THE FIRST TRICK
The Mallathorpe family solicitor shook his head impatiently under those
questioning glances.
"It's not a bit of use appealing to me to know what it means!" he
exclaimed. "I know no more than what I've told you. That chap walked
into my office as bold as brass, half an hour ago, and exhibited to me a
power of attorney, all duly drawn up and stamped, executed in his favour
by Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday. And as Mrs. Mallathorpe is, as far as I
know, in her senses,--why--there you are!"
"What is it?" asked Eldrick. "A general power? Or a special?"
"General!" answered Robson, with an air of disgust. "Authorizes him to
act for her in all business matters. It means, of course, that that
fellow now has full control over--why, a tremendous amount of money! The
estate, of course, is Miss Mallathorpe's--he can't interfere with that.
But Mrs. Mallathorpe shares equally with her daughter as regards the
personal property of Harper Mallathorpe--his share in the business, and
all that he left, and what's more, Mrs. Mallathorpe is administratrix of
the personal property. She's simply placed in Pratt's hands an enormous
power! And--for what reason? Who on earth is Pratt--what right, title,
age, or qualification, has he to be entrusted with such a big affair? I
never knew of such a business in the whole course of my professional
experiences!"
"Nor I!" agreed Eldrick. "But there's one thing in which you're
mistaken, Robson. You ask what qualification Pratt has for a post of
that sort? Pratt's a very smart, clever, managing chap!"
"Oh, of course! He's your clerk!" retorted Robson, a little sneeringly.
"Naturally, you've a big idea of his abilities. But----"
"He's not our clerk any longer," said Eldrick. "He left us about a week
ago. I heard this morning that he's set up an office in Market
Street--in the Atlas Building--and I wondered for what purpose."
"Purpose of fleecing Mrs. Mallathorpe, I should say!" grumbled Robson.
"Of course, everything of hers must pass through his hands. What on
earth can her daughter have been thinking of to allow----"
"Stop a bit!" interrupted Eldrick. "Collingwood came in to tell me about
that--he's just come from Normandale Grange. Miss Mallathorpe complains
that Pratt called there yesterday in her absence. That's probably when
this power of attorney was signed. But Miss Mallathorpe doesn't know
anything of it--she insists that Pratt shall not visit her mother."
Robson stirred impatiently in his chair.
"That's all bosh!" he said. "She can't prevent it. I saw Mrs.
Mallathorpe myself three days ago--she's recovering very well, and she's
in her right senses, and she's capable of doing business. Her daughter
can't prevent her from doing anything she likes! And if she did what she
liked yesterday when she signed that document--why, everybody's
powerless--except Pratt."
"There's the question of how the document was obtained," remarked
Collingwood. "There may have been undue influence."
The two solicitors looked at each other. Then Eldrick rose from his
chair. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "It's no affair of mine,
but we employed Pratt for years, and he'll confide in me. I'll go and
see him, and ask him what it's all about. Wait here a while, you two."
He went out of his office and across into Market Street, where the Atlas
Building, a modern range of offices and chambers, towered above the
older structures at its foot. In the entrance hall a man was gilding the
name of a new tenant on the address board--that name was Pratt's, and
Eldrick presently found himself ascending in the lift to Pratt's
quarters on the fifth floor. Within five minutes of leaving Collingwood
and Robson, he was closeted with Pratt in a well-furnished and appointed
little office of two rooms, the inner one of which was almost luxurious
in its fittings. And Pratt himself looked extremely well satisfied, and
confident--and quite at his ease. He wheeled forward an easy chair for
his visitor, and pushed a box of cigarettes towards him.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Eldrick," he said, with a cordial politeness which
suggested, however, somehow, that he and the solicitor were no longer
master and servant. "How do you like my little place of business?"
"You're making a comfortable nest of it, anyhow, Pratt," answered
Eldrick, looking round. "And--what sort of business are you going to do,
pray?"
