"I am afraid, sir," said Mr. Wilkinson--"I am afraid, sir, there has been very foul play! This Mr. Tims--who, between you and me, bears so bad a character in the profession, that it is a very general wonder how your noble relative continues to employ him--has, since your death--God bless me!--I mean, since your supposed decease--has, I say, presented the very note for ten thousand pounds (which you say you gave to the murdered man at Ryebury) as payment of the sum owed to your account by his client, your uncle; and yet, though this, and the vouchers which he must have found concerning the fifteen thousand pounds sent before, can not have failed to show him that the money tendered by Captain Delaware was advanced by you, yet he is, I understand, pursuing the business against that unfortunate young gentleman with greater virulence than ever. I heard only yesterday, that his name had been struck out of the Navy List."
"God forbid!" cried Beauchamp; "God forbid! But does the rascal keep both the twenty-five thousand pounds paid, and the ten thousand which my uncle should have transferred to my account?"
"Not only that," answered the lawyer, "but contending that, as the money had been stolen, it did not constitute a legal discharge of Lord Ashborough's claim upon Sir Sidney Delaware, he has plunged the whole business into Chancery--has, at the same time, started a point which can only be decided by a common law court; and as he has all the most obsolete and vexatious decisions at his fingers' ends, would undoubtedly have kept the business embroiled for years, had you not suddenly started up to prove that the payment was legal, and therefore the whole difficulty at an end."
"And if I had not started up," said Burrel, "and William Delaware had been taken, I suppose one of the most gallant officers in his Majesty's service, and one of the most generous-spirited gentlemen in England, would have been hanged for a crime he never committed."
"Why, I am sorry to say, that it is very probable he might have been so dealt with," answered Mr. Wilkinson.
"Then, immortal honor to Robert Peel!" said Beauchamp, "for having begun a reformation in laws, which, though far superior to those of any other nation in the world, are yet so imperfect as to risk such a loud-tongued iniquity; and may he have life and power granted to him to correct all their evils without diminishing their efficiency. But you speak, my dear sir, of my starting up. Now, do you know, I have a great mind not to start up for some time yet, and to give this rogue, Tims, time enough to show himself in his true colors. As I am dead, and the mourning bought, and all those whose hearts would break upon my account are broken-hearted already, I do not see why I should announce my resuscitation in the newspapers till I have obtained not only the proofs--which, indeed, I can furnish myself--of William Delaware's complete innocence, but the proofs also of the guilt of those who really did commit the murder; and which, with a little of your good advice, I doubt not easily to acquire. In the mean time, if I am not mistaken, good Mr. Tims, counting upon my death, will plunge deeper and deeper into the quagmire of deceit and villainy through which he is now struggling, and we shall have an opportunity of at once exposing him, and opening my uncle's eyes to his knavery."
Mr. Wilkinson shook his head with a dry "hum!" at the last sentence which Beauchamp spoke; but the other part of his young client's proposal he approved very much, saying, "Certainly, certainly! The plan is a good one; and we must never show our adversary our cards, as Mr. Pleydel is made to observe, by the only great romance-writer that the world has produced since Cervantes, and Le Sage, and Fielding. But you forget, Mr. Beauchamp, that I do not fully know what information you possess. Your lawyer must be your confessor, my dear sir, if you would have his advice of any avail."
Beauchamp in reply recounted all that had happened to him since he left Emberton on the morning before the murder--the fact of his servant Harding overtaking him at Dr. Wilton's rectory--his own return to Ryebury--his first and second visit to the miser--his compulsory voyage with the murderers--and his stay at the house of the smuggler--all, in short, that had occurred, with the exception of a brief interview in the corridor of the inn at ----, which he thought proper to leave untold.
Mr. Wilkinson rubbed his hands at each pause, and in the end declared that nothing was more plain than the facts, and nothing would be more easy than the proof. "The man Harding," he said, "whom you think you recognized in the boat with this Walter Harrison, has never returned to your house in London; and therefore we may conclude from the fact of the powder-flask, and from your recognition, that he it really was who committed the murder, with the other two, and the maid-servant, as accessories. Information must be obtained from this man Small, in regard to the port at which his cutter landed them in France; and once having gained that, we have nothing to do but to set a Bow Street officer on the track, and he will follow it like a bloodhound. I entertain as strange doubts in regard to this Mr. Peter Tims as you do; and believe, from some memoranda on the back of your note of hand, that he knows fully, at this moment, that Captain Delaware never had any thing to do with the murder of his uncle. Such a man well deserves to be punished; and if you like to lie _incog_. for a week or so, we will watch his proceedings; but you must not take it ill, my dear sir, if I say, that we must be careful not to implicate any one whom we might not like to inculpate."
Beauchamp's cheek flushed a good deal, but he replied calmly, "I understand you, Mr. Wilkinson; but I am sure there is no fear of that. However, my own intention is to go at once to France--I shall certainly endeavor to see my sister first; for if any one on earth grieves for me indeed, it is poor Maria. But, as I said, I shall certainly go to France, and may help in tracing these villains myself."