Well, I was honest, at least; for I was my uncle’s sole provisional legatee, and heir presumptive to whatever small fortune he had amassed during his career. And day by day, as the breach between us widened, I saw my prospect of the succession attenuating, and would not budge from my position. No, Shakespeare was Shakespeare, I said, and Bacon, Bacon; and not all the cyphers in the world should convince me that any profit was to be gained by either imagining or unravelling a single one of them.
“What, no profit!” roared my uncle. “But I will persuade you, young man, of your mistake before I’m done with you. Hum-ti-diddledidee! No profit, hey? H’m—well!”
Then I saw that the end was come. And, indeed, it was an open quarrel between us, and I was forbidden to call upon him again.
I was sorry for this, because, in his more frolicsome and uncontroversial moments, he was a genial companion, unless or until one inadvertently touched on the theme, when at once he exploded. Professionally, he could be quite a rollicking blade, and his settings of plantation songs were owned to be nothing less than lyric inspirations. Pantomime, too, in the light of his incidental music, had acquired something more than a classical complexion; and, in the domain of knockabout extravaganza, not only did the score of “The Girl who Knew a Thing or Two” owe to him its most refined numbers, but also the libretto, it was whispered, its best Attic bonnes-bouches.
However, all that good company I must now forgo—though Chaunt tried vainly to heal the breach between us—and in the end the old man died, without any visible relenting towards me.
I felt his loss pretty keenly, though it is no callousness in me to admit that our long separation had somewhat dulled the edge of my attachment. I expected, of course, no testamentary consideration from him, and was only more surprised than uplifted to receive one morning a request from his lawyers to visit them at my convenience. So I went, soberly enough, and introduced myself.
“No,” said the partner to whom I was admitted, in answer to a question of mine: “I am not in a position to inform you who is the principal beneficiary under our friend’s will. I can only tell you—what a few days before his death he confided to us, and what, I think, under the circumstances, you are entitled to learn—that he had quite recently, feeling his end approaching, realized on the bulk of his capital, converted the net result into a certain number—five, I think he mentioned—of Bank of England notes, and… burned ’em, for all we know to the contrary.”
“Burned them!” I murmured aghast.
“I don’t say so,” corrected the lawyer drily. “I only say, you know, that we are not instructed to the contrary. Your uncle” (he coughed slightly) “had his eccentricities. Perhaps he swallowed ’em; perhaps gave ’em away at the gate. Our dealings are, beyond yourself, solely with the residuary legatee, who is, or was, his housekeeper. For her benefit, moreover, the furniture and effects of our late client are to be sold, always excepting a few more personal articles, which, together with a sealed enclosure, we are desired to hand over to you.”
He signified, indeed, my bequest as he spoke. It lay on a table behind him: A bound volume of minutes of the Baconian Society; a volume of Ignatius Donnelly’s Great Cryptogram; a Chippendale tea-caddy (which, I was softened to think, the old man had often known me to admire); a large piece of foolscap paper twisted into a cone, and a penny with which to furnish myself with a mourning ring out of a cracker.