the Canadian Pacific, and travelled straight through, day and night, to
Montreal and Quebec, without one hour's interval.
I cannot describe to you that journey across a continent I had never
before seen. It was endless and hopeless. I only know that we crawled up
the Rocky Mountains and the Selkirk Range, over spider-like viaducts,
with interminable effort, and that the prairies were just the broad
Pacific over again. They rolled on for ever. But we did reach Quebec--in
time we reached it; and we caught by an hour the first liner to
Liverpool.
At Prince's Landing-stage another telegram awaited me. 'Come on
at once. Case now proceeding. Harold is in court. We need your
evidence.--GEORGINA FAWLEY.'
I might still be in time to vindicate Harold's character.
At Euston, to my surprise, I was met not only by my dear cantankerous
old lady, but also by my friend, the magnificent Maharajah, dressed this
time in a frock-coat and silk hat of Bond Street glossiness.
'What has brought you to England?' I asked, astonished. 'The Jubilee?'
He smiled, and showed his two fine rows of white teeth. 'That,
nominally. In reality, the cricket season (I play for Berks). But most
of all, to see dear Tillington safe through this trouble.'
'He's a brick!' Lady Georgina cried with enthusiasm. 'A regular brick,
my dear Lois! His carriage is waiting outside to take you up to my
house. He has stood by Harold--well, like a Christian!'
'Or a Hindu,' the Maharajah corrected, smiling.
'And how have you been all this time, dear Lady Georgina?' I asked,
hardly daring to inquire about what was nearest to my soul--Harold.
The cantankerous old lady knitted her brows in a familiar fashion. 'Oh,
my dear, don't ask: I haven't known a happy hour since you left me in
Switzerland. Lois, I shall never be happy again without you! It would
pay me to give you a retaining fee of a thousand a year--honour bright,
it would, I assure you. What I've suffered from the Gretchens since
you've been in the East has only been equalled by what I've suffered
from the Mary Annes and the Celestines. Not a hair left on my scalp; not
one hair, I declare to you. They've made my head into a _tabula rasa_
for the various restorers. George R. Sims and Mrs. S. A. Allen are going
to fight it out between them. My dear, I wish _you_ could take my maid's
place; I've always said----'
I finished the speech for her. 'A lady can do better whatever she turns
her hand to than any of these hussies.'
She nodded. 'And why? Because her hands _are_ hands; while as for the
Gretchens and the Mary Annes, "paws" is the only word one can honestly
apply to them. Then, on top of it all comes this trouble about Harold.
So distressing, isn't it? You see, at the point which the matter has
reached, it's simply impossible to save Harold's reputation without
wrecking Southminster's. Pretty position that for a respectable family!
The Ashursts hitherto have been _quite_ respectable: a co-respondent or
two, perhaps, but never anything serious. Now, either Southminster sends
Harold to prison, or Harold sends Southminster. There's a nice sort of
dilemma! I always knew Kynaston's boys were born fools; but to find
they're born knaves, too, is hard on an old woman in her hairless
dotage. However, _you've_ come, my child, and _you'll_ soon set things
right. You're the one person on earth I can trust in this matter.'
Harold go to prison! My head reeled at the thought. I staggered out into
the open air, and took my seat mechanically in the Maharajah's carriage.
All London swam before me. After so many months' absence, the
polychromatic decorations of our English streets, looming up through the
smoke, seemed both strange and familiar. I drove through the first half
mile with a vague consciousness that Lipton's tea is the perfection of
cocoa and matchless for the complexion, but that it dyes all colours,
and won't wash clothes.
After a while, however, I woke up to the full terror of the situation.
'Where are you taking me?' I inquired.
'To my house, dear,' Lady Georgina answered, looking anxiously at me;
for my face was bloodless.
'No, that won't do,' I answered. 'My cue must be now to keep myself as
aloof as possible from Harold and Harold's backers. I must put up at an
hotel. It will sound so much better in cross-examination.'
'She's quite right,' the Maharajah broke in, with sudden conviction.
'One must block every ball with these nasty swift bowlers.'
'Where's Harold?' I asked, after another pause. 'Why didn't he come to
meet me?'
'My dear, how could he? He's under examination. A cross-eyed Q.C. with
an odious leer. Southminster's chosen the biggest bully at the Bar to
support his contention.'
'Drive to some hotel in the Jermyn Street district,' I cried to the
Maharajah's coachman. 'That will be handy for the law courts.'
He touched his hat and turned. In a sort of dickey behind sat two
gorgeous-turbaned Rajput servants.
