'It is in connection with that event that I have come to you. You are a man of the world, I know, and a thorough good fellow into the bargain, while in all matters requiring tact and decision I am lamentably deficient.'
'Merely the manner of bringing up, my good friend,' said Humphrey Statham. 'I am practical and hard-headed: you are theoretical and large-hearted. What the wine-merchants call a 'blending' of the qualities of both of us would make, I suppose, the right sort of fellow. Now, then, what has gone wrong? Mr. Calverley has died intestate, I suppose, or there is some hitch about the disposition of his property.'
'No, so far all is right. The will, made about two years ago, is clear, concise, and properly attested. I am joined in the executorship with Mrs. Calverley, and so far all is plain sailing. Besides, I have been mixed up with so many of my parishioners in such matters that I should scarcely have needed advice. What I have come about is a much more serious affair.'
'Out with it, then, man, and don't have any farther hesitation. You won't be able to astonish me. All sorts of wonderful things have been told me by people sitting in that chair. The last person who occupied it before I went away was a detective officer, and your story cannot be more strange than his, or more pathetically interesting--to me at least.' But the last words were almost inaudible.
'You must let me say what I have to say in my own way, then,' said Martin Gurwood, 'and try and follow me as best you can. It was given out that Mr. Calverley died in a railway carriage. This was not the case. He died in a fit on the high road to Hendon, and was found there by a London physician who knew him, and who happened to be passing in his carriage.'
'Hendon?' repeated Humphrey Statham. 'What have I heard about Hendon lately?'
'It is a place which has a good deal to do with the story I am about to relate,' said Martin, 'as you will judge when I tell you that the late Mr. Calverley, unknown to his wife or to any of us, had a house there.'
Humphrey Statham looked up sharply; then whistled long and low.
'A house to which he was in the habit of retiring every other fortnight or so, giving out and leaving it to be imagined that he had gone down to some ironworks which he had purchased in the North, and which required his frequent supervision.'
'Yes,' said Statham, nodding his head composedly, 'I quite understand. Of course at this country residence he didn't pass in his own name?'