CHAPTER IXA SERIOUS POSITION

Sitting on the floor in a grimy snowdrift of scattered papers, and surrounded by piles of dingy books, Rupert stared at his cousin, scarcely taking in the purport of his words. Mallien appeared to be pleased with the expression of genuine bewilderment on the other man's face, but did not improve the occasion by speaking immediately. Since the afternoon was oppressively hot, he wore a suit of cool white flannel, which made him seem blacker in his hairy looks than ever. In the heavy yellow sunshine streaming through the dusty room, his many jewels twinkled and shot fire; scarf-pin and studs, sleeve links and rings. Near the door, which he had closed, the newcomer leaned, against the many volumes filling the book shelf, with folded arms and crossed legs; an odd, and, as it impressed Hendle, a sinister figure. It was the Squire who spoke next, as he was not entirely sure if he had heard Mallien's astounding question.

"What do you say?" he asked, almost mechanically.

"You heard me right enough," sneered the other.

"John Hendle's will?"

"Ah, I thought so. None so deaf as those who won't hear. Well, have you found it, Rupert?"

"John Hendle's will," repeated the Squire, greatly taken aback by this sudden display of knowledge on the part of his cousin.

"Yes! Don't pretend that I am talking nonsense; you know better."

Hendle gradually collected his scattered thoughts, and rose slowly to his feet. Then, quite in a mechanical way, he took out pipe and tobacco pouch. "I should like to know who told you," he remarked, filling the bowl.

"You shall know--Mrs. Beatson told me."

"And how did she know?"

"As women generally know things they are not meant to learn--by eavesdropping. You understand. She listened to the conversation between you and the parson, when he dined at The Big House, on the evening before his death."

"He did dine with me," admitted Hendle seriously. "And he did tell me about the discovery of the will you mention. But why did Mrs. Beatson listen, since she could not have guessed what he was going to speak about."

"It seems to me, Rupert, that you are asking questions, whereas it is my right to do so. However, to make things clear, I don't mind in the least answering you. Mrs. Beatson explained to me, in excuse for her eavesdropping, that you had told her of your approaching marriage with Dorinda, and she was afraid lest you should turn her out."

"I told her I wouldn't."

"Oh, did you? Then evidently she did not believe you, and hovered round the dining-room and drawing-room, hoping to hear anything you might say to the vicar on the subject. Leigh hinted at some mystery he had to impart to you. Mrs. Beatson heard his remark through the open door of the dining-room and it aroused her curiosity. When you went to the drawing-room, she was outside the window drinking in every word."

"Hum!" said Rupert, lighting his pipe. "I remember that the windows of the drawing-room were open on account of the heat. She stole along the terrace, I presume."

"Yes, and heard every word," repeated Mallien significantly. "In the first instance, you will understand that Mrs. Beatson only hovered round you and the vicar to hear anything connected with her possible dismissal. But, when she grasped the fact about the will, she became aware that she had overheard a secret, which she could turn to her own advantage. For a time she hesitated whether to let you or me buy her silence. Then, thinking that I would get the money, she came and told me all about it."

"Hum!" said Rupert again, and very calmly. "Rather treacherous behavior toward me, considering how kind I treated her."

"Treachery be hanged!" burst out Mallien, leaving the wall and throwing himself onto a convenient pile of books, which afforded him a seat. "She wanted to see me righted."

"She wanted a price for her secret, I think you said."

"Well, and why not?" demanded the hairy little Timon, in a blustering way. "It is only natural that you should wish to keep the secret, and only natural that Mrs. Beatson should try and make money out of telling it to me."

"I suppose it is, with some natures. So you are going to pay her."

"Yes! She's done me a good turn. I'll give her an annuity when I come to live at The Big House."

"You are not there yet," said Rupert, dryly. Now that he knew the worst he was perfectly calm. And he had every right to be since he had done nothing with which to reproach himself.

"I shall be there, when this will comes to light," bullied Mallien fiercely. "Naturally you wish to hide it----"

"There you make a mistake," interrupted the big man leisurely. "As soon as the will is found, I shall take it to our family lawyers, and have it looked into."

"Oh, yes, you say so now, because you can't keep the secret any longer, thanks to Mrs. Beatson," retorted Mallien coarsely.

"I never intended to keep any secret."

"Then why didn't you tell me as soon as Leigh told you?"

"Because I had not seen the will, and so far as that goes, I have never set eyes on it yet. It may be a myth, and it was useless for me to speak about it until I was sure that such a document was in existence."

"It is in existence," insisted Mallien uneasily.

"We have only the vicar's word for it."

"Oh, of course you say that."