That evening Harold came round to visit me at my rooms. I could see he
was much agitated. Things had gone very badly. Lady Georgina was there;
she had stopped to dine with me, dear old thing, lest I should feel
lonely and give way; so had Elsie Petheridge. Mr. Elworthy sent a
telegram of welcome from Devonshire. I knew at least that my friends
were rallying round me in this hour of trial. The kind Maharajah himself
would have come too, if I had allowed him, but I thought it inexpedient.
They explained everything to me. Harold had propounded Mr. Ashurst's
will--the one I drew up at Florence--and had asked for probate. Lord
Southminster intervened and opposed the grant of probate on the ground
that the signatures were forgeries. He propounded instead another will,
drawn some twenty years earlier, when they were both children, duly
executed at the time, and undoubtedly genuine; in it, testator left
everything without reserve to the eldest son of his eldest brother, Lord
Kynaston.
'Marmy didn't know in those days that Kynaston's sons would all grow up
fools,' Lady Georgina said tartly. 'Besides which, that was before the
poor dear soul took to plunging on the Stock Exchange and made his
money. He had nothing to leave then but his best silk hat and a few
paltry hundreds. Afterwards, when he'd feathered his nest in soap and
cocoa, he discovered that Bertie--that's Lord Southminster--was a
first-class idiot. Marmy never liked Southminster, nor Southminster
Marmy. For after all, with all his faults, Marmy _was_ a gentleman;
while Bertie--well, my dear, we needn't put a name to it. So he altered
his will, as you know, when he saw the sort of man Southminster turned
out, and left practically everything he possessed to Harold.'
'Who are the witnesses to the will?' I asked.
'There's the trouble. Who do you think? Why, Higginson's sister, who was
Marmy's _masseuse_, and a waiter--Franz Markheim--at the hotel at
Florence, who's dead they say--or, at least, not forthcoming.'
'And Higginson's sister forswears her signature,' Harold added gloomily;
'while the experts are, most of them, dead against the genuineness of my
uncle's.'
'That's clever,' I said, leaning back, and taking it in slowly.
'Higginson's sister! How well they've worked it. They couldn't prevent
Mr. Ashurst from making this will, but they managed to supply their own
tainted witnesses! If it had been Higginson himself now, he'd have had
to be cross-examined; and in cross-examination, of course, we could have
shaken his credit, by bringing up the episodes of the Count de
Laroche-sur-Loiret and Dr. Fortescue-Langley. But his sister! What's she
like? Have you anything against her?'
'My dear,' Lady Georgina cried, 'there the rogue has bested us. Isn't it
just like him? What do you suppose he has done? Why, provided himself
with a sister of tried respectability and blameless character.'
'And she denies that it is her handwriting?' I asked.
'Declares on her Bible oath she never signed the document.'
I was fairly puzzled. It was a stupendously clever dodge. Higginson must
have trained up his sister for forty years in the ways of wickedness,
yet held her in reserve for this supreme moment.
'And where is Higginson?' I asked.
Lady Georgina broke into a hysterical laugh. 'Where is he, my dear?
That's the question. With consummate strategy, the wretch has
disappeared into space at the last moment.'
'That's artful again,' I said. 'His presence could only damage their
case. I can see, of course, Lord Southminster has no need of him.'
'Southminster's the wiliest fool that ever lived,' Harold broke out
bitterly. 'Under that mask of imbecility, he's a fox for trickiness.'
I bit my lip. 'Well, if you succeed in evading him,' I said, 'you will
have cleared your character. And if you don't--then, Harold, our time
will have come: you will have your longed-for chance of trying me.'
'That won't do me much good,' he answered, 'if I have to wait fourteen
years for you--at Portland.'
[Illustration: THE CROSS-EYED Q.C. BEGGED HIM TO BE VERY CAREFUL.]
Next morning, in court, I heard Harold's cross-examination. He described
exactly where he had found the contested will in his uncle's escritoire.
The cross-eyed Q.C., a heavy man with bloated features and a bulbous
nose, begged him, with one fat uplifted forefinger, to be very careful.
How did he know where to look for it?
'Because I knew the house well: I knew where my uncle was likely to keep
his valuables.'
'Oh, indeed; _not_ because you had put it there?'
The court rang with laughter. My face grew crimson.
After an hour or two of fencing, Harold was dismissed. He stood down,
baffled. Counsel recalled Lord Southminster.
The pea-green young man, stepping briskly up, gazed about him,
open-mouthed, with a vacant stare. The look of cunning on his face was
carefully suppressed. He wore, on the contrary, an air of injured
innocence combined with an eye-glass.
