you seem to hint. I think he might on
occasion go pretty near the line, but I don't believe he would cross
it.”
“Permit me a few questions, Mr. Penhallow. You settled the estate of the
late Malachi Withers, did you not?”
“Mr. Wibird and myself settled it together.”
“Have you received any papers from any of the family since the
settlement of the estate?”
“Let me see. Yes; a roll of old plans of the Withers Place, and so
forth,--not of much use, but labelled and kept. An old trunk with
letters and account-books, some of them in Dutch,--mere curiosities. A
year ago or more, I remember that Silence sent me over some papers she
had found in an odd corner,--the old man hid things like a magpie. I
looked over most of them,--trumpery not worth keeping,--old leases and
so forth.”
“Do you recollect giving some of them to Mr. Bradshaw to look over?”
“Now I come to think of it, I believe I did; but he reported to me, if I
remember right, that they amounted to nothing.”
“If any of those papers were of importance, should you think your junior
partner ought to keep them from your knowledge?”
“I need not answer that question, Mr. Gridley. Will you be so good as to
come at once to the facts on which you found your suspicions, and which
lead you to put these questions to me?”
Thereupon Mr. Gridley proceeded to state succinctly the singular
behavior of Murray Bradshaw in taking one paper from a number handed to
him by Mr. Penhallow, and concealing it in a volume. He related how
he was just on the point of taking out the volume which contained the
paper, when Mr. Bradshaw entered and disconcerted him. He had, however,
noticed three spots on the paper by which he should know it anywhere. He
then repeated the substance of Kitty Fagan's story, accenting the fact
that she too noticed three remarkable spots on the paper which Mr.
Bradshaw had pointed out to Miss Badlam as the one so important to both
of them. Here he rested the case for the moment.
Mr. Penhallow looked thoughtful. There was something questionable in
the aspect of this business. It did obviously suggest the idea of an
underhand arrangement with Miss Cynthia, possibly involving some very
grave consequences. It would have been most desirable, he said, to have
ascertained what these papers, or rather this particular paper, to which
so much importance was attached, amounted to. Without that knowledge
there was nothing, after all, which it might not be possible to explain.
He might have laid aside the spotted paper to examine for some object
of mere curiosity. It was certainly odd that the one the Fagan woman had
seen should present three spots so like those on the other paper, but
people did sometimes throw treys at backgammon, and that which not
rarely happened with two dice of six faces might happen if they had
sixty or six hundred faces. On the whole, he did not see that there was
any ground, so far, for anything more than a vague suspicion. He thought
it not unlikely that Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the young
lady up at The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic overtures
to the duenna, after the approved method of suitors. She was young for
Bradshaw,--very young,--but he knew his own affairs. If he chose to make
love to a child, it was natural enough that he should begin by courting
her nurse.
Master Byles Gridley lost himself for half a minute in a most
discreditable inward discussion as to whether Laura Penhallow was
probably one or two years older than Mr. Bradshaw. That was his way, he
could not help it. He could not think of anything without these mental
parentheses. But he came back to business at the end of his half-minute.
“I can lay the package before you at this moment, Mr. Penhallow. I
have induced that woman in whose charge it was left to intrust it to
my keeping, with the express intention of showing it to you. But it is
protected by a seal, as I have told you, which I should on no account
presume to meddle with.”
Mr. Gridley took out the package of papers.
“How damp it is!” Mr. Penhallow said; “must have been lying in some very
moist neighborhood.”
“Very,” Mr. Gridley answered, with a peculiar expression which said,
“Never mind about that.”
“Did the party give you possession of these documents without making any
effort to retain them?” the lawyer asked.
“Not precisely. It cost some effort to induce Miss Badlam to let them go
out of her hands. I hope you think I was justified in making the effort
I did, not without a considerable strain upon my feelings, as well as
her own, to get hold of the papers?”
“That will depend something on what the papers prove to be, Mr. Gridley.
A man takes a certain responsibility in doing just what you have done.
If, for instance, it should prove that this envelope contained matters
relating solely to private transactions between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss
Badlam, concerning no one but themselves,--and if the words on the back
of the envelope and the seal had been put there merely as a protection
for a package containing private papers of a delicate but perfectly
legitimate character--”
The lawyer paused, as careful experts do, after bending the bow of an
hypothesis, before letting the arrow go. Mr. Gridley felt very warm
indeed, uncomfortably so, and applied his handkerchief to his face.
Could n't be anything in such a violent supposition as that, and yet
such a crafty fellow as that Bradshaw,--what trick was he not up to?
Absurd! Cynthia was not acting,--Rachel would n't be equal to such a
performance!--“why then, Mr. Gridley,” the lawyer continued, “I don't
see but what my partner would have you at an advantage, and, if disposed
to make you uncomfortable, could do so pretty effectively. But this, you
understand, is only a supposed case, and not a very likely one. I don't
think it would have been prudent in you to meddle with that seal. But
it is a very different matter with regard to myself. It makes no
difference, so far as I am concerned, where this package came from, or
how it was obtained. It is just as absolutely within my control as any
piece of property I call my own. I should not hesitate, if I saw fit,
to break this seal at once, and proceed to the examination of any papers
contained within the envelope. If I found any paper of the slightest
importance relating to the estate, I should act as if it had never been
out of my possession.
“Suppose, however, I chose to know what was in the package, and, having
ascertained, act my judgment about returning it to the party from whom
you obtained it. In such case I might see fit to restore or cause it
to be restored, to the party, without any marks of violence having been
used being apparent. If everything is not right, probably no questions
would be asked by the party having charge of the package. If there is
no underhand work going on, and the papers are what they profess to be,
nobody is compromised but yourself, so far as I can see, and you are
compromised at any rate, Mr. Gridley, at least in the good graces of the
party from whom you obtained the documents. Tell that party that I
took the package without opening it, and shall return it, very likely,
without breaking the seal. Will consider of the matter, say a couple of
days. Then you shall hear from me, and she shall hear from you. So. So.
Yes, that's it. A nice business. A thing to sleep on. You had better
leave the whole matter of dealing with the package to me. If I see fit
to send it back with the seal unbroken, that is my affair. But keep
perfectly quiet, if you please, Mr. Gridley, about the whole matter. Mr.
Bradshaw is off, as you know, and the business on which he is gone is
important,--very important. He can be depended on for that; he has acted
all along as if he had a personal interest in the success of our firm
beyond his legal relation to it.”
Mr. Penhallow's light burned very late in the office that night, and the
following one. He looked troubled and absent-minded, and when Miss
Laura ventured to ask him how long Mr. Bradshaw was like to be gone, he
answered her in such a way that the girl who waited at table concluded
that he did n't mean to have Miss Laury keep company with Mr. Bradshaw,
or he'd never have spoke so dreadful hash to her when she asked about
him.