The Secret of the Quarry

Front matter

Author of “The Middle Temple Murder,” “The Cortland Mystery,” “The Lost Mr. Linthwaite,” etc.

Part I

CHAPTER I.

Talleyrand's Disciple.

The senior clerk to the Barford, England, law firm of Eldrick & Pascoe was Linford Pratt. As a young man earnestly desirous to get on in life by hook or by crook, he had no objection whatever to crookedness, so long as it could be performed in safety and secrecy. During one of his periodical visits to the town reference library he had lighted on a maxim of that other unscrupulous person, Prince Talleyrand, which had pleased him greatly.

“With time and patience,” said Talleyrand, “the mulberry leaf is turned into satin.” This seemed to Linford to be wisdom. Henceforth he regarded himself as a mulberry leaf which his own wit and skill must transfer into satin. He could find the patience, and he had the time, but it would give him great happiness if opportunity came along to help in the work. In everyday language Linford Pratt wanted a chance.

If Pratt had only known it, as he stood in the outer office at Eldrick & Pascoe's at the end of a certain winter afternoon, opportunity was slowly climbing the staircase outside. Pratt was alone; the partners, the other clerks, and the office boy had gone. In another minute Pratt would have gone, too, for he was only looking round before locking up for the night. Then an old man, Antony Bartle, opened the door, pushed in a queer, wrinkled face, and asked in a quavering voice if anybody was in.

“I'm in, Mr. Bartle,” answered Pratt, turning up a gas jet which he had just lowered. “Come in, sir. What can I do for you?”

Antony Bartle came in, sneezing and coughing. He was a very, very old man, feeble and bent, with little that looked alive about him but his bright, alert eyes. Everybody knew him. He was one of the institutions of Barford, as well known as the town hall or the parish church. For fifty years he had kept a secondhand bookshop in Quagg Alley, the narrow passageway which connected Market Street with Beck Street. It was not by any means a common or ordinary secondhand bookshop; its proprietor styled himself an antiquarian bookseller, and he had a reputation in two continents and dealt with millionaire buyers and virtuosos, in both. Eldick & Pascoe—which term included Linford Pratt—knew all about Antony Bartle, being his legal advisers; his will was safely deposited in their keeping, and Pratt had been one of the attesting witnesses.

The old man, having slowly walked into the outer office, leaned against a table, panting a little. Pratt hastened to open an inner door.

“Come into Mr. Eldrick's room, Mr. Bartle,” he said. “There's a nice easy-chair there—come and sit down in it. Those stairs are a bit trying, aren't they? I often wish we were on the ground floor.”

“There's a nasty fog coming on outside,” said Bartle after a fit of coughing. “It gets on my lungs and then it makes my heart bad. Mr. Eldrick in?”

“Gone,” replied Pratt. “All gone, Mr. Bartle, only me here.”

“You'll do,” answered the old bookseller. “You're as good as they are.” He leaned forward from the easy-chair and tapped the clerk's arm with a long, clawlike finger. “I say,” he continued, with a smile that was suggestive of a pleased satisfaction, “I've had a find!”

“Oh!” responded Pratt. “One of your rare books, Mr. Bartle?”

“No,” said Bartle. “No, but I've found something! Not half an hour ago. Came straight here with it. Matter for lawyers, of course.”

“Yes,” said Pratt inquiringly. “And what may it be?”

He was expecting the visitor to produce something, but the old man leaned forward, and dug his fingers once more into the clerk's sleeve.

“I say!” he whispered. “You remember John Mallathorpe and the affair of the mill?”

“Of course I do,” answered Pratt promptly. “Couldn't very well forget it, or him.”

He let his mind go back for the moment to an affair which had provided Barford and the neighborhood with a nine day's sensation. One winter morning, just two years previously, Mr. John Mallathorpe, one of the best-known manufacturers and richest men of the town, had been killed by the falling of his own mill chimney. The condition of the chimney had been doubtful for some time; experts had been examining it for several days. At the moment of the catastrophe, Mallathorpe himself, some of his principal managers, and a couple of professional steeple jacks were gathered at its base, consulting on a report. The great hundred-foot structure above them had collapsed without the slightest warning; Mallathorpe, his principal manager, and his cashier had been killed on the spot; two other bystanders had subsequently died from injuries received. No such accident had occurred in Barford, nor in the surrounding manufacturing district for many years, and there had been much interest in it, for, according to the expert's conclusions, the chimney was in no immediate danger. Other mill owners had begun to examine their chimneys, and for many weeks Barford folk had talked of little else than the danger of living in the shadows of these great masses of masonry.