"What else can I say? Listen to me, Mallien. Unpleasant as it is for me to lose my property, I am quite willing to surrender it to you without the intervention of the law, if the will proves to be legal. If it doesn't, of course I shall keep my own."

But even this generous and reasonable speech did not appeal to the grasping hearer. "You can do what you like," he replied doggedly; "but if I don't get the property, I shall bring the case before a judge and jury."

"There will be no necessity for you to do so, if the will is legal."

Mallien sneered. "I suppose you'll try and prove that it isn't."

"Certainly," retorted Hendle, angered by this extreme selfishness. "You may be sure that I shall do all I can to protect my own interests. Would you not do the same were you in my position?"

The other shirked a straightforward reply as a selfish man would. "That is neither here nor there," he snapped, "I want my rights."

"You shall have them, if you have any."

"From what Mrs. Beatson told me----"

"Mrs. Beatson knows no more nor no less than I do," interrupted the Squire patiently. "She is aware that Leigh found--or said that he found--a will made by John Hendle one hundred years ago, leaving the property to Eunice Filbert and her descendants. If such is the case, and you are rightfully entitled to take my place, well"---- Rupert shrugged his square shoulders, and completed his sentence by waving his hand vaguely to the four corners of the room. Mallien scowled and tried to pick holes.

"Oh, you can be certain that I shall claim my rights to the last farthing," he growled savagely, and rather annoyed by Rupert's reasonable attitude.

"Naturally. That is only fair. I am not the man, as you well know, to keep what does not honestly belong to me. But," added Hendle with emphasis, "the will has yet to be found."

"It must be found," declared Mallien violently.

"That is easier said than done. Leigh seemed to have mislaid, or hidden it, very thoroughly. Inspector Lawson did not come across it, and I can't lay my hands on it nohow. And, remember, even when it is discovered, the legality of it has yet to be proved."

"If it is signed and witnessed properly I inherit," shouted Mallien, doggedly, and objecting, as such an illogical man would, to the mere shadow of a contradiction.

"Don't go too fast," said the Squire dryly. "There is such a thing as the Statute of Limitations."

"Oh, is there? And what deviltry is that?"

"A law which, in most cases, operates against the restoration of property devolving under a lost will, found--as this one has been--after so long a period of time."

"You talk like a book," sneered Mallien, uncomfortably, for here was an obstacle which he did not expect to meet. "And you will take advantage of this infernal Statute?"

"Why not?" demanded Rupert, calmly. "Would you not do the same under the same circumstances?"

"I prefer not to enter into any argument on that point," said Mallien loftily. "It seems to be a silly law. And what about not keeping what isn't your own."

"If the Statute of Limitations acts in my favor, the property would be my own," answered the Squire coolly.

"Hair-splitting!"

"Common sense! And I would not have used such an argument, but for your display of greedy selfishness."

"Me selfish. How dare you!" Mallien fumed and fretted, and made as though he would throw himself on his cousin.

Hendle held out one hand to keep him off. "None of that, Mallien. No violence or it will be the worse for you. If it comes to a physical tussle, it will not be difficult for me to lay you on your back."

Mallien knew this, so tried verbal bullying. "I order you not to address me in that insolent tone."

"Don't be a fool, man. And don't talk about insolence until you learn how to behave yourself. Everyone far and near considers you a most objectionable person."

"Indeed!" Mallien grew livid. "And you?"

"I am of the same opinion," replied Rupert, smoking placidly. "If you were not Dorinda's father, I should have thrashed you ages ago."

"You shall never marry my daughter," gasped the other, panting with rage.

"Dorinda and I can afford to do without your permission. See here, Mallien, don't you think it's time you stopped playing the fool. I said before, and I say again, that if the property is proved to be rightfully yours, as the descendant of Eunice Filbert, I shall not stand in the way. So the best thing you can do is to behave your silly self and help me to search for the will. We can leave the question of my marriage to Dorinda alone just now. Until the will is found, or is proved not to exist, you are well aware that no marriage can take place."

"And if the will is found, and I am put in possession of The Big House, no marriage shall take place," retorted the other, still fuming.

"On the other hand, if the will is found and proves to be illegal? What then will be your attitude?"

"Even then I shall refuse to----"

"Not you," broke in Rupert with a broad smile. "You are too anxious to buy that blue sapphire you were talking about. If you want the five hundred a year that my marriage with Dorinda will put into your pocket, you will have to put your pride in the same receptacle."

"We'll see about that!" snarled Mallien vindictively, but in a more subdued tone, for he did not wish to cross the Rubicon too soon. "The will has yet to be proved illegal."

"The will has yet to be found," answered the Squire, thinking how difficult it was to hammer an idea into the man's obstinate head.

"Ah!" Mallien's tone was significant. "I am quite sure that it never will be found."

