The Talleyrand Maxim | Page 2

ground floor."
He lighted the gas in the senior partner's room, and turning back, took
hold of the visitor's arm, and helped him to the easy chair. Then, having
closed the doors, he sat down at Eldrick's desk, put his fingers together
and waited. Pratt knew from experience that old Antony Bartle would
not have come there except on business: he knew also, having been at
Eldrick & Pascoe's for many years, that the old man would confide in
him as readily as in either of his principals.
"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, claw-like finger. "I say," he continued, with a smile that was
something between a wink and a leer, and suggestive of a pleased
satisfaction. "I've had a find!"
"Oh!" responded Pratt. "One of your rare books, Mr. Bartle? Got
something for twopence that you'll sell for ten guineas? You're one of
the lucky ones, you know, you are!"
"Nothing of the sort!" chuckled Bartle. "And I had to pay for my
knowledge, young man, before I got it--we all have. No--but I've found
something: not half an hour ago. Came straight here with it. Matters 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 again
leaned forward, and dug his finger once more into the clerk's sleeve.
"I say!" he whispered. "You remember John Mallathorpe and the affair
of--how long is it since?"
"Two years," answered Pratt promptly. "Of course I do. 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 neighbourhood with a nine days' 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 little 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 then began 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 solicitor in the town had
ever made a will for him. No solicitor elsewhere had ever made a will
for him. No one had ever heard that he had 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. He was a confirmed bachelor. The only relation he had in the
world was 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 workpeople. His average annual profit from his mills was
reckoned in thousands--four or five thousands at least. And some years
before his death, he had bought one of the finest estates in the
neighbourhood, Normandale Grange, a beautiful old house, 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