'_You_ did not put this will in the drawer where Mr. Tillington found
it, did you?' counsel asked.
The pea-green young man laughed. 'No, I certainly didn't put it theah.
My cousin Harold was man in possession. He took jolly good care _I_
didn't come neah the premises.'
'Do you think you could forge a will if you tried?'
Lord Southminster laughed. 'No, I don't,' he answered, with a
well-assumed _naivete_. 'That's just the difference between us, don't
yah know. _I'm_ what they call a fool, and my cousin Harold's a precious
clevah fellah.'
There was another loud laugh.
'That's not evidence,' the judge observed, severely.
It was not. But it told far more than much that was. It told strongly
against Harold.
'Besides,' Lord Southminster continued, with engaging frankness, 'if I
forged a will at all, I'd take jolly good care to forge it in my own
favah.'
My turn came next. Our counsel handed me the incriminated will. 'Did you
draw up this document?' he asked.
I looked at it closely. The paper bore our Florentine water-mark, and
was written with a Spread-Eagle. 'I type-wrote it,' I answered, gazing
at it with care to make sure I recognised it.
Our counsel's business was to uphold the will, not to cast aspersions
upon it. He was evidently annoyed at my close examination. 'You have no
doubts about it?' he said, trying to prompt me.
I hesitated. 'No, no doubts,' I answered, turning over the sheet and
inspecting it still closer. 'I type-wrote it at Florence.'
'Do you recognise that signature as Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's?' he went
on.
I stared at it. Was it his? It was like it, certainly. Yet that _k_? and
those _s_'s? I almost wondered.
Counsel was obviously annoyed at my hesitation. He thought I was playing
into the enemy's hands. 'Is it his, or is it not?' he inquired again,
testily.
'It is his,' I answered. Yet I own I was troubled.
[Illustration: I WAS A GROTESQUE FAILURE.]
He asked many questions about the circumstances of the interview when I
took down the will. I answered them all. But I vaguely felt he and I
were at cross-purposes. I grew almost as uncomfortable under his gaze as
if he had been examining me in the interest of the other side. He
managed to fluster me. As a witness for Harold, I was a grotesque
failure.
Then the cross-eyed Q.C., rising and shaking his huge bulk, began to
cross-examine me. 'Where did you type-write this thing, do you say?' he
said, pointing to it contemptuously.
'In my office at Florence.'
'Yes, I understand; you had an office in Florence--after you gave up
retailing bicycles on the public roads; and you had a partner, I
think--a Miss Petherick, or Petherton, or Pennyfarthing, or something?'
'Miss Petheridge,' I corrected, while the Court tittered.
'Ah, Petheridge, you call it! Well, now answer this question carefully.
Did your Miss Petheridge hear Mr. Ashurst dictate the terms of his last
will and testament?'
'No,' I answered. 'The interview was of a strictly confidential
character. Mr. Ashurst took me aside into the back room at our office.'
'Oh, he took you aside? Confidential? Well, now we're getting at it. And
did anybody but yourself see or hear any part whatsoever of this
precious document?'
'Certainly not,' I replied. 'It was a private matter.'
'Private! oh, very! Nobody else saw it. Did Mr. Ashurst take it away
from the office in person?'
'No; he sent his courier for it.'
'His courier? The man Higginson?'
'Yes; but I refused to give it to Higginson. I took it myself that night
to the hotel where Mr. Ashurst was stopping.'
'Ah! You took it yourself. So the only other person who knows anything
at first hand about the existence of the alleged will is this person
Higginson?'
'Miss Petheridge knows,' I said, flushing. 'At the time, I told her of
it.'
'Oh, _you_ told her. Well, that doesn't help us much. If what you are
swearing isn't true--remember, you are on your oath--what you told Miss
Petherick or Petheridge or Pennyfarthing, "at the time," can hardly be
regarded as corroborative evidence. Your word then and your word now are
just equally valuable--or equally worthless. The only person who knows
besides yourself is Higginson. Now, I ask you, _where_ is Higginson?
_Are_ you going to produce him?'
The wicked cunning of it struck me dumb. They were keeping him away, and
then using his absence to cast doubts on my veracity. 'Stop,' I cried,
taken aback, 'Higginson is well known to be a rogue, and he is keeping
away lest he may damage your side. I know nothing of Higginson.'
'Yes, I'm coming to that in good time. Don't be afraid that we're going
to pass over Higginson. You admit this man is a man of bad character.
Now, what do you know of him?'
I told the stories of the Count and of Dr. Fortescue-Langley.
