With the exception of her eyes and her teeth, Miss Wakefield was an
ordinary, nay, almost a benevolent, woman. About sixty years of age,
with a figure perfectly straight and supple, and wearing her own hair,
which was purple black, she might have passed for forty, save for the
innumerable lines and wrinkles on her face. Her eyes were full of a
furtive evil light, and never failed to cast a baleful influence over
the spectator; her teeth were large and white, but gapped here and
there in the front like a saw. Mr Slimm mentally compared her with some
choice assortments of womankind he had encountered in the mines and
kindred places, and they did not suffer in the comparison.
‘Your business?’ she said coldly.
‘Madam, you will do me the favour to sit down,’ he replied. ‘What I
have to say will take a considerable time.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, with the same frigid air; ‘I prefer to stand.’
Some subtle instinct told her this visit boded no good, and she knew in
dealing with an adversary what an advantage a standing position gives
one.
By way of answer, Mr Slimm continued standing also.
‘Madam,’ he commenced, ‘what I have to say to you concerns the affairs
of the late Mr Morton of Eastwood. He was an old friend of mine. Very
recently, I heard of his death. I am determined to have justice done.’
Was it fancy, or did these thin feline lips grow white? He could have
sworn he saw them quiver. Anyway, fancy or not, if the worst came to
the worst, he had a great card to play.
Mr Slimm continued: ‘He died, as you are aware, after a curious
illness, and rather suddenly at the last. If I am correct, there was no
inquest.’
It was not fancy, then! Mr Slimm’s keen eyes detected a sudden shiver
agitate her frame, and his ear caught a quick painful respiration. Why
did no one think of this? he said to himself.
‘However, for the present we will pass that over. Mr Morton was known
to have been a rich man. All he had was left, I understand, to you?’
‘In that, sir, you are perfectly right. Pray, continue.’
‘Now, at one time, I understand, poor Morton intended to leave
everything to his niece. Was that so?’
Miss Wakefield inclined her head coldly.
‘And since his death, not the slightest trace of the bulk of the money
has been discovered. Is that not so?’
Miss Wakefield inclined her head once more.
‘Well, we have now discovered where the money is.’
‘Discovered where the money is! where _my_ money is!’ the woman cried
with a grating laugh. ‘And I presume you came to bring it to me. After
all this long while, fancy getting my own at last!’
‘I suppose you will do something for Mrs Seaton?’ inquired Slimm.
‘Do something for them—of course I will,’ she laughed hardly. ‘I’ll go
and call on them. I will let them see me ride in my carriage, while
they are begging in the gutter. I will give them a sixpence when they
come to ask alms at my house.—Oh, tell me, are they starving?—are they
starving, I say?’ she gasped in her passionate utterance, clutching the
American by the arm. ‘Are they living on charity? Oh, I hope so—I hope
so, for I hate them—hate them!’ The last words hissed lingeringly and
spitefully through her teeth.
‘Well, not quite,’ Slimm replied cheerfully. ‘It must be consoling to
your womanly feelings to know they are getting on first-rate—in fact,
they are as happy and comfortable as two people can be.’
‘I am sorry for that,’ she said, with a little pant between each word.
‘I hoped they were starving. What right have they to be happy, when I
am so miserable?’
‘Really, madam, it is no pleasure to bring you news, you take it so
uncomfortably,’ Slimm replied. ‘These histrionics, I know, are intended
merely to disguise your delicate and tender feelings. Now, we admit
this money belongs to you. What will you stand for the information?
‘Forty thousand pounds is a lot of money.’
‘Not one farthing,’ replied the woman—‘not one single farthing. The
money is mine, and mine it shall remain.’
‘In that case,’ said Slimm cheerfully, ‘my mission is at an end.—I wish
you a very good-morning.’
‘Stop! Do you mean to say you intend to hold the secret unless I agree
to some terms?’
‘Your powers of penetration do you credit, madam. That is precisely
what I do mean.’
‘And what, pray, is the price placed upon your secret?’
‘Half!’
‘Half!’ she echoed, with a bitter laugh. ‘You are joking. Twenty
thousand pounds! Oh, you have made a mistake. You should go to a
millionaire, not come to me.’
‘Do I understand you to decline?’
‘Decline!’ she exclaimed in a fury. ‘Rather than pay that money to
them, I would starve and rot! Rather than pay that, the money shall
remain in its secret hiding-place till it is forgotten!—Do you take me
for an idiot, a drivelling old woman with one foot in the grave? No,
no, no! You do not know Selina Wakefield yet. Twenty thousand pounds.
Ah, ah, ah! The fools, the fools, the miserable fools, to come and ask
me this!’
‘Perhaps you will be good enough to name a sum you consider to be
equivalent to the service rendered,’ said the American, totally unmoved
by this torrent of invective.
‘Now you talk like a man of sense,’ she replied. ‘You are quite
determined, I see, not to part with your secret until you have a
return. Well, let me see. What do you say to a thousand pounds, or, to
stretch a point, fifteen hundred?’
‘Appalling generosity!’ replied Slimm, regarding the ceiling in
rapture—‘wasteful extravagance! I cannot accept it. My principals are
so grasping, you know. Now, as a personal favour, and to settle this
little difficulty, could not you add, say, another five pounds?’
‘Not another farthing.’
