“Signed by General Harding the day before he died. Regularly and carefully attested—you see the names upon it. They cannot dispute the document.”
“What then?”
“Ah! what then? That is just the point I think it will turn upon the identity of our claimant. By the way, what does the young fellow look like? Is he much altered in appearance since he left England?”
“That question I cannot answer.”
“Indeed! It is but two months since you have seen him.”
“True; but I may almost say I then saw him for the first time. I had met him six years before, but only on one or two occasions, and had lost all remembrance of his looks.”
“He was very young,” pursued the solicitor in soliloquy,—“a mere boy when that unfortunate affair occurred. After all, perhaps, not so unfortunate! No doubt, he will be much changed. A captivity among brigands—fighting on barricades—a beard—the tan of a South American sun—to say nothing of getting married—no doubt, the Henry Harding of to-day is entirely unlike the Henry Harding who left home six years ago. My word! there might be a difficulty in identifying him, and we may dread the worst. People nowadays can be had to swear anything—that black’s blue, or even white, if it’s wanted—and money enough to pay for the perjury. In this case there will be both money and a determination to use it. Woolet won’t stick at anything; nor will Mr Nigel Harding either—to say nothing of Mrs Nigel and her amiable mother. We’re sure to have a fight, sir—sure of it.”
“You don’t appear to have much fear about the result?”
I said this, noticing that the lawyer talked with an air of triumphant confidence, besides having used the conditional tense when speaking of the chances of his client being identified.
“Not the slightest—not the slightest. I don’t apprehend any difficulty. There might have been; but I fancy I have a scheme to set all right. Never mind, sir; you shall be told of it in good time. And now for citing all parties into Court.”