"Agency," replied Pratt, promptly. "It struck me some little time ago
that a smart man,--like myself, eh?--could do well here in Barford as an
agent in a new sort of fashion--attending to things for people who
aren't fitted or inclined to do 'em for themselves--or are rich enough
to employ somebody to look after their affairs. Of course, that
Normandale stewardship dropped out when young Harper died, and I don't
suppose the notion 'll be revived now that his sister's come in. But
I've got one good job to go on with---Mrs. Mallathorpe's given me her
affairs to look after."
Eldrick took one of the cigarettes and lighted it--as a sign of his
peaceable and amicable intentions.
"Pratt!" he said. "That's just what I've come to see you about.
Unofficially, mind--in quite a friendly way. It's like this"; and he
went on to tell Pratt of what had just occurred at his own office.
"So--there you are," he concluded. "I'm saying nothing, you know, it's
no affair of mine--but if these people begin to say that you've used any
undue influence----"
"Mr. Collingwood, and Mr. Robson, and Miss Mallathorpe--and anybody,"
answered Pratt, slowly and firmly, "had better mind what they are
saying, Mr. Eldrick. There's such a thing as slander, as you're well
aware. I'm not the man to be slandered, or libelled, or to have my
character defamed--without fighting for my rights. There has been no
undue influence! I went to see Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday at her own
request. The arrangement between me and her is made with her approval
and free will. If her daughter found her a bit upset, it's because she'd
such a shock at the time of her son's death. I did nothing to frighten
her, not I! The fact is, Miss Mallathorpe doesn't know that her mother
and I have had a bit of business together of late. And all that Mrs.
Mallathorpe has entrusted to me is the power to look after her affairs
for her. And why not? You know that I'm a good man of business, a really
good hand at commercial accountancy, and well acquainted with the trade
of this town. You know too, Mr. Eldrick, that I'm scrupulously
honest--I've had many and many a thousand pounds of yours and your
partner's through my hands! Who's got anything to say against me? I'm
only trying to earn an honest living."
"Well, well!" said Eldrick, who, being an easy-going and
kindly-dispositioned man, was somewhat inclined to side with his old
clerk. "I suppose Mr. Robson thinks that if Mrs. Mallathorpe wished to
put her affairs in anybody's hands, she should have put them in his.
He's their family solicitor, you know, Pratt, while you're a young man
with no claim on Mrs. Mallathorpe."
Pratt smiled--a queer, knowing smile--and reached out his hand to some
papers which lay on his desk.
"You're wrong there, Mr. Eldrick," he said. "But of course, you don't
know. I didn't know myself, nor did Mrs. Mallathorpe, until lately. But
I have a claim--and a good one--to get a business lift from Mrs.
Mallathorpe. I'm a relation."
"What--of the Mallathorpe family?" exclaimed Eldrick, whose legal mind
was at once bitten by notion of kinship and succession, and who knew
that Harper Mallathorpe was supposed to have no male relatives at all,
of any degree. "You don't mean it?"
"No!--but of hers, Mrs. Mallathorpe," answered Pratt. "My mother was her
cousin. I found that out by mere chance, and when I'd found it, I worked
out the facts from our parish church register. They're all here--fairly
copied--Mrs. Mallathorpe has seen them. So I have some claim--even if
it's only that of a poor relation."
Eldrick took the sheets of foolscap which Pratt handed to him, and
looked them over with interest and curiosity. He was something of an
expert in such matters, and had helped to edit a print more than once of
the local parish registers. He soon saw from a hasty examination of the
various entries of marriages and births that Pratt was quite right in
what he said.
"I call it a poor--and a mean--game," remarked Pratt, while his old
master was thus occupied, "a very mean game indeed, of well-to-do folk
like Mr. Collingwood and Mr. Robson to want to injure me in a matter
which is no business of theirs. I shall do my duty by Mrs.
Mallathorpe--you yourself know I'm fully competent to do it--and I shall
fully earn the percentage that she'll pay me. What right have these
people--what right has her daughter--to come between me and my living?"
"Oh, well, well!" said Eldrick, as he handed back the papers and rose.
"It's one of those matters that hasn't been understood. You made a
mistake, you know, Pratt, when you went to see Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday
in her daughter's absence. You shouldn't have done that."
Pratt pulled open a drawer and, after turning over some loose papers,
picked out a letter.