‘Then I am afraid our interview is at an end,’ he said regretfully.—‘Now,
look here. My friends are in no need of money, and are a long way from
the state you charitably hoped to find them in. You are getting on
in life, and we can afford to wait. When you are no more—not to put
too fine a point upon it—we shall lay hands on the treasure, and live
happily ever after—yes, madam.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ she said sulkily.
‘Let me put it another way. Suppose we come to an agreement. It is
highly probable that where the money is, a will is concealed. Now, it
is very certain that this will is made in Mrs Seaton’s favour. If we
make an arrangement to divide the spoil, and that turns out to be so,
what a good thing it will be for you! On the other hand, if there is no
will, you still have a handsome sum of money, which without our aid you
can never enjoy; and do not mistake me when I say that aid will never
be accorded without some benefit to the parties I have the honour to
represent.’
‘And suppose I refuse?’
‘So much the worse for you. Then we have another course open, and one I
decidedly advocate. We will at our own risk recover the money, trusting
to our good fortune to find the will. If not, we will throw the money
in Chancery, and fight you for it on the ground of undue influence and
fraud.’
‘Fraud, sir! What do you mean?’ exclaimed the lady, trembling with
indignation and hatred.
Mr Slimm approached her more closely, and looking sternly into her
eyes, said: ‘Mark me, madam!—the Seatons are not unfriended. I am by
no means a poor man myself, and I will not leave a stone unturned to
unravel this mystery. Do you think I am fool enough to believe that
my old friend hid his money away in this strange manner unless he had
some fear? and if I mistake not, you are the cause of that fear. Had
he intended his wealth for you, he would have left it openly. Nothing
shall be left undone to fathom the matter; and if necessary’—here he
lowered his voice to an impressive whisper—‘the body shall be exhumed.
Do you understand, madam?—exhumed?’
The pallor on the woman’s face deepened to a ghastly ashen gray. ‘What
would you have me do?’ she exclaimed faintly.
‘Come to our terms, and all will be well,’ Slimm said, pursuing the
advantage he had gained; ‘otherwise’—here he paused—‘however, we will
say nothing about that. What I propose is this: that an agreement be
drawn up and entered into upon the terms, that in case no will is found
with the money, the property is divided; and if a will is found leaving
the property to Mrs Seaton, you take five thousand pounds. That is my
final offer.’
‘I—I consent,’ she faltered humbly, at the same time longing, in her
passionate madness, to do her antagonist some deadly mischief, as he
stood before her so calmly triumphant.
‘Very good,’ he said quietly—‘very good. Then I presume our intercourse
is at an end. You will be good enough to be at Mr Carver’s office in
Bedford Row at three o’clock to-morrow afternoon.’
‘One moment. Are you in the secret?’
‘Madam, I have that felicity. But why?’
‘Perhaps now we have come to terms, you may be good enough to tell me
where it is.’
‘Curiosity, thy name is woman,’ said Slimm sententiously. ‘I am sorry I
cannot gratify that little wish; but as you will doubtless be present
at the opening ceremony, you will not object to restrain your curiosity
for the present—Good-morning.’
Miss Wakefield watched our ambassador’s cab leave the door, and then
threw herself, in the abandonment of her passion, upon the floor. In
the impotence of her rage and despair, she lay there, rolling like a
mad dog, tearing at her long nails with the strong uneven teeth. ‘What
does he know?’ she hissed. ‘What can he know? Beaten, beaten at last!’
‘What a woman!’ soliloquised Slimm as he rolled back Londonwards. ‘I
must have a cigar, to get the flavour out of my mouth.’
When he arrived at Mr Carver’s, he found Eleanor and her husband
awaiting him with great impatience.
‘What cheer, my comrade?’ Edgar asked with assumed cheerfulness.
‘Considering the circumstances of the case and the imminent risk I ran,
you might at least have expressed a desire to weep upon this rugged
bosom,’ Slimm answered reproachfully. ‘I found the evil, like most
evils, not half so bad when it is properly faced.’
‘And Miss Wakefield?’ asked Mr Carver anxiously.
‘Gentle as a sucking-dove—only too anxious to meet our views. In fact,
I so far tamed her that she has made an appointment to come here
to-morrow to settle preliminaries.’
‘But what sort of terms did you come to?’ Eleanor asked.
Slimm briefly related the result of his mission, and its unexpected and
desirable consummation, to the mutual astonishment of his listeners;
indeed, when he came to review the circumstances of the case, he was
somewhat astonished at his own success.
‘Wonderful!’ exclaimed Mr Carver, gazing with intense admiration at his
enemy. ‘I could not have believed it possible for one man single-handed
to have accomplished so much.—My good friend, do I really understand
that in any case we get half the money; and in one case, all but five
thousand pounds?’
‘Precisely; and you get the agreement drawn up, and we will get away
to Eastwood the day after to-morrow. I declare I feel as pleased as a
schoolboy who has found the apple at hide-and-seek. I feel as if I was
getting young again.’
‘Then you think it is really settled?’ Edgar asked, with a sigh of
pleasure and relief.
‘Not the slightest doubt of it,’ said the American promptly. ‘And I
think I may be allowed to observe, that of all the strange things I
ever came across throughout my long and checkered career, this is about
the strangest.’
‘It certainly beats anything I ever remember,’ said Mr Carver with a
buoyant air.—‘What do you say, Bates?’
‘Well, sir,’ Mr Bates admitted, ‘there certainly are some points about
it one does not generally encounter in the ordinary run of business.’