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.
Chapter XIV. Cards on the Table
Had any third person been present, closely to observe the meeting
