ON THIN ICE
Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
Two days later a gentleman, whose clean-shaven face had a habit of
beaming suddenly into a professional smile, was seated at a huge
writing-table in his office in Gray's Inn, when a clerk announced to him
the arrival of Mrs. Agar, who desired to see him at once.
Mr. Rigg beamed instantaneously, and the clerk, who knew his master,
waited until the paroxysm had passed. In the meantime Mrs. Agar was
fuming in the waiting-room, wherein lay a copy of the _Times_ and nothing
else. The window looked out upon the neatly kept but depressing garden,
where five antiquated rooks looked in vain for sustenance. Mrs. Agar
watched these intelligent birds, but all her soul was in her ears. She
had already set Mr. Rigg down in her own mind as a stupid because,
forsooth, he had dared to keep her waiting.
But the truth is that they are accustomed to ladies in Gray's Inn,
especially ladies in deep mourning, with a chastely important air which
seems to demand that advice and sympathy be carefully mingled. _Connues_,
these ladies whose deep crape and quite exceptional bereavement plead
(not always dumbly) for a special equity, home-made and superior to any
law, and infer that the ordinary foes are in their case more than any
gentleman would think of accepting.
The clerk presently passed into an inner room and fetched therefrom a tin
box, upon which were painted in dingy white the letters “J. E. M. A.,”
and underneath “Stagholme Estate.” This the embryo lawyer carefully wiped
with a duster, and set it up on some of its fellows immediately behind
Mr. Rigg.
There was no hurry displayed in this scenic arrangement. Mr. Rigg made a
practice of keeping ladies, especially those wearing crape, for a few
minutes in the waiting-room. It calmed them down wonderfully, and
introduced into their mental chambers a little legal atmosphere.
“Marks,” he said, when that youth was taking his last look round at the
_mise en scène_ before, as it were, raising the curtain, “eh--er--just go
round to Corbyn's and get them to make up these pills.”
At the mention of the medicinal term he beamed, as if to intimate that
between themselves no secret need be observed that he, Mr. Rigg, was
subject to the usual anatomical laws of mankind.
“And--er--just call at the fishmonger's as you come back and get a parcel
for me, ordered this morning.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the faithful Marks, taking the prescription as if it
were a will or a transfer.
He knew his part so well that he moved towards the door and opened it as
if Mrs. Agar's existence and attendance in the waiting-room were matters
of the utmost indifference.
“Marks!”
The door was open, so that the lawyer's voice carried well down the
passage.
“Yes, sir.”
“I will see Mrs. Agar now.”
And Mrs. Agar was shown in, all bustling with excitement.
“Mr. Rigg,” she said, with some dignity, “has Mr. Glynde been here?”
The lawyer beamed again--literally all over his parchment-coloured face,
except the eyes, which remained grave.
“When, my dear madam?” he asked, as he brought forward a chair.
“Well, lately--since my son's death.”
The lawyer opened a large diary, and proceeded to trace back each day
with his finger. It promised to be a question of time, this ascertaining
whether Mr. Glynde had called within the last week. It was marvellous how
well this man of deeds knew his clients. Mrs. Agar had never persevered
in any inquiry or project that required time all through her life. Mr.
Rigg, behind his disarming smile, could see as far into a crape veil as
any man.
“It must have been quite lately,” said Mrs. Agar, leaning forward and
trying visibly to read the diary.
Mr. Rigg turned back a few pages, as if to go over the ground a second
time.
“Let me see!” he said leisurely. “What was the precise date of
the--er--sad event?”
“Last Tuesday, the fourteenth.”
“To be sure,” reflected Mr. Rigg, fixing his eyes sadly on an engraving
of London Bridge in the seventeenth century--a spot specially reserved
for the sadder moments of probate and other testamentary work. “Very sad,
very sad.”
Then he rose with the mental brushing-away of unshed tears of a man who
has never yet had time in life for idle lamentation. He turned towards
the tin box, jingling his keys in a most practical and business-like way.
“And I presume,” he said, “that you have come to consult me about the
late Captain Agar's will?”
“Was there a will?” asked Mrs. Agar, with audible alarm. She had not
studied “Every Man his own Lawyer” quite in vain, although most of the
legal technicalities had conveyed nothing whatever to her mind. She did
not notice that her question regarding Mr. Glynde had never been
answered.
Mr. Rigg turned upon her beaming.
“I have no will,” he answered. “I thought that perhaps you were aware of
the existence of one.”
Mrs. Agar's face lighted up.
“No,” she said, with ill-concealed delight; “I am certain there is no
will.”
“Indeed! And why, my dear madam?”
“Well--oh, well, because Jem was just the sort of person to forget such
matters. Besides, when he left England he was under age.”
The lawyer was looking at her with his usual sympathetic smile spread
over his face like an actor's make-up, but his eyes were very keen and
clever.
“Of course,” he observed, “he may have made one out there.”
“I do not think that it is likely,” replied the lady, whose small
thoughts always came into the world in charge of a very obvious father in
the shape of a wish. “There are no facilities out there--no lawyers.”
“There are quite a number of lawyers in India,” said Mr. Rigg, with
sudden gravity. His face was only grave when he wished to fend off
laughter.
“Well,” persisted Mrs. Agar, “I am _sure_ Jem did not make a will.”
Mr. Rigg bowed and resumed his seat. He took up a penholder and smiled,
presumably at his own sunny thoughts.
Mrs. Agar was one of those fatuous ladies who think themselves capable of
tricking a professional man out of his fee. She had a vague notion that
if one asks a lawyer a question the price of his answer is at least six
shillings and eightpence. Up to this point in the interview she was
serenely conscious of having eluded the fee.