The cross-eyed cross-examiner leant across towards me and leered. 'And
this is the man,' he exclaimed, with a triumphant air, 'whose sister you
pretended you had got to sign this precious document of yours?'
'Whom Mr. Ashurst got to sign it,' I answered, red-hot. 'It is not _my_
document.'
'And you have heard that she swears it is not her signature at all?'
'So they tell me. She is Higginson's sister. For all I know, she may be
prepared to swear, or to forswear, anything.'
'Don't cast doubt upon our witnesses without cause! Miss Higginson is an
eminently respectable woman. You gave this document to Mr. Ashurst, you
say. There your knowledge of it ends. A signature is placed on it which
is not his, as our experts testify. It purports to be witnessed by a
Swiss waiter, who is not forthcoming, and who is asserted to be dead, as
well as by a nurse who denies her signature. And the only other person
who knows of its existence before Mr. Tillington "discovers" it in his
uncle's desk is--the missing man Higginson. Is that, or is it not, the
truth of the matter?'
'I suppose so,' I said, baffled.
'Well, now, as to this man Higginson. He first appears upon the scene,
so far as you are concerned, on the day when you travelled from London
to Schlangenbad?'
'That is so,' I answered.
'And he nearly succeeded then in stealing Lady Georgina Fawley's
jewel-case?'
'He nearly took it, but I saved it.' And I explained the circumstance.
The cross-eyed Q.C. held his fat sides with his hands, looking
incredulously at me, and smiled. His vast width of waistcoat shook with
silent merriment. 'You are a very clever young lady,' he murmured. 'You
can explain away anything. But don't you think it just as likely that it
was a plot between you two, and that owing to some mistake the plot came
off unsuccessful?'
'I do not,' I cried, crimson. 'I never saw the Count before that
morning.'
He tried another tack. 'Still, wherever you went, this man
Higginson--the only other person, you admit, who knows about the
previous existence of the will--turned up simultaneously. He was always
turning up--at the same place as you did. He turned up at Lucerne, as a
faith-healer, didn't he?'
'If you will allow me to explain,' I cried, biting my lip.
He bowed, all blandness. 'Oh, certainly,' he murmured. 'Explain away
everything!'
I explained, but of course he had discounted and damaged my explanation.
He made no comment. 'And then,' he went on, with his hands on his hips,
and his obtrusive rotundity, 'he turned up at Florence, as courier to
Mr. Ashurst, at the very date when this so-called will was being
concocted?'
'He was at Florence when Mr. Ashurst dictated it to me,' I answered,
growing desperate.
'You admit he was in Florence. Good! Once more he turned up in India
with my client, Lord Southminster, upon whose youth and inexperience he
had managed to impose himself. And he carried him off, did he not, by
one of these strange coincidences to which _you_ are peculiarly liable,
on the very same steamer on which _you_ happened to be travelling?'
'Lord Southminster told me he took Higginson with him because a rogue
suited his book,' I answered, warmly.
'Will you swear his lordship didn't say "_the_ rogue suited his
book"--which is quite another thing?' the Q.C. asked blandly.
'I will swear he did not,' I replied. 'I have correctly reported him.'
'Then I congratulate you, young lady, on your excellent memory. My lud,
will you allow me later to recall Lord Southminster to testify on this
point?'
The judge nodded.
'Now, once more, as to your relations with the various members of the
Ashurst family. You introduced yourself to Lady Georgina Fawley, I
believe, quite casually, on a seat in Kensington Gardens?'
'That is true,' I answered.
'You had never seen her before?'
'Never.'
'And you promptly offered to go with her as her lady's maid to
Schlangenbad in Germany?'
'In place of her lady's maid, for one week,' I answered.
'Ah; a delicate distinction! "In place of her lady's maid." You are a
lady, I believe; an officer's daughter, you told us; educated at
Girton?'
'So I have said already,' I replied, crimson.
'And you stick to it? By all means. Tell--the truth--and stick to it.
It's always safest. Now, don't you think it was rather an odd thing for
an officer's daughter to do--to run about Germany as maid to a lady of
title?'
[Illustration: THE JURY SMILED.]
I tried to explain once more; but the jury smiled. You can't justify
originality to a British jury. Why, they would send you to prison at
once for that alone, if they made the laws as well as dispensing them.
He passed on after a while to another topic. 'I think you have boasted
more than once in society that when you first met Lady Georgina Fawley
you had twopence in your pocket to go round the world with?'
'I had,' I answered--'and I went round the world with it.'
'Exactly. I'm getting there in time. With it--and other things. A few
months later, more or less, you were touring up the Nile in your steam
dahabeeah, and in the lap of luxury; you were taking saloon-carriages on
Indian railways, weren't you?'
