It was limp and cold.
"You don't believe me!" said Claude severely.
Jack subsided in a chair.
"I can't," he whispered. "I can't."
"You soon will. I wish to goodness I'd taken you with me to-day. Now listen: there was some truth in Hunt's story, but more lies. The marriage was a lie. There never was a marriage. There was something rather worse at the time, but a good deal better now. My grandfather patched it up, exactly as I thought. He packed my uncle out to Australia, and he settled two hundred a year on the Hunts, on the single condition of 'perpetual silence as to the connection between the two families.' I've seen the covenant, and those are the very words. The condition has been broken after all these years. And the Hunts' income stops to-day."
Jack had roused himself a little; he was no longer apathetic, but neither was he yet convinced.
"It seems a lot of money to hush up so small a matter," he objected. "Are they sure there was no more in it than that?"
"Maitland and Cripps? Perfectly sure; they've been paying that money for nearly forty years, and there's never been a hint at a marriage until now. Certainly there's none in the settlement. But to make assurance surer, young Maitland took a cab and drove off to see his father—who was a partner in '53, but has since retired—about the whole matter. And I took another cab, and drove straight to the old parish church facing the river at Chelsea. I found the clerk, and he showed me the marriage register, but there was no such marriage on that date (or any other) in that church; so why in any? One lie means dozens. Surely you'll agree with me there?"
"I must; it's only the money that sticks with me. It seems such a case of paying through the nose. But what had old Maitland to say?"
"Everything," cried Claude. "He remembered the whole business perfectly, and even saying to my grandfather much what you're saying to me now. But I've told you the kind of man the old Duke was; he was a purist of the purists, besides being as proud as Lucifer, and a scandal so near home hit him, as you would say, in both eyes at once. He considered he got good value for his money when he hushed it up. They showed me a letter in which he said as much. Young Maitland unearthed it after he had seen his father, and with it others of a later date, in which the Duke refused to revoke or even to curtail the allowance on the woman's death. That's all; but surely it's conclusive enough! Here we have a first-class firm of solicitors on the one hand, and a clumsy scoundrel on the other. Which do you believe? By the way, they're anxious to prosecute Hunt on all sorts of grounds if you'll let them."