But there had soon been something else to talk of. It sprang out of the accident, and it was of particular interest to persons who, like Linford Pratt, were of the legal profession. John Mallathorpe, so far as anybody knew or could ascertain, had died intestate. No lawyer in the town had ever made a will for him. No one had ever heard that he had ever made a will for himself. There was no will. Drastic search of his safes, his desks, his drawers revealed nothing, not even a memorandum. No friend of his had ever heard him mention a will. He had always been something of a queer man and a confirmed bachelor. The only relatives he had in the world were his sister-in-law, the widow of his deceased younger brother, and her two children, a son and a daughter. And, as soon as he was dead and it was plain that he had died intestate, they put in their claim to his property.

John Mallathorpe had left a handsome property. He had been making money all his life. His business was a considerable one—he employed two thousand work people. His average annual profits from his mills was reckoned in the twenty thousands. Some years before his death he had bought one of the finest estates in the neighborhood. Normandale Grange, a beautiful old house, was set amidst charming and romantic scenery in a valley, which, though within twelve miles of Barford, might have been in the heart of the Highlands. Therefore it was no small thing that Mrs. Richard Mallathorpe and her two children laid claim to. Up to the time of John Mallathorpe's death they had lived in very humble fashion—lived indeed, on an allowance from their wealthy kinsman—for Richard Mallathorpe had been as much of a waster as his brother had been a money getter. And there was no withstanding their claim, when it was finally decided that John Mallathorpe had died intestate—no withstanding at any rate the claim of the nephew and niece. The nephew had taken all the real estate, and he and his sister had shared the personal property. For some months they and their mother had been safely installed at Normandale Grange and were in full possession of the dead man's wealth and business.

All this flashed through Linford Pratt's mind in a few seconds—he knew all the story. “Of course,” he repeated, looking thoughtfully at the old bookseller, “not the sort of thing one does forget in a hurry, Mr. Bartle. What of it?”

“Well, you know, too, no doubt, that the late Mr. John Mallathorpe was a bit—only a bit—of a book collector—collected books and pamphlets relating to this district?”

“I've heard of it,” answered the clerk.

“He had that collection in his private room at the mill,” continued the old bookseller, “and when the new folks took hold I persuaded them to sell it to me. There wasn't such a lot—maybe a hundred volumes altogether—but I wanted what there was. And, as they were of no interest to them, they sold 'em. That's some months ago. I put all the books in a corner and I never really examined them until this very afternoon. Then, by this afternoon's post, I got a letter from a Barford man, who's now out in America. He wanted to know if I could supply him with a nice copy of Hopkinson's 'History of Barford.' I knew there was one in that Mallathorpe collection, so I got it out and examined it. And in the pocket inside, which holds a map, I found—what d'ye think?”

“Couldn't say,” replied Pratt. He was still thinking of his dinner and an important engagement to follow it.

The old bookseller leaned nearer across the corner of the desk. “I found John Mallathorpe's will!” he whispered. “His—will!”

Linford Pratt jumped out of his chair.

“No!” he said. “No! John Mallathorpe's will! His will?”

“Made the very day on which he died,” answered Bartle, nodding emphatically. “Queer, wasn't it? He might have had some premonition, eh?”

Pratt sat down again. “Where is it?” he asked.

“Here in my pocket,” replied the old bookseller, tapping his rusty coat. “Oh, it's all right, I assure you. All duly made out, signed, and witnessed—everything in order.”

“Let's see it,” said Pratt eagerly.

“Well, I've no objection. I know you, of course,” answered Bartle, “but I'd rather show it first to Mr. Eldrick. Couldn't you telephone up to his house and ask him to run back here?”