I explained again. 'The dahabeeah was in the service of the _Daily
Telephone_,' I answered. 'I became a journalist.'
He cross-questioned me about that. 'Then I am to understand,' he said at
last, leaning forward with all his waistcoat, 'that you sprang yourself
upon Mr. Elworthy at sight, pretty much as you sprang yourself upon Lady
Georgina Fawley?'
'We arranged matters quickly,' I admitted. The dexterous wretch was
making my strongest points all tell against me.
'H'm! Well, he was a man: and you will admit, I suppose,' fingering his
smooth fat chin, 'that you are a lady of--what is the stock phrase the
reporters use?--considerable personal attractions?'
'My Lord,' I said, turning to the Bench, 'I appeal to you. Has he the
right to compel me to answer that question?'
[Illustration: THE QUESTION REQUIRES NO ANSWER, HE SAID.]
The judge bowed slightly. 'The question requires no answer,' he said,
with a quiet emphasis. I burned bright scarlet.
'Well, my lud, I defer to your ruling,' the cross-eyed cross-examiner
continued, radiant. 'I go on to another point. When in India, I
believe, you stopped for some time as a guest in the house of a native
Maharajah.'
'Is that matter relevant?' the judge asked, sharply.
'My lud,' the Q.C. said, in his blandest voice, 'I am striving to
suggest to the jury that this lady--the only person who ever beheld this
so-called will till Mr. Harold Tillington--described in its terms as
"Younger of Gledcliffe," whatever that may be--produced it out of his
uncle's desk-- I am striving to suggest that this lady is--my duty to my
client compels me to say--an adventuress.'
He had uttered the word. I felt my character had not a leg left to stand
upon before a British jury.
'I went there with my friend, Miss Petheridge----' I began.
'Oh, Miss Petheridge once more--you hunt in couples?'
'Accompanied and chaperoned by a married lady, the wife of a Major
Balmossie, on the Bombay Staff Corps.'
'That was certainly prudent. One ought to be chaperoned. Can you produce
the lady?'
'How is it possible?' I cried. 'Mrs. Balmossie is in India.'
'Yes; but the Maharajah, I understand, is in London?'
'That is true,' I answered.
'And he came to meet you on your arrival yesterday.'
'With Lady Georgina Fawley,' I cried, taken off my guard.
'Do you not consider it curious,' he asked, 'that these Higginsons and
these Maharajahs should happen to follow you so closely round the
world?--should happen to turn up wherever you do?'
'He came to be present at this trial,' I exclaimed.
'And so did you. I believe he met you at Euston last night, and drove
you to your hotel in his private carriage.'
'With Lady Georgina Fawley,' I answered, once more.
'And Lady Georgina is on Mr. Tillington's side, I fancy? Ah, yes, I
thought so. And Mr. Tillington also called to see you; and likewise Miss
Petherick-- I beg your pardon, Petheridge. We must be strictly
accurate--where Miss Petheridge is concerned. And, in fact, you had
quite a little family party.'
'My friends were glad to see me back again,' I murmured.
He sprang a fresh innuendo. 'But Mr. Tillington did not resent your
visit to this gallant Maharajah?'
'Certainly not,' I cried, bridling. 'Why should he?'
'Oh, we're getting to that too. Now answer me this carefully. We want to
find out what interest you might have, supposing a will were forged, on
either side, in arranging its terms. We want to find out just who would
benefit by it. Please reply to this question, yes or no, without
prevarication. Are you or are you not conditionally engaged to Mr.
Harold Tillington?'
'If I might explain----' I began, quivering.
He sneered. 'You have a genius for explaining, we are aware. Answer me
first, yes or no; we will qualify afterward.'
I glanced appealingly at the judge. He was adamant. 'Answer as counsel
directs you, witness,' he said, sternly.
'Yes, I am,' I faltered. 'But----'
'Excuse me one moment. You promised to marry him conditionally upon the
result of Mr. Ashurst's testamentary dispositions?'
'I did,' I answered; 'but----'
My explanation was drowned in roars of laughter, in which the judge
joined, in spite of himself. When the mirth in court had subsided a
little, I went on: 'I told Mr. Tillington I would only marry him in case
he was poor and without expectations. If he inherited Mr. Marmaduke
Ashurst's money, I could never be his wife,' I said it proudly.
The cross-eyed Q.C. drew himself up and let his rotundity take care of
itself. 'Do you take me,' he inquired, 'for one of Her Majesty's
horse-marines?'