THE SECOND WITNESS
If any close observer had walked away with Barthorpe Herapath from the
house in Portman Square and had watched his face and noted his manner,
that observer would have said that his companion looked like a man who was
either lost in a profound day-dream or had just received a shock that had
temporarily deprived him of all but the mechanical faculties. And in point
of strict fact, Barthorpe was both stunned by the news he had just
received and plunged into deep speculation by a certain feature of it. He
hurried along, scarcely knowing where he was going--but he was thinking
all the same. And suddenly he pulled himself up and found that he had
turned down Portman Street and was already in the thick of Oxford Street's
busy crowds. A passer-by into whom he jostled in his absent-mindedness
snarled angrily, bidding him look where he was going--that pulled
Barthorpe together and he collected his wits, asking himself what he
wanted. The first thing that met his gaze on this recovery was a little
Italian restaurant and he straightway made for the door.
"This is what I want," he muttered. "Some place in which to sit down and
think calmly."
He slipped into a quiet corner as soon as he had entered the restaurant,
summoned a waiter with a glance, and for a moment concentrated his
attention on the bill of fare which the man put before him. That slight
mental exercise restored him; when the waiter had taken his simple order
and gone away, Barthorpe was fully himself again. And finding himself in
as satisfactory a state of privacy as he could desire, with none to
overlook or spy on him, he drew from an inner pocket a letter-case which
he had taken from Jacob Herapath's private safe at the estate office and
into which he had cast a hurried glance before leaving Kensington for
Portman Square.
From this letter-case he now drew a letter, and as he unfolded it he
muttered a word or two.
"Frank Burchill, 331, Upper Seymour Street," he said. "Um--but not Upper
Seymour Street any longer, I think. Now let's see what it all is--what
it all means I've got to find out."
The sheet of paper which he was handling was of the sort used by
typists, but the letter itself was written by hand, and Barthorpe
recognized the penmanship as that of his uncle's ex-secretary, Burchill,
second witness to the will which had just been exhibited to him. Then he
read, slowly and carefully, what Burchill had written to Jacob
Herapath--written, evidently, only a few days previously. For there was
the date, plain enough.
"35c, Calengrove Mansions,
"Maida Vale, W.
"_November 11th_, 19--.
"DEAR SIR,
"I don't know that I am particularly surprised that you
have up to now entirely ignored my letters of the 1st and
the 5th instant. You probably think that I am not a
person about whom any one need take much trouble; a mean
cur, perhaps, who can do no more than snap at a mastiff's
heels. I am very well aware (having had the benefit of a
year's experience of your character and temperament) that
you have very little respect for unmoneyed people and are
contemptuous of their ability to interfere with the
moneyed. But in that matter you are mistaken. And to put
matters plainly, it will pay you far better to keep me a
friend than to transform me into an enemy. Therefore I
ask you to consider well and deeply the next sentence of
this letter--which I will underline.
"I am in full possession of the secret which you have
taken such vast pains to keep for fifteen years.
"I think you are quite competent to read my meaning, and
I now confidently expect to hear that you will take
pleasure in obliging me in the way which I indicated to
you in my previous letters.
"Yours faithfully,
"FRANK BURCHILL."
Barthorpe read this communication three times, pausing over every
sentence, seeking to read the meanings, the implications, the subtly
veiled threat. When he folded the square sheet and replaced it in the
letter-case he half spoke one word:
"Blackmail!"
Then, staring in apparent idleness about the little restaurant, with its
gilt-framed mirrors, its red, plush-covered seats, its suggestion of
foreign atmosphere and custom, he idly drummed the tips of his fingers
on the table, and thought. Naturally, he thought of the writer of the
letter. Of course, he said to himself, of course he knew Burchill.
Burchill had been Jacob Herapath's private secretary for rather more
than a year, and it was now about six months since Jacob had got rid of
him. He, Barthorpe, remembered very well why Jacob had quietly dismissed
Burchill. One day Jacob had said to him, with a dry chuckle:
"I'm getting rid of that secretary of mine--it won't do."
"What won't do?" Barthorpe had asked.
"He's beginning to make eyes at Peggie," Jacob had answered with another
chuckle, "and though Peggie's a girl of sense, that fellow's too good
looking to have about a house. I never ought to have had him. However--he
goes."
Barthorpe, as he ate the cutlets and sipped the half-bottle of claret
which the waiter presently brought him, speculated on these facts and
memories. He was not very sure about Burchill's antecedents: he believed
he was a young man of good credentials and high respectability--personally,
he had always wondered why old Jacob Herapath, a practical business man,
should have taken as a private secretary a fellow who looked, dressed,
spoke, and behaved like a play-actor. As it all came within the scope of
things he mused on Burchill and his personal appearance, calling up the
ex-secretary's graceful and slender figure, his oval, olive-tinted face,
his large, dark, lustrous eyes, his dark, curling hair, his somewhat
affected dress, his tall, wide-brimmed hats, his taper fingers, his
big, wide-ended cravats. It had once amused Barthorpe--and many other
people--to see Jacob Herapath and his secretary together; nevertheless,
Jacob had always spoken of Burchill as being thoroughly capable,
painstaking, thorough and diligent. His airs and graces Jacob put down as
a young man's affectations--yet there came the time when they suited Jacob
no longer.
"I catch him talking too much to Peggie," he had added, in that
conversation of which Barthorpe was thinking. "Better get rid of him
before they pass the too-much stage."