“Certainly,” replied Pratt. “He mayn't be there, though. But I can try. You haven't shown it to anybody else?”

“Neither shown it to anybody, nor mentioned it to a soul,” said Bartle. “I tell you it's not much more than half an hour since I found it. It's not a long document. Do you know how it is that it's never come out?” he went on, turning eagerly to Pratt, who had risen again. “It's easily explained. The will's witnessed by those two men who were killed at the same time as John Mallathorpe! So, of course, there was nobody to say that it was in existence. My notion is that he and those two men—Gaukrodger and Marshall, his manager and cashier—had signed it not long before the accident, and that Mallathorpe had popped it into the pocket of that book before going out into the yard, eh? But see if you can get Mr. Eldrick down here, and we'll read it together. And I say, this office seems uncommonly stuffy; can you open the window a bit? I feel oppressed.”

Pratt opened a window which looked out on the street. He glanced at the old man for a moment, and saw that his face, always pallid, was even paler than usual.

“You've been talking too much,” he said. “Rest yourself, Mr. Bartle, while I ring up Mr. Eldrick's house. If he isn't there, I'll try the club. He often turns in there for an hour before going home.”

The telephone bell rang; Eldrick had not yet reached his house. Pratt got on to the club; Eldrick had not been there. He rang off and went back to the private room.

“Can't get hold of him, Mr. Bartle,” he began as he closed the door. “He's not at home and he's not at the club. I say, you might as well let me have a look at2”

Pratt suddenly stopped. There was a strange silence in the room; the old man's wheezy breathing was no longer heard. The clerk moved forward quickly and looked round the high back of the chair.

He knew at once what had happened—knew that old Bartle was dead before he laid a finger on the wasted hand, which had dropped helplessly at his side. He had evidently died without a sound or a movement—died as quietly as he would have gone to sleep.

He waited a moment, listening in silence. Then, without hesitation, and with fingers that remained as steady as if nothing had happened, he unbuttoned Antony Bartle's coat and drew a folded paper from its inner pocket.

CHAPTER II.

Mallathorpe's Will.

As quietly and composedly as if he were discharging the most ordinary of his daily duties, Pratt unfolded the document and went close to the solitary gas jet above Eldrick's desk. What he held in his hand was a half sheet of ruled foolscap paper, closely covered with writing, which he at once recognized as that of the late John Mallathorpe.

“Made it himself!” muttered Pratt. “Um! Looks as if he wanted to keep the terms secret. Well2”

He read the will through rapidly, but with care, murmuring the phraseology half aloud.

“This is the last will of me, John Mallathorpe, of Normandale, in the West Riding of the County of York. I appoint Martin William Charlesworth, manufacturer, of Holly Lodge, Barford, and Arthur James Wyatt, chartered accountant, of 65 Beck Street, Barford, executors and trustees of this my will. I give and devise all my estate and effects, real and personal, of which I may die possessed or entitled to, unto the said Martin William Charlesworth and Arthur James Wyatt upon trust, for the following purposes, to be carried out by them under the following instructions, namely: As soon after my death as is conveniently possible they shall sell all my real estate, either by private treaty or at public auction; they shall sell all my personal property of any nature whatsoever; they shall sell my business at Mallathorpe's Mill, in Barford, as a going concern to any private purchaser or to any company already in existence or formed for the purpose of acquiring it; and they shall collect all debts and money due tome. And, having sold and disposed of all my property, real and personal, and brought all the proceeds of such sales and of such collection of debts and moneys into one common fund, they shall first pay all debts and expenses arising out of my death and this disposition of my property, and shall then distribute my estate as follows, namely: To each of themselves, Martin William Charlesworth and Arthur James Wyatt, they shall pay the sum of five thousand pounds; to my Sister-in-law, Ann Mallathorpe, they shall pay the sum of ten thousand pounds; to my nephew, Harper John Mallathorpe, they shall pay the sum of ten thousand pounds; to my niece, Nesta Mallathorpe, they shall pay the sum of ten thousand pounds. And as to the whole of the remaining residue, they shall pay it in one sum to the mayor and corporation of the Borough of Barford, in the County of York, to be applied by the said mayor and corporation at their own absolute discretion and in any manner which seems good to them to the establishment of a school for commercial education in the Borough of Barford.”

