Mr. Wallis turned his face on the young gentleman thus alluded to much as a policeman flashes his dark-lantern on a suspected stranger. There was no commiseration in it now; it was a keen, and even a hostile glance.
‘I see; but besides the reputed epistle to Anne Hathaway, there was, I think, a note of hand purporting to be written to Shakespeare from John Hemynge.’
‘I don’t know as to “reputed” and “purporting,” sir,’ returned the antiquary stiffly, ‘which are adjectives not usually applied to documents professedly genuine, at all events under the roof of their possessor.’
‘You are right; I beg your pardon, Mr. Erin,’ put in the visitor apologetically. ‘One has no right to prejudge a case of which one has only heard an ex-parte statement. It is, however, that particular document which I ask to look at; a gentleman upon whose word I can rely has seen it, and assures me that the signature of John Hemynge appended to the receipt is—not to mince matters—a forgery.’
The antiquary started to his feet. ‘Do you come here to insult me, sir?’ he inquired angrily.
‘No, Mr. Erin, far from it,’ returned the other firmly. ‘No one would be better pleased both on your own account and on that of those belonging to you’—here his eye lit once more on Margaret, who had flushed to her forehead—‘if I should find my informant mistaken. But the fact is, I possess a deed with the authentic and undoubted signature of John Hemynge, which my friend, who has seen both of them, assures me is wholly different from that attached to this new-found document. Assertion, however, as you may reasonably reply, is out of place in this matter. The question is merely one of comparison. Have you any objection to my applying that test?’
‘Most certainly not, sir. Margaret, this gentleman wishes to see the note of hand.’
Margaret brought it from the iron safe and gave it to Mr. Wallis. Her face still retained some trace of indignation, and her eyes met those of the visitor with resolution and even defiance.
‘If there is fraud here,’ he said to himself, ‘this girl has nothing to do with it.’ The behaviour of Mr. Erin had also impressed him favourably; with that of William Henry he was not so satisfied, it seemed to him to have too much sang-froid; but then (as he frankly confessed to himself) he had been prejudiced against him. Mr. Wallis was a man accustomed to ‘thread the labyrinth of the mind’ in matters more important, or at all events more serious, than literary investigation, and had a very observant eye, and the conclusion he came to was that, if there was one person in the present company more guilty than another as regards the Shakespearean fabrications (as Malone had called them), it was Mr. Frank Dennis. He had not indeed uttered one word; but when the girl had approached the safe there had been unmistakable signs of trouble in his face, while at this moment, when, as he (Mr. Wallis) knew, and as the other must needs suspect, a damning proof of the worthlessness of one of these vaunted discoveries was about to be produced, he exhibited an anxiety and apprehension which, to do them justice, were absent from the rest.
‘This is a mortgage deed executed by John Hemynge,’ observed Mr. Wallis, drawing a document from his pocket, ‘concerning the genuineness of which there is no dispute. It was found among the papers of the Featherstonehaugh family, to whom the nation is indebted (through my late client, David Garrick) for the Shakespeare mortgage now in the British Museum. If the signature of yonder deed tallies with it, well and good; I shall, believe me, be pleased to find it so; but if it does not do so, there can be no question as to which is the spurious one.’