“Last night, if you remember,” said Mr. Grahame, slowly fixing his eye firmly upon that of his ‘agent,’ “you threw out several suggestions calculated to afford me, in the distress of mind under which I was labouring, a very considerable degree of consolation. Do you remember this?”
Chewkle caught hold of his dusty, shaggy whiskers at the roots, and drew them out to their full extent with the tips of his fingers and thumb several times, to appear the unconscious act of a man plunged in reflection. Presently he said—
“Ain’t altogether certain as I does.”
Mr. Grahame now repeated the plan which he had the previous evening proposed to accomplish by the aid of Mr. Jukes and his companions, by which, in spite of all Wilton’s protestations and oaths to the contrary, the signature was to be sworn to as being bona fide and genuine.
Chewkle listened in silence, and when Mr. Grahame concluded by observing that he had almost decided upon adopting it, Mr. Chewkle felt himself to be unpleasantly situated upon the horns of a dilemma. Mr. Grahame had been candid enough to acknowledge that, unless he obtained the estate, he would be lost, destroyed, unable to reward the services of any person; but that if he, by the assistance of “zealous friends,” succeeded in securing it, the most magnificent recompense should be bestowed upon them.
Mr. Chewkle’s difficulty consisted in having possession of the deed. If he retained it, it seemed that Mr. Grahame would be reduced to poverty, and his exposé of the guilty act of forgery would bring him nothing, perhaps, but the questionable advantage of being brought under the anxious consideration of a judge and jury, as a particeps criminis. If he gave it up to Mr. Grahame, he would have to account for its possession, an acknowledgment of the truth would place him at once in the power of Mr. Grahame, who could give him, if he pleased, into the custody of the police as a thief.
There was, certainly, no middle course to steer, save waiting for a little while, to see what direction matters would take. He reflected that it would be wise not to be precipitate, but that it would be best to carefully consider whether there was a safe way to hit upon, which would conduct him out of his perplexing position. He began to fear he had been too hasty in securing the deed. The possession now seemed to be by no means so valuable to him, as it had done, when he locked it up carefully in his iron safe. The figure of Nathan Gomer kept dancing before his eyes, too, in the most disagreeable fashion—it was embarrassingly suggestive, and it disturbed him.
Mr. Grahame awaited his opinion upon the adoption of the desperate course with impatience, and at length said, hastily—
“Why are you silent? Does the intention to carry out your own suggestion startle and terrify you?”
“No,” he replied, “it is not that; but swearing point blank in a court of law that a signature to a deed was written by a man whose hand never went near it, and in the teeth of his oath to the contrary, ain’t altogether to be done without a good deal o’ consideration and arrangement.”