"Do you know Mrs. Mallathorpe's handwriting?" he asked. "Very
well--there it is! Isn't that a request from her that I should call on
her yesterday afternoon? Very well then!"
Eldrick looked at the letter with some surprise. He had a good memory,
and he remembered that Collingwood had told him that Nesta had said that
Pratt had gone to Normandale Grange, seen Esther Mawson, and told her
that it was absolutely necessary for him to see Mrs. Mallathorpe. And
though Eldrick was naturally unsuspicious, an idea flashed across his
mind--had Pratt got Mrs. Mallathorpe to write that letter while he was
there--yesterday--and brought it away with him?
"I think there's a good deal of misunderstanding," he said. "Mr.
Collingwood says that you went there and told her maid that it was
absolutely necessary for you to see her mistress--sort of forced
yourself in, you see, Pratt."
"Nothing of the sort!" retorted Pratt. He flourished the letter in his
hand. "Doesn't it say there, in Mrs. Mallathorpe's own handwriting, that
she particularly desires to see me at three o'clock? It does! Then it
was absolutely necessary for me to see her. Come, now! And Mr.
Collingwood had best attend to his own business. What's he got to do
with all this? After Miss Mallathorpe and her money, I should
think!--that's about it!"
Eldrick said another soothing word or two, and went back to his own
office. He was considerably mystified by certain things, but inclined to
be satisfied about others, and in giving an account of what had just
taken place he unconsciously seemed to take Pratt's side--much to
Robson's disgust, and to Collingwood's astonishment.
"You can't get over this, you know, Robson," said Eldrick. "Pratt went
there yesterday by appointment--went at Mrs. Mallathorpe's own express
desire, made in her own handwriting. And it's quite certain that what he
says about the relationship is true---I examined the proof myself. It's
not unnatural that Mrs. Mallathorpe should desire to do something for
her own cousin's son."
"To that extent?" sneered Robson. "Bless me, you talk as if it were no
more than presenting him with a twenty pound note, instead of its being
what it is--giving him the practical control of many a thousand pounds
every year. There'll be more heard of this--yet!"
He went away angrier than when he came, and Eldrick looked at
Collingwood and shook his head.
"I don't see what more there is to do," he said. "So far as I can make
out, or see, Pratt is within his rights. If Mrs. Mallathorpe liked to
entrust her business to him, what is to prevent it? I see nothing at all
strange in that. But there is a fact which does seem uncommonly strange
to me! It's this--how is it that Mrs. Mallathorpe doesn't consult,
hasn't consulted--doesn't inform, hasn't informed--her daughter about
all this?"
"That," answered Collingwood, "is precisely what strikes me--and I can't
give any explanation. Nor, I believe, can Miss Mallathorpe."
He felt obliged to go back to Normandale, and tell Nesta the result of
the afternoon's proceedings. And having seen during his previous visit
how angry she could be, he was not surprised to see her become angrier
and more determined than ever.
"I will not have Mr. Pratt coming here!" she exclaimed. "He shall not
see my mother--under my roof, at any rate. I don't believe she sent for
him."
"Mr. Eldrick saw her letter!" interrupted Collingwood quietly.
"Then that man made her write it while he was here!" exclaimed Nesta.
"As to the relationship--it may be so. I never heard of it. But I don't
care what relation he is to my mother--he is not going to interfere with
her affairs!"
"The strange thing," said Collingwood, as pointedly as was consistent
with kindness, "is that your mother--just now, at any rate--doesn't seem
to be taking you into her confidence."
Nesta looked steadily at him for a moment, without speaking. When she
did speak it was with decision.
"Quite so!" she said. "She is keeping something from me! And if she
won't tell me things--well, I must find them out for myself."
She would say no more than that, and Collingwood left her. And as he
went back to Barford he cursed Linford Pratt soundly for a deep and
underhand rogue who was most certainly playing some fine game.
But Pratt himself was quite satisfied--up to that point. He had won his
first trick and he had splendid cards still left in his hand. And he was
reckoning his chances on them one morning a little later when a ring at
his bell summoned him to his office door--whereat stood Nesta
Mallathorpe, alone.