Rupert opened his big blue eyes in genuine surprise. "You seem to have changed your opinion," he remarked, after a pause. "Just now you made sure it would be found."

"Bah!" Mallien's pent-up rage burst forth anew. "Do you think that I can't see through your pretended search?"

"Pretended search." Hendle rose slowly and towered above the stout little man like a giant. "Explain what you mean."

"It's easy to see," snapped the other, sulkily. "Lawson could not find the will among the papers of Leigh and you will not find it. And why? Because it is already in your possession, and has been destroyed for all I know."

"Still, I don't understand," said Rupert, and his eyes grew hard as he began to have an inkling of Mallien's meaning. "Leigh did not give the will to me before he died."

"I dare say not. He had his own fish to fry, and would only have given it to you on getting your promise to finance his silly Yucatan expedition. You took the will from his dead body."

Hendle's temper, long held in check, blazed up. He took two steps toward the gad-fly which so irritated him, caught Mallien by the throat and flung him right across the room. "You liar," he said, in a dangerously quiet tone.

"It's true! it's true!" gasped his cousin, struggling into a sitting position amid a pile of tumbled books.

"Do you want your neck twisted?"

"I dare you to do it," shrieked Mallien hysterically. "You daren't add one murder to another."

Rupert sat down suddenly, afraid lest his wrath should carry him too far, and reined in his feelings with a powerful effort. "I think you are a fool, and should be answered according to your folly," he said, with suppressed anger. "What makes you think that I did such a thing?"

His cousin gathered himself together and smoothed his ruffled plumes. But he still remained among the pile of books his fall had scattered, as he did not wish to come within arm's length of Hendle. There he sat and grinned like an ugly little gnome. "Anyone can guess your game," he sneered, venomously. "Leigh told you about the will and said it was here, but--I am quite sure of this--he refused to give it to you, unless you agreed to finance his Yucatan expedition. Of course you refused, and then came here in the dead of night to murder him and get the will. Bah! I can see through your pretence of searching for what is already found."

"You read my character according to your own base thoughts," said Rupert, now quite self-possessed; "and what you say is wholly untrue. Leigh told me about the will, as Mrs. Beatson informed you, and she can bear witness that the vicar declared that he had mislaid the document. I called to see him the next morning, but he was away--as Mrs. Jabber can testify--seeing Mrs. Patter, who was reported to be dying. I then went to Town to consult Carrington----"

"Oh, you have brought that beast into it," sneered Mallien vindictively.

"I consulted him as to what was best to be done, and he advised me not to see the vicar until the next day, and then in his company. Carrington, as you well know, came down by the midday train, for the purpose of seeing Leigh along with me. But by that time Leigh was dead."

"Quite so. And you killed him."

The accusation was so absurd that Rupert merely shrugged his shoulders, and wondered why he had lost his temper with this gad-fly even for a moment. "I think you will find it difficult to prove that," he observed, suavely. "I did not see Leigh on the night he was murdered; I did not even call at the Vicarage, thanks to Carrington's advice. My servants can prove, if you like to question them, that I locked up and retired to bed at ten o'clock."

"Oh, I dare say you did," scoffed Mallien; "but, remember, that Leigh was killed--if Dr. Tollart is to be believed--at eleven. It was easy for you to slip out of The Big House and come along to----"

"I did not." Rupert started to his feet again, but maintained his calmness.

"How can you prove that you did not?"

"How can you prove that I did?" counterquestioned the Squire.

Mallien rose and brushed the dust from his flannels. "I shall leave Lawson to find the proof," he cried, triumphantly. "Oh, yes. Once Lawson knows that the will, which would rob you of your property, exists, it will be easy for him to assign a cause why Leigh should have been murdered. Remember, the papers were all tumbled about, as Kensit can witness. The burglary business is all rubbish. It was to get the will that Leigh was murdered, and you are the culprit."

Hendle did not reply for a moment, for so skillfully had the venomous little man built up the case, that he was quite taken aback. Then he remembered how Carrington had warned him that, if the business of the missing will was known, it was possible some such accusation might be brought. Thanks to Mrs. Beatson's treachery, Mallien had been placed in possession of dangerous facts, and Mallien, sooner than forego the chance of acquiring the Hendle property, was quite prepared to have his cousin handed over to the police. Not only was a strong motive for the murder provided, but Rupert knew that he would have the greatest difficulty in proving an alibi. After ten o'clock, all his own servants and the inhabitants of Barship were in bed, so it was perfectly feasible, on the face of it, that to protect his own interests he might have stolen through the village to commit the crime. Of course, he knew very well that he had not; that any idea of securing the will in this way had never entered his head. Nevertheless, the position was both uncomfortable and dangerous, and, for the moment, he did not know what to say. Mallien noted his cousin's silence, and concluded that guilt prevented his speech.