Then followed the date of the instrument and John Mallathorpe's signature. It was witnessed by Henry Gaukrodger, his manager, and Charles Watson Marshall, his cashier.

As the last words left his lips Pratt carefully folded up the will, slipped it into an inner pocket of his coat, and firmly buttoned the coat across his chest. Then, without so much as a glance at the dead man, he left the room and again sought the telephone. When he came out he heard steps coming up the staircase, and, looking over the banisters, he saw the senior partner, Eldrick.

“I hear you've been ringing me up at the club, Pratt,” he said. “What is it?”

Pratt waited until Eldrick had come up to the landing. Then he pointed to the door of the private room and shook his head.

“It's old Mr. Bartle, sir,” he whispered. “He's in your room there—dead!”

“Dead!” exclaimed Eldrick. “Dead!”

Pratt shook his head again. “He came up not so long after you'd gone, sir,” he said. “Everybody had gone but me—I was just going. Wanted to see you about something. I don't know what. He was very tottery when he came in, complained of the stairs and the fog. I took him into your room to sit down in the easy-chair. And he died straight off. Just,” concluded Pratt, “just as if he was going quietly to sleep!”

“You're sure he's dead, not fainting?” asked Eldrick.

“He's dead, sir—quite dead,” replied Pratt. “I've rung up Doctor Melrose—he'll be here in a minute or two—and the police, as well. Will you look at him, sir?”

Eldrick silently motioned his clerk to open the door; together they walked into the room. And Eldrick looked at the quiet figure and worn face and knew that Pratt was right.

“Poor old chap!” he murmured, touching one of the thin hands. “He was a fine man in his time, Pratt—clever man! And he was very, very old, one of the oldest men in Barford. Well, we must wire to his grandson, Mr. Bartle Collingwood. You'll find his address in the book, He's the only relative the old fellow had.”

“Comes in for everything, doesn't he, sir?” asked Pratt, as he took an address book from the desk and picked up a sheaf of telegram forms.

“Every penny,” answered Eldrick. “Nice little fortune, too; a fine thing for a young fellow who's just been called to the bar.”

“He has been called, has he, sir?” asked Pratt.

“Called this term, quite recently, at Gray's Inn,” replied Eldrick, as he sat down. “Very promising, clever young man. Look here! We'd better send two wires, one to his private address and one to his chambers. I say, Pratt, do you think an inquest will be necessary?”

Pratt had not thought of that—he began to think. While he was thinking, the doctor whom he had summoned came in. He looked at the dead man, asked the clerk a few questions, and was apparently satisfied. “I don't think there's any need for an inquest,” he said in reply to Eldrick. “I knew the old man very well, and he was much feebler than he would admit. I have no hesitation in giving a certificate.”

“By the bye,” said Eldrick, as Pratt moved toward the door, “you don't know what—what he came to see me about?”

“Haven't the remotest idea, sir,” answered Pratt readily and glibly. “He died, just as I've told you, before he could tell me anything.”

He went downstairs and out into the street and away to the general post office, only conscious of one thing, only concerned about one thing—that he was now the sole possessor of a great secret.

“You haven't shown it to anybody else?” Pratt had asked.

“Neither shown it to anybody, nor mentioned it to a soul,” Antony Bartle had answered.

So, in all that great town of Barford, he—Linford Pratt—he, alone out of a quarter of a million people, knew—what? The magnitude of what le knew not only amazed but exhilarated him. Of one thing he was already certain—it should be, must be, turned to his own advantage.

It was past eight o'clock before Pratt was able to go home to his lodgings. When the maid had cleared away the dinner things, and he was alone in his sitting room and had lighted his pipe and mixed himself a whisky and water—the only indulgence in such things that he allowed himself within the twenty-four hours—he drew John Mallathorpe's will from his pocket and read it carefully three times. And then he began to think closely and steadily.

