Chapter 101
"Nonsense!" said Trevithick, smiling. "My dear Mrs Sarson, I always charge what the legal men call _pro rata_."
"Oh, do you, sir?" she said. "Then that way is not very expensive?"
"Certainly not. You don't understand. If you were very rich, the bill would be high; but in your case, if you trust to me, your costs shall be very small indeed."
"Thank you kindly, sir; and will you take the money to-day?"
"No; you have kept it safely so far, and a few days will not hurt. I'll take it next time."
When "next time" came, John Trevithick said the same, and at his next visit he once more put her off.
"What a shame!" he said to himself on his next visit to Danmouth. "It is imposing on the poor woman. I must find some other excuse for coming over. By George!"
He slapped his great knee, and laughed with delight at his happy thought.
"I'll open an office here in Danmouth; take Mrs Sarson's second parlour, and come over twice a week. Do her good and do me good, and, who knows, it may bring clients."
Full of this idea, he called upon Mrs Sarson one morning about a fortnight before the incidents of the last chapter, and on being closeted with her, opened out his business at once in a quick, legal way.
"Now, then, my dear madam, if you will hand me that money, I'll take charge of it, complete the little mortgage, and you can have the deeds of the premises upon which your money is to be lent at five per cent, or I will keep them for you--which you please."
"Oh, I should like, if you don't think it would be wrong, Mr Trevithick, to keep the deeds myself, as I shall not have the money."
"Very good."
Mrs Sarson, who had recovered from the rheumatic attack which had frightened her into making arrangements about her savings, rose from her chair, and, in a very feminine way, sought for the key, which was kept hidden in an under pocket--one of the make of a saddle bag--whose security depended on the strength of two tape strings.
The lawyer smiled to himself, and thought of his own iron safe, built in the wall of the office, as the widow brought out her key, and opened a large tea-caddy standing upon a side table.
"Not a very safe place, Mrs Sarson, eh?"
"Ah, you don't know, sir," said the woman, with a smile, as she threw up the lid, took up a large cut gla.s.s sugar basin full of white lumps from the centre compartment, and then first one and then the other of the two oblong receptacles, each well filled with fragrant black and green, for she opened them, and laughingly displayed their contents.
This done, she thrust her hand down into the round velvet-lined hole from which the sugar basin had been lifted, gave it a knock sideways, and then lifted out the whole of the internal fittings of
"There!" she said, with a sigh; "that was my dear husband's idea. He was a cabinetmaker, sir, and he was quite right. They have always been safe."
"Yes, Mrs Sarson," said the lawyer; "but you have lost your interest."
"Lost what, sir?"
"Your interest! How many years have they been lying here?"
"Oh, a many, sir. Some were put there by my poor husband, and I've gone on putting in more as often as I could save up another ten pounds, for I kept the sovereigns in my pocket till I had ten, and then I used to change them for notes."
"Humph, yes!" said Trevithick, wetting a finger, bank-clerkly, and counting the notes. "Twenty-seven. All tens. Two hundred and seventy pounds. I only want two hundred and fifty, Mrs Sarson. You shall put two back for nest eggs."
He took the two top notes off, before turning the parcel over and looking at the bottom note, one that looked old and yellow, and he read the date.
"Forty years old that one, Mrs Sarson."
"Yes, sir; but that don't matter, does it?"
"Oh, no; the Bank of England never refuses its paper. And this top one is dated--let me see. Ah! two years old, and pretty new--Good G.o.d!"
The number had struck his eye, and he had turned it over, and read a name written upon the back.
"Oh, Mr Trevithick! Don't, pray don't say it's a bad one!"
"Eh? Bad?" cried the lawyer absently. "Where did you get this note?"
"From the hotel, sir," cried the poor woman, in a broken voice. "They always change my gold for me there. But they shall give me a good one, for I can swear that I got it there."
"Wait a moment," cried Trevithick excitedly. "No; those are quite right."
"Oh, thank goodness for that!" cried Mrs Sarson, who was trembling so that the notes she took back rustled in her hand. "But do, do look again at the others and see if they are good."
"Yes, yes, all good, Mrs Sarson," said Trevithick, looking over them hurriedly.
"Then give me that one, sir, and I'll take it back to them at once."
"No, no, Mrs Sarson, the note is quite good," said the lawyer, putting on his business mask, and looking quite calm, though his heart was thumping heavily.
"Oh, dear! and you gave me such a fright, sir. You are sure it is a good one?"
"So good, Mrs Sarson, that I'd give you ten golden sovereigns for it.
Five hundred if it were necessary," he said to himself; and after being witness to the replacing of two notes in the caddy, and giving a receipt for those confided to his charge, he made his way back to Toxeter in a state of excitement that was new to him, and did not rest till he was locked up in his own private room.
"It seems impossible," he thought, as he compared the note with the closely written figures he had in his pocket-book, and then examined the signature at the back.
"Yes; there's the clue I have sought for so long--dropped into my hands like this. Oh!"
He sat back with the perspiration gathering on his forehead, and the look of excitement on his face changing slowly into horror as bit by bit the meaning of the name on the back of that note gradually unfolded itself till he was gazing upon a picture of horror that appalled him.
"No, no, no! It's too shocking," he cried at last, as he wiped his brow. The man could not be such a wretch.
"But he is a wretch! A cold-blooded, swearing, drinking brute; and with all his flash and show, and yacht, I know that he was always hard up for money, and being hunted by that usurious scoundrel Gellow."
Trevithick wiped his brow again.
"Why, he must have had it all. Robbed the poor old man who had taken him to his hearth. Yes, I daresay to pay off that scoundrel and get time. Yes, there's his name to the note. He must have changed it at the hotel. I knew that money was missing. Robbed him--the man who welcomed him as a son, and encouraged him to win his daughter. The black-hearted traitor. I always hated him. A cowardly, despicable thief, stealing the money that some day would have been his."
Trevithick leaped from his seat, and in his excitement struck a penholder, and knocked over the ink.
"Good Heaven!" he exclaimed, "he murdered him!"
Trevithick stood with his hands pressed upon his brow, trying to think calmly, but his head became hotter as the idea grew strong.
"Yes," he said, "died of an overdose of chloral, they said. He could never have taken that money without. He must have got to know, and-- yes, he must have drugged him to death, so as to get the heavy sum.