"You can't deny what I say," he cried viciously.

"I am too much taken aback by your audacity to reply, or to deny," retorted the young man, drawing a deep breath. "Knowing me as you do, can you think me guilty of so cowardly a crime, as to strike down an old man?"

"I think you capable of acting anyhow to retain your own property," answered Mallien cynically.

"You judge me by yourself. You might act so, but I should not. However, it is useless to prolong this talk. I now know that you are an envious and disappointed man, and to get my money you are willing to go to the length of getting me hanged."

"You shouldn't murder people, you know," taunted Mallien, believing that he was now top dog and could have everything his own way.

Rupert passed over the accusation. "I suppose," he remarked, laying a trap for his foe, "that if I hand you over the property, will or no will, you won't say anything to the police?"

Mallien's dark eyes gleamed with greed and triumph, as he had not expected to gain so sudden a victory. Hendle had evidently surrendered without firing a shot. "Yes," he said eagerly. "After all, I don't want to wash dirty family linen in public, and it would be unpleasant for me and for Dorinda to see you in the dock. After all, also, the will leaves everything to me, as the descendant of Eunice Filbert."

"The will has yet to be found; it has yet to be proved legal," said Rupert calmly, "and we are not even certain if this presumed will is not a figment of Leigh's brain."

"Leigh could not have invented such a story," said Mallien doggedly. "And whether he did or not matters little. The property is mine----"

"That has yet to be proved," interpolated Hendle quietly.

"If you don't climb down, it will be proved at the expense of your arrest for the murder," threatened Mallien.

"I see." Rupert's lip curled with contempt. "And if I give you all I have, you will condone a felony?"

"I don't care what beastly terms you use," snapped Mallien uneasily. "You know that it is in my power to have you arrested."

"And in Mrs. Beatson's also."

"Oh, I'll make it worth her while to keep quiet."

"I wonder how Dorinda ever came to have so dishonorable a man for her father," commented Rupert reflectively. "I always knew you to be a bully and an avaricious animal, but I did expect some decency."

"Take care," raged Mallien, growing livid again. "I shall tell the police what I know, if you insult me further."

"It is impossible to insult you. A man who had agreed to hush up what he supposes to be a crime cannot be insulted. He is beyond the pale of decency. I presume, Mallien, that it never occurred to you that if I were weak enough to agree to your blackmailing, that you could be arrested later as an accessory after the fact, always supposing that I am guilty, which I am not."

"Oh, for your own sake you'll hold your tongue," said the other confidently, "and Mrs. Beatson can be squared. I don't think she'll connect the murder and the will, anyhow, as I have done."

"I see. She is not quite so clever as you are. Well, then, if I hand over the property to you straightway, and not bother about finding the will----"

"Which you have already got and destroyed."

"I see. We'll let it go at that. I am guilty, and you will condone my guilt on condition that you get my money?"

"Yes," said Mallien impudently.

"And you will take the risk of being proved an accessory after the fact?"

"Yes! Because I know that you'll hold your tongue for your own sake."

"Of course, you will keep Mrs. Beatson quiet?"

"Certainly. She won't say a word if I give her an annuity; and she is not likely to connect the will and the murder, as I remarked before. Well?"

"Well?" echoed Rupert ironically. "I'm not taking any, thank you."

Mallien's face fell when he found that, in the moment of his fancied triumph, victory was suddenly snatched from his grasp. "You refuse?"

"I do. Go to Inspector Lawson and bring your accusation. I am quite ready to meet it."

"You'll be arrested," threatened Mallien.

"I am quite willing to be arrested. That's better than being in the power of a blackmailer."

"You are mad; you are quite mad."

"You would like me to be, but, as it happens, I am perfectly sane. Meanwhile, until you have me locked up, help me to search for the will."

Mallien could not understand his cousin's attitude. He had insulted him; he had brought a vile accusation against him; yet Rupert coolly refused his greedy terms, and evidently did not mind being in his company. Knowing how he would have cringed and agreed to anything under similar circumstances, Mallien at once sought refuge in a taunt. "I thought you were a man?"

"Obnoxious animals such as you are cannot judge what is a man and what isn't, my friend," retorted Rupert, putting on his coat. "Will you walk along with me toward The Big House and discuss the matter further?"

"No, hang you, I won't."

"As you please. And your denunciation of me to the police?"

Mallien hesitated. "I'll give you a week to think things over."

"Thank you," said Hendle gravely, and, the treaty having been made, the conversation ended with victory for the Squire--a victory won by sheer honesty.