First of all the will was a good will. Nothing could upset it. There was nothing to do but to put that will in the hands of the trustees named in it, and then2

Pratt thought next of the two trustees. They were well-known men in the town, comparatively young, and of great energy. Their chief interests were educational. That, no doubt, was why John Mallathorpe had appointed them trustees. Wyatt had been plaguing the town for years to start commercial schools; Charlesworth was a devoted champion of technical schools. Pratt knew how the hearts of both would leap if he suddenly told them that enormous funds were at their disposal for the furtherance of their schemes. And he also knew something else—that neither Charlesworth nor Wyatt had the faintest, remotest notion or suspicion that John Mallathorpe had ever made such a will, or they would have moved heaven and earth and pulled down Normandale Grange and Mallathorpe's mill trying to find it.

But the effect—the effect of producing the will now? Pratt, like everybody else, had been deeply interested in the Mallathorpe affair. There was so little doubt that John Mallathorpe had died intestate, such absolute certainty that his only living relatives were his deceased brother's two children and their mother, that the necessary proceedings for putting Harper Mallathorpe and his sister Nesta in possession of the property, real and personal, had been comparatively simple and speedy. But what was it worth?

This was what he wanted to get at: what these young people would lose if he produced the will.

He began to think of three people whom the production of the will would dispossess. Once or twice Pratt had seen Mrs. Mallathorpe in her carriage in the Barford streets. Somebody had pointed her out to him, and had observed sneeringly that folk can soon adapt themselves to circumstances, and that Mrs. Mallathorpe now gave herself all the airs of a duchess, though she had been no more than a hospital nurse before she married Richard Mallathorpe. And Pratt had also seen young Harper Mallathorpe now and then in the town since the good fortune had arrived, and had envied him. He had also thought what a strange thing it was that money went to young fellows who seemed to have no particular endowments of brain or energy. Harper was a very ordinary young man, not overintelligent in appearance, who, Pratt had heard, was often seen lounging about the one or two fashionable hotels of the place. As for the daughter, Pratt did not remember having ever set eyes upon her, but he had heard that, up to the time of John Mallathorpe's death, she had earned her own living as a governess or nurse, or something of the sort.

He turned from thinking of these three people to thoughts about himself. Pratt often thought about himself, and always in one direction—the direction of self-advancement. He was always wanting to get on. He had nobody to help him. He had kept himself since he was seventeen. His father and mother were dead; he had no brothers or sisters, the only relations he had, uncles and aunts, lived, some in London, some in Canada. He was now twenty-eight, earning twenty dollars a week. He had immense confidence in himself, but he had never seen much chance of escaping from drudgery. He had often thought of asking Eldrick & Pascoe to give him his articles, but he had a shrewd idea that his request would be refused. No, it was difficult to get out of a rut. And yet he was a clever fellow, a good-looking fellow, sharp, shrewd, able; and here was a chance, such a chance as scarcely ever comes to a man. He would be a fool if he did not take it and use it to his own best and lasting advantage.

And so he locked up the will in a safe place and went to bed, resolved to take a bold step on the morrow.

CHAPTER III.

Bartle's Boy.

When Pratt arrived at Eldrick & Pascoe's office at his usual hour of nine next morning, he found the senior partner already there. With him was a young man whom the clerk at once set down+as Mr. Bartle Collingwood. Pratt looked at him with considerable interest and curiosity. Another of the lucky ones, too! For Pratt knew the contents of Antony Bartle's will and that the young man had succeeded to a cool one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, at least, through his grandfather's death.

“Here is Pratt,” said Eldrick, glancing into the outer office as the clerk entered it. “Pratt, come in here. Here is Mr. Bartle Collingwood. He would like you to tell him the facts about Mr. Bartle's death.”

Pratt walked in armed and prepared. He was a clever hand at foreseeing things, and he had realized all along that he would have to answer questions about the event of the previous night.

“There's very little to tell, sir,” he said, with a polite acknowledgment of Collingwood's greeting. “Mr. Bartle came up here just as I was leaving—everybody else had left. He wanted to see Mr. Eldrick—why, he didn't say. He was coughing a good deal when he came in, and he complained of the fog outside, and of the stairs. He said something, just a mere mention, about his heart being bad. I lighted the gas in here and helped him into that chair. He just sat down, laid his head back, and died.”