“I presume,” she remarked carelessly, in pursuance of this economical
policy, “that in such a case the property would go unconditionally to the
second son.”
“There are contingent possibilities,” replied the man of subterfuge
blandly. He did not mean anything at all, but shrewdly guessed that Mrs.
Agar would not credit him with so simple a design.
The lady smiled in a subtly commiserating manner, indicative of the fact
that on some family matters the ignorance of all except herself was
somewhat pitiful.
“Of course,” she said, “as regards the present case, I know perfectly
well that both Jem and his father would wish everything to go to Arthur.”
She was picking a thread from the corner of her jacket with an air of
nonchalance.
Mr. Rigg was silent. He had some thirty years before this period given up
attaching importance to the wishes of the deceased as interpreted by
disinterested survivors.
“And _I_ should imagine that the necessary transfers--and--and things
would be much better put in hand at once. Delay seems to me quite
unnecessary.”
She paused for Mr. Rigg's opinion--quite a friendly opinion, of course,
without price.
“Pardon me,” said that lawyer, driven into a corner at last, “but are you
consulting me on behalf of the late Squire's executor, Mr. Glynde, or on
your own account?”
“Oh!” replied Mrs. Agar, drawing herself up with a deprecating little
laugh, “I did not intend it to be a consultation at all. I happened to be
passing, that was all. You see, Mr. Rigg, Mr. Glynde does not know
anything about these matters. Clergymen are so stupid.”
“Seems to be afraid,” Mr. Rigg was reflecting behind his pleasant mask,
“of the young man coming alive again.”
Mrs. Agar was like a child in many ways, more especially in her unbounded
belief in her own cunning. She actually imagined herself to be a match
for this man, who had been trained in the ways of duplicity all his life.
She saw nothing of his mind, and fatuously ignored the fact that from the
moment she had entered the room he had begun the interview with a mental
hypothesis.
“This woman,” he had reflected, “has always hated her step-son. She got
him a commission in an Indian regiment for the primary purpose of getting
him out of the way while she saved money on her life-interest in the
estate for her second son. The secondary purpose was little more than a
hope. She hoped for the best. The best has come off, and she is not
clever enough to let things take their course.”
Every word Mrs. Agar had uttered, every silence, every glance had gone to
confirm the lawyer's opinion, and he sat pleasantly beaming on her. He
did not jump up and denounce her, for lawyers are scientists. As a doctor
in the pursuit of his science does not hesitate to handle foul things, to
probe horrid sores, so the lawyer must needs smirch his hands even to the
elbow in those moral tumours from whence emanate the thousand and one
domestic crimes which will ever remain just outside the pale of the law.
And in one as in the other the finer susceptibilities grow dull. The
doctor almost forgets the pain he inflicts. The lawyer gradually loses
his sense of right and wrong.
Mr. Rigg was an honest man--as honesty is understood in the law. He was
keenly alive to all the motives of this woman, who, in the law of
humanity, was a criminal. He had started from a lawyer's standpoint--_id
est_, personal advantage. “To whose advantage?” they ask, and there they
assign the action. But Mr. Rigg was also a good lawyer, and therefore he
kept his own counsel.
“Things must be allowed,” he said, “to take their course. You know, Mrs.
Agar, we are proverbially slow in moving, but we are sure.”
Now it happened that this was precisely the position assumed by Mr.
Glynde, whose respect for legal routine was enormous. He rarely moved in
any matters wherein the law could by hook or crook be introduced without
consulting Mr. Rigg, whom he vaguely called his “man.” And it was
precisely this delay that Mrs. Agar disliked. She had no definite reason
for so doing; but this stroke of good fortune presented itself to her
mind more in the light of an opportunity to be seized than as a just
inheritance to be thankfully received in its due time.
She was awake to the fact that Arthur was not the man to seize any
opportunity, however obviously it might be thrust into his grasp, and her
knowledge of the world tended to exaggerate its dishonesty in her mind.
Sister Cecilia and she had talked this matter over with that small
modicum of learning which is a dangerous thing, and they had arrived at
the conclusion that Mr. Glynde was not competent to carry out the duties
thus suddenly thrust upon him. Wrapped up as was her heart in the welfare
of her weakling son, the one lasting motive of her life had been to
secure for him the largest possible portion of earthly goods. Now that
success seemed to be within measurable distance, she gave way to the
baneful panic of the weak conspirator, and fancied that the whole world
was allied against her.
She could not keep her fingers off “Every Man his own Lawyer,” and
consulted that boon to the legal profession to such good effect that she
placed a handsome fee in the pocket of one of its brightest ornaments at
the earliest opportunity. Mr. Rigg continued to beam and to keep his own
counsel, merely notifying that things must be allowed to take their own
course, and presently he bowed Mrs. Agar out of his office, dissatisfied,
and with an uncomfortable feeling of having been somewhat indiscreet.
Arthur was waiting for her in a hansom cab in Holborn, and with a sigh of
relief they drove westward to a shop in Regent Street to order a supply
of the newest procurable mode of signifying grief on paper and envelopes.
Arthur Agar was an expert in such matters, and indeed both mother and son
were more at home in the graceful pastime of spending money than in the
technicalities of making or keeping the same.
Arthur was already beginning to taste the sweetness of his adversity, and
being intensely sensitive to the influence of those with whom he happened
to be at the moment, he was already beginning to look back with mild
surprise to the first burst of grief to which he had given way on hearing
that Jem was killed.