What was he going to do? His face was gloomy, his hands were twitching. "Who are the witnesses, my lord?" I asked in a low voice.
So low--for under certain conditions a tone conveys much, very much--that he shot a stealthy glance towards the door before he answered, "John Williams."
"Blind," I replied in the same low tone.
"William Williams."
"He is dead. He was Mr. Alfred's valet. I remember reading in the newspaper that he was with his master, and was killed by the Indians at the same time."
"True. I remember that that was the case," he answered huskily. "And the handwriting is Lord Wetherby's." I assented. Then for fully a minute we were silent, while he bent over the will, and I stood behind him looking down at him with thoughts in my mind which he could as little fathom as could the senseless wood upon which I leaned. Yet I too mistook him. I thought him, to be plain, a scoundrel; and--well, so he was--but a mean one. "What is to be done?" he muttered at length, speaking rather to himself than to me.
I answered softly, "I am a poor man, my lord," while inwardly I was quoting "quem Deus vult perdere."
My words startled him. He answered hurriedly, "Just so! just so! So shall I be when this cursed paper takes effect. A very poor man! A hundred and fifty thousand gone at a blow! But there, she shall have it! She shall have every penny of it; only," he concluded slowly, "I do not see what difference one more day will make."
I followed his downcast eyes, which moved from the will before him to the agreement for the lease of the house; and I did see what difference a day would make. I saw and understood and wondered. He had not the courage to suppress the will; but if he could gain a slight advantage by withholding it for a few hours, he had the mind to do that. Mrs. Wigram, a rich woman, would no longer let the house; she would be under no compulsion to do so; and my lord would lose a cheap residence as well as his hundred and fifty thousand pounds. To the latter loss he could resign himself with a sigh; but he could not bear to forego the petty gain for which he had schemed. "I think I understand, my lord," I replied.
"Of course," he resumed nervously, "you must be rewarded for making this discovery. I will see that it is so. You may depend upon me. I will mention the case to Mrs. Wigram, and--and, in fact, my friend, you may depend upon me.
"That will not do," I said firmly. "If that be all, I had better go to Mrs. Wigram at once, and claim my reward a day earlier."
He grew very red in the face at receiving this check. "You will not in that event get my good word," he said.
"Which has no weight with the lady," I answered politely but plainly.
"How dare you speak so to me?" his lordship cried. "You are an impertinent fellow! But there! How much do you want?"
"A hundred pounds."
"A hundred pounds for a mere day's delay, which will do no one any harm!"
"Except Mrs. Wigram," I retorted dryly. "Come, Lord Wetherby, this lease is worth a thousand a year to you. Mrs. Wigram, as you well know, will not voluntarily let the house to you. If you would have Wetherby House you must pay me. That is the long and the short of it."
"You are an impertinent fellow!" he repeated.
"So you have said before, my lord."
I expected him to burst into a furious passion, but I suppose there was a something of power in my tone, beyond the mere defiance which the words expressed; for, instead of doing so, he eyed me with a thoughtful, malevolent gaze, and paused to consider. "You are at Poole and Duggan's," he said slowly. "How was it that they did not search this cupboard, with which you were acquainted?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "I have not been in the house since Lord Wetherby died," I said. "My employers did not consult me when the papers he left were examined."
"You are not a member of the firm?"
"No, I am not," I answered. I was thinking that, so far as I knew those respectable gentlemen, no one of them would have helped my lord in this for ten times a hundred pounds. My lord! Faugh!
He seemed satisfied, and taking out a note-case laid on the table a little pile of notes. "There is your money," he said, counting them over with reluctant fingers. "Be good enough to put the will and envelope back into the cupboard. Tomorrow you will oblige me by rediscovering it--you can manage that, no doubt--and giving information at once to Messrs. Duggan and Poole, or Mrs. Wigram, as you please. Now," he continued, when I had obeyed him, "will you be good enough to ask the servants to tell Mrs. Wigram that I am waiting?"
There was a slight noise behind us. "I am here," said some one. I am sure that we both jumped at the sound, for though I did not look that way, I knew that the voice was Mrs. Wigram's, and that she was in the room. "I have come to tell you, Lord Wetherby," she went on, "that I have an engagement from home at twelve. Do I understand, however, that you are ready? If so, I will call in Mrs. Williams."
"The papers are ready for signature," the peer answered, betraying some confusion, "and I am ready to sign. I shall be glad to have the matter settled as agreed." Then he turned to me, where I had fallen back, as seemed becoming, to the end of the room, and said, "Be good enough to ring the bell if Mrs. Wigram permit it."
As I moved to the fireplace to do so, I was conscious that the lady was regarding me with some faint surprise. But when I had regained my position and looked towards her, she was standing near the window gazing steadily out into the square, an expression of disdain rendered by face and figure. Shall I confess that it was a joy to me to see her fair head so high, and to read even in the outline of her girlish form a contempt which I, and I only, knew to be so justly based? For myself, I leant against the edge of the screen by the door, and perhaps my hundred pounds lay heavily on my heart. As for him, he fidgeted with his papers, although they were all in order, and was visibly impatient to get his bit of knavery accomplished. Oh! he was a worthy man! And Welshman!
"Perhaps," he presently suggested, for the sake of saying something, "while your servant is coming, you will read the agreement, Mrs. Wigram. It is very short, and, as you know, your solicitors have already seen it in the draft."
She bowed, and took the paper negligently. She read some way down the first sheet with a smile, half careless, half contemptuous. Then I saw her stop--she had turned her back to the window to obtain more light--and dwell on a particular sentence. I saw--God! I had forgotten the handwriting!--I saw her gray eyes grow large and fear leap into them as she grasped the paper with her other hand, and stepped nearer to the peer's side. "Who," she cried, "who wrote this? Tell me! Do you hear? Tell me quickly!"
He was nervous on his own account, wrapt in his own piece of scheming, and obtuse.
"I wrote it," he said, with maddening complacency. He put up his glasses and glanced at the top of the page she held out to him. "I wrote it myself, and I can assure you that it is quite right, and a faithful copy. You do not think--"
"Think! Think! no, no! This, I mean! Who wrote this?" she cried, awe in her face, and a suppliant tone,--strange as addressed to that man,--in her voice.
He was confounded by her vehemence, as well as hampered by his own evil conscience.
"The clerk, Mrs. Wigram, the clerk," he said petulantly, still in his fog of selfishness. "The clerk from Messrs. Duggan and Poole's."
"Where is he?" she cried out breathlessly. I think she did not believe him.
"Where is he?" he repeated in querulous surprise. "Why here, of course. Where should he be, madam? He will witness my signature."
Would he? Signatures! It was little of signatures I recked at that moment. I was praying to Heaven that my folly might be forgiven me, and that my lightly planned vengeance might not fall on my own head. "Joy does not kill," I was saying to myself, repeating it over and over again, and clinging to it desperately. "Joy does not kill!" But oh! was it true in the face of that white-lipped woman?
"Here!" She did not say more, but gazing at me with great dazed eyes, she raised her hand, and beckoned to me. And I had no choice but to obey--to go nearer to her, out into the light.
"Mrs. Wigram," I said hoarsely, my voice sounding to me only as a whisper, "I have news of your late--of your husband. It is good news."
"Good news?" Did she faintly echo my words? or, as her face from which all color had passed peered into mine, and searched it in infinite hope and infinite fear, did our two minds speak without need of physical lips? "Good news?"