“Without saying anything further?” asked Collingwood.

“Not a word more, Mr. Collingwood,” answered Pratt. “He—well, it was just as if he dropped off to sleep. Of course, at first I thought he'd fainted; but I soon saw what it was. It so happens that I've seen a death just as sudden as that once before; my landlady's husband died in a very similar fashion, in my presence. There was nothing I could do, Mr. Collingwood, except ring up Mr. Eldrick and the doctor and the police.”

“Mr. Pratt made himself very useful last night in making arrangements,” remarked Eldrick, looking at Collingwood. “As it is, there is very little to do. There will be no need for any inquest; Melrose has given his certificate, so there are only the funeral arrangements. We can help you with the matter, of course. But first you'd no doubt like to go to your grandfather's place and look through his papers? We have his will here, you know, and I've already told you its effect.”

“I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Pratt,” said Collingwood, turning to the clerk. He turned again to Eldrick. “All right,” he went on, “I'll go over to Quagg Alley. By the bye, Mr. Pratt, my grandfather didn't tell you anything of the reason of his call here?”

“Not a word, sir,” replied Pratt. “Merely said he wanted Mr. Eldrick.”

“Had he any legal business in process?” asked Collingwood.

Eldrick and his clerk both shook their heads. No, Mr. Bartle had no business of that sort that they knew of—nothing. But there again Pratt was prepared.

“It might have been about the lease of that property in Horsebridge Lane, sir,” he said, glancing at his principal. “He did mention that, you know, when he was in here a few weeks ago.”

“Just so,” agreed Eldrick. “Well, you'll let me know if we can be of use,” he went on as Collingwood turned away. “Pratt can be at your disposal any time.”

Collingwood thanked him and went off to the shop in Quagg Alley. But he knew the shop and its surroundings well enough, though he had not been in Barford for some time; he also knew Antony Bartle's old housekeeper, Mrs. Clough, a rough-and-ready Yorkshire woman, who had looked after the old man as long as Collingwood could remember. She received him as calmly as if he had merely stepped across the street to inquire after his grandfather's health.

“I thowt ye'd be down here first thing, Mestur Collingwood,” she said, as he walked into the parlor at the back of the shop. “Of course, there's naught to be done except to see after yer grandfather's burying. I don't know if ye were surprised or no when t' lawyers tellygraffed to yer last night? I weren't surprised at all. Mestur Eldrick, he gev orders for t' coffin last night.”

When Collingwood came downstairs Mrs. Clough was talking to a sharp-looking lad, of apparently sixteen or seventeen years, who stood at the door leading into the shop, and who glanced at Collingwood with keen interest and speculation.

“Here's Jabey Naylor wants to know if he's to do aught, Mestur,” said the housekeeper. “Of course, I've telled him 't we can't have the shop open till the burying's over, so I don't know what there is that he can do.”

“Oh, well, let him come into the shop with me,” answered Collingwood. He motioned the lad to follow him out of the parlor. “So you were Mr. Bartle's assistant, eh?” he asked.

“Yes sir,” replied the lad. “I'd been in with him all the afternoon. I was here when he went out, and here when they came to say he'd died at Mr. Eldrick's.”

“Did my grandfather seem at all unwell when he went out?” asked Collingwood,

“No sir. He'd been coughing a bit more than usual, that was all. There was a fog came on about five o'clock, and he said it bothered him.”

“What had he been doing during the afternoon? Anything in particular?”

“Nothing at all particular before half past four or so, sir.”

“Oh?” said Collingwood. “Nothing particular before half past four, eh? Did he do something particular after half past four?”

“There was a post came in just about then, sir,” answered Jabey. “There was an American letter—that's it, sir, just in front of you. Mr. Bartle read it and asked me if we'd got a good clean copy of Hopkinson's 'History of Barford.' I reminded him that there was a copy among the books that had been brought from Mallathorpe's mill some time ago.”

“Books that had belonged to Mr. John Mallathorpe, who was killed?” asked Collingwood, who was fully acquainted with the chimney accident.