“Still, we have his address on the will,” said Mr. Halfpenny. “I shall call on Mr. Burchill at once—as soon as I leave here. There is, of course, no doubt as to the validity of this will. You said just now that Barthorpe left you as soon as he had seen it. Now, what did Barthorpe say about it?”
“Nothing!” answered Mr. Tertius. “He went away without a word—rushed away, in fact.”
Mr. Halfpenny shook his head with profound solemnity.
“I am not in the least surprised to hear that,” he observed. “Barthorpe naturally received a great shock. What I am surprised at is—the terms of the will. Nothing whatever to Barthorpe—his only male relative—his only brother’s only son. Extraordinary! My dear,” he continued, turning to Peggie, “can you account for this? Do you know of anything, any difference between them, anything at all which would make your uncle leave his nephew out of his will?”
“Nothing!” answered Peggie. “And I’m very troubled about it. Does it really mean that I get everything, and Barthorpe nothing?”
“That is the precise state of affairs,” answered Mr. Halfpenny. “And it is all the more surprising when we bear in mind that you two are the only relations Jacob Herapath had, and that he was a rich man—a very rich man indeed. However, he doubtless had his reasons. And now, as I conclude you desire me to act for you, I shall take charge of this will and lock it up in my safe as soon as I return to the office. On my way, I shall call at Mr. Burchill’s address and just have a word with him. Tertius, you had better come with me. And—yes, there is another thing that I should like to have done. Mr. Selwood—are you engaged on any business?”
“No,” replied Selwood, who was secretly speculating on the meaning of the morning’s strange events. “I have nothing to attend to.”
“Then will you go to Mr. Barthorpe Herapath’s office—in Craven Street, I think?—and see him personally and tell him that Mr. Benjamin Halfpenny is in town, has been acquainted with these matters by Mr. Tertius and Miss Wynne, and would esteem it a favour if he would call upon him before five o’clock. Thank you, Mr. Selwood. Now, Tertius, you and I will attend to our business.”
Left alone, Peggie Wynne suddenly realized that the world had become a vastly different world to what it had seemed a few short hours before. This room, into which Jacob Herapath, bustling and busy, would never come again, was already a place of dread; nay, the whole house in which she had spent so many years of comfort and luxury suddenly assumed a strange atmosphere of distastefulness. It was true that her uncle had never spent much time in the house. An hour or two in the morning—yes, but by noon he had hurried off to some Committee at the House of Commons, and in session time she had never seen him again that day. But he had a trick of running in for a few minutes at intervals during the day; he would come for a cup of tea; sometimes he would contrive to dine at home; whether he was at home or not, his presence, always alert, masterful, active, seemed to be everywhere in the place. She could scarcely realize that she would never see him again. And as she stood looking at his vacant chair she made an effort to realize what it all really meant to her, and suddenly, for the first time in her life, she felt the meaning of the usually vague term—loneliness. In all practical essentials she was absolutely alone. So far as she knew she had no relations in the world but Barthorpe Herapath—and there was something—something shadowy and undefinable—about Barthorpe which she neither liked nor trusted. Moreover, she had caught a glimpse of Barthorpe’s face as he turned from looking at the will and hurried away, and what she had seen had given her a strange feeling of fear and discomfort. Barthorpe, she knew, was not the sort of man to be crossed or thwarted or balked of his will, and now——
“Supposing Barthorpe should begin to hate me because all the money is mine?” she thought. “Then—why, then I should have no one! No one of my own flesh and blood, anyway. Of course, there’s Mr. Tertius. But—I must see Barthorpe. I must tell him that I shall insist on sharing—if it’s all mine, I can do that. And yet—why didn’t Uncle Jacob divide it? Why did he leave Barthorpe—nothing?”