So Burchill had gone, and Barthorpe had heard no more of him until now.
But what he had heard now was a revelation. Burchill had witnessed a
will of Jacob Herapath's, which, if good and valid and the only will in
existence, would leave him, Barthorpe, a ruined man. Burchill had
written a letter to Jacob Herapath asking for some favour, reward,
compensation, as the price of his silence about a secret. What secret?
Barthorpe could not even guess at it--but Burchill had said, evidently
knowing what he was talking about, that Jacob Herapath had taken vast
pains to keep it for fifteen years.
By the time Barthorpe had finished his lunch he had come to the
conclusion that there was only one thing for him to do. He must go
straight to Calengrove Mansions and interview Mr. Frank Burchill. In one
way or another he must make sure of him, or, rather--though it was
really the same thing--sure of what he could tell. And on the way there
he would make sure of something else--in order to do which he presently
commissioned a taxi-cab and bade its driver go first to 331, Upper
Seymour Street.
The domestic who answered Barthorpe's double knock at that house shook
her head when he designedly asked for Mr. Frank Burchill. Nobody of that
name, she said. But on being assured that there once had been a lodger
of that name in residence there, she observed that she would fetch her
mistress, and disappeared to return with an elderly lady who also shook
her head at sight of the caller.
"Mr. Burchill left here some time ago," she said. "Nearly six months. I
don't know where he is."
"Did he leave no address to which his letters were to be sent?" asked
Barthorpe, affecting surprise.
"He said there'd be no letters coming--and there haven't been," answered
the landlady. "And I've neither seen nor heard of him since he went."
Something in her manner suggested to Barthorpe that she had no desire to
renew acquaintance with her former lodger. This sent Barthorpe away well
satisfied. It was precisely what he wanted. The three people whom he had
left in Portman Square in all probability knew no other address than
this at which to seek for Burchill when he was wanted; they would seek
him there eventually and get no news. Luckily for himself, Barthorpe
knew where he was to be found, and he went straight off up Edgware Road
to find him.
Calengrove Mansions proved to be a new block of flats in the dip of
Maida Vale; 35c was a top flat in a wing which up to that stage of its
existence did not appear to be much sought after by would-be tenants. It
was some time before Barthorpe succeeded in getting an answer to his
ring and knock; when at last the door was opened Burchill himself looked
out upon him, yawning, and in a dressing-gown. And narrowly and
searchingly as Barthorpe glanced at Burchill he could not see a trace of
unusual surprise or embarrassment in his face. He looked just as any man
might look who receives an unexpected caller.
"Oh!" he said. "Mr. Barthorpe Herapath! Come in--do. I'm a bit late--a
good bit late, in fact. You see, I'm doing dramatic criticism now, and
there was an important _premiere_ last night at the Hyperion, and I had
to do a full column, and so--but that doesn't interest you. Come in,
pray."
He led the way into a small sitting-room, drew forward an easy-chair,
and reaching down a box of cigarettes from the mantelpiece offered its
contents to his visitor. Barthorpe, secretly wondering if all this
unconcerned behaviour was natural or merely a bit of acting, took a
cigarette and dropped into the chair.
"I don't suppose you thought of seeing me when you opened your door,
Burchill?" he remarked good-humouredly, as he took the match which his
host had struck for him. "Last man in the world you thought of seeing,
eh?"
Burchill calmly lighted a cigarette for himself before he answered.
"Well," he said at last, "I don't know--you never know who's going to
turn up. But to be candid, I didn't expect to see you, and I don't know
why you've come."
Barthorpe slowly produced the letter-case from his pocket, took
Burchill's letter from it, and held it before him.
"That's what brought me here," he said significantly. "That! Of course,
you recognize it."
Burchill glanced at the letter without turning a hair. If he was merely
acting, thought Barthorpe, he was doing it splendidly, and instead of
writing dramatic criticism he ought to put on the sock and buskins
himself. But somehow he began to believe that Burchill was not acting.
And he was presently sure of it when Burchill laughed--contemptuously.
"Oh!" said Burchill. "Ah! So Mr. Jacob Herapath employs legal
assistance--your assistance--in answering me? Foolish--foolish! Or,
since that is, perhaps, too strong a word--indiscreet. Indiscreet--and
unnecessary. Say so, pray, to Mr. Jacob Herapath."
Barthorpe remained silent a moment; then he put the letter back in the
case and gave Burchill a sharp steady look.
"Good gracious, man!" he said quietly. "Are you pretending? Or--haven't
you heard? Say--that--to Jacob Herapath? Jacob Herapath is dead!"
Burchill certainly started at that. What was more he dropped his
cigarette, and when he straightened himself from picking it up his face
was flushed a little.
"Upon my honour!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know. Dead! When? It must have
been sudden."
"Sudden!" said Barthorpe. "Sudden? He was murdered!"
There was no doubt that this surprised Burchill. At any rate, he showed
all the genuine signs of surprise. He stood staring at Barthorpe for a
full minute of silence, and when he spoke his voice had lost something
of its usual affectation.
"Murdered?" he said. "Murdered! Are you sure of that? You are? Good
heavens!--no, I've heard nothing. But I've not been out since two
o'clock this morning, so how could I hear? Murdered----" he broke off
sharply and stared at his visitor. "And you came to me--why?"
"I came to ask you if you remember witnessing my uncle's will," replied
Barthorpe promptly. "Give me a plain answer. Do you remember?"