Quincunx

  “It certainly is,” Sir David agrees. “With old Clothier dead and reports in the papers that the boy was murdered by him, and then the Maliphant claimant having come forward, things were looking deuced bad.”

  “So I take it that if the boy can be persuaded to come before the Court, the situation will be as before,” Lady Mompesson says. “We will be safe as long as he remains alive.”

  “It is not quite as simple as that, Lady Mompesson,” Harry says. “There is the complication of the will.”

  She looks horrified and turns to her son who stammers: “You see, Mamma, I asked Harry’s advice about the trust we were going to create when we wanted Henrietta to marry Tom. After all, he’s an Equity man.”

  She scrutinises her son’s friend who stares confidently back at her: “Perhaps he shouldn’t have told me, but I’m bound by confidentiality in the matter, I can assure you, Lady Mompesson.”

  “Then since you know so much,” Lady Mompesson says, “you probably know that we assume that the will was destroyed, for we believe that Assinder’s accomplice — improbable though it seems — was a knife-boy employed in this house. He was by all accounts almost an ideot. However, he must have conveyed the document out of here after Assinder’s misadventure, though he could have had no idea of its value. We assume that he subsequently lost or destroyed it.”

  “You are right in thinking that the knife-boy made away with the will. But he was no ideot and I promise you that he had a very precise sense of its value. He had entered your house for the sole purpose of stealing it. In short, he was the Huffam heir.”

  “This is absurd!” Sir David cries, but his mother puts her hand on his arm.

  “Continue with your story,” she commands.

  “He told me that he managed to become a servant in this house and spent several months here before he succeeded in making away with the will. (Assinder was not in colleague with him but was working on his own account.) When he left here he was somehow caught by his grandfather’s agents and delivered to his death though, contrary to what was reported in the newspapers, he managed to escape.”

  “And what happened to the will?” Lady Mompesson asks impatiently.

  “It passed from his possession into the hands of someone whom I cannot name. In short, it still exists.”

  “Who has it?” Sir David cries.

  “I said I cannot name the party and that is the literal truth. I have been contacted by this person and instructed to negotiate with you for the sale of the will on his behalf.”

  Sir David and his mother look at each other.

  Harry watches them narrowly and says: “You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by obtaining it. Once you have it back you need not worry about the Huffam heir dying. Marry Miss Palphramond to Tom and if the boy dies without an heir, produce the will and you are safe.”

  “How can we know that this extraordinary tale is the truth?” Lady Mompesson asks.

  “You may have the document certified before you buy it,” Harry replies stiffly. “If it is false then you have lost nothing.”

  Lady Mompesson and her son confer in whispers and then she announces: “We can offer you a thousand pounds, but not a penny more.”

  “I fear that is not enough,” Harry says sadly. “Not nearly enough.”

  “But we are close to a smash,” the young baronet protests. “The Court’s Receiver is collecting our rents. My credit is exhausted and I have to sign the marriage-treaty before it’s known how close to I am to going entirely to pieces, or Miss Sugarman’s friends will break it off.”

  “I will beg my principal to hold back for a few days,” Harry says. “But my fear is that if you do not purchase it, he will sell it to the Maliphant heir.”

  “Then the boy must be induced to put himself under the protection of the Court,” Lady Mompesson says.

  “He is too frightened,” Harry answers. “And I fear he has good reason to be.”

  “What do you mean?” Lady Mompesson asks.

  Harry shrugs his shoulders: “He is an obstacle to the Maliphant claimant. That is all I meant.”

  The other two look at each other in dismay. Then Sir David reaches for the bell-pull and tugs it impatiently.

  CHAPTER 114

  The guests are now collecting in groups to discuss the strange behaviour of their hosts and there are subdued whispers of “Bailiffs” and well-bred giggles hidden behind hands. Miss Sugarman is seated beside her mother in the supper-room. Sir Thomas Delamater comes up to her and engages her in conversation. She continues to frown however and at last he moves away.

  Meanwhile in the street outside the house a tall figure in black steps hastily out of a hackney-cabriolet, enters the house, and quickly mounts the stairs behind a footman who leads him to the door of the Chinese Room.

  Another hour passes. The guests are in confusion now. The carriages have not been ordered to take up until about four o’clock. Tom crosses to Miss Sugarman rather unsteadily, followed by Mr Vamplew who appears to be remonstrating with him. Tom pushes him away and says something to his brother’s intended bride. A moment later, Sir Thomas hurries over and pulls him away. Mr Vamplew takes charge of him and leads him out of the room. Miss Sugarman, however, says something angrily to her mother who signals to one of the footmen. Sir Thomas seems to be pleading with her. I haven’t been able to establish what passed between them, but I assume he was begging her to stay and she was pointing out that Sir David had ignored her for three hours.

  Miss Sugarman and her party leave. Shortly afterwards a footman assists Mr Vamplew to escort his charge to the Chinese Room where his mother and brother, together with Mr Barbellion, are waiting for him. The tutor waits outside with the servant, and ten minutes later, they are summoned to help the young gentleman to his bed.

  Now that the exodus has begun, other of the guests begin to send for their carriages and by three o’clock most of them have gone. By four, the ices have melted, the bees’-wax candles burnt out, and the hired servants are clearing up the food and beverages that are left over.

  Then at five in the morning a footman is sent to the coach-house with orders that Mr Phumphred be woken up and told to get the horses ready to travel a considerable distance.

  By six o’clock the house is hushed and in darkness.

  Now as I approach the end of my task, I unloose the jesses from my Imagination so that it takes flight, haughty and daring, and soars at last in search of prey.

  In the glittering state-rooms that only hours ago were thronged with the pampered denizens of the beau monde, the vast looking-glasses between the lofty windows, which so recently reflected all the staring vacancy of Fashion, now reflect only each other. On the marbled beaufets lie heaps of sweet-meats and delicacies rejected by fastidious Appetite, whose cost would feed whole streets of the poor — nay, entire villages in Erin, our sad sister-island. In the cramped attic-rooms and damp cellars the exhausted servants sprawl on their mean beds in all the prostration of honest Toil; while amidst soft linen sheets slumber newly-inheriting Wealth and greedy Arrogance. May honest dreams delight the former and ill nightmares haunt the latter!

  CHAPTER 115

  Oh Happiness! I have done at last with the cankered parasites of Old Corruption for whom the day of judgement will surely come. And now that my contribution is drawing to a close, let me cast aside the constraints that have hemmed me in and boldly assert the obligation upon us all to judge — and more than judge: to condemn — a society in which honest Merit is held back, Talent is passed over, and Insolence and Rank arrogantly usurp the prerogatives of all. Let the Cynic ask by what right we condemn it: we condemn it at the bar of the Court of Conscience that is seated within the breast of each of us! And which is the model of Justice upon which our (sometimes fallible) Courts of Equity are based.

  Only from Judgement comes Pattern and therefore Understanding. I am proud to have played my part in the process by which you have come to see unfold in your own life — and thereby to u
nderstand — the great Design of Reason and Justice.

  Neither must one spare oneself from judgement, and that requires an act of confession. Your part in our undertaking has been such a confession, for you have not concealed your motives even when they might have exposed you to reproach. I reverence you for that. I too have known the release that confession brings; in my case to a friend who might have believed I had betrayed him from mere self-interest. For (as you have so often heard me say) we have to understand motives or otherwise we will condemn too rashly. Even what appears to be a dishonourable action, if properly understood, may be revealed to be wholly just. For example, a lawyer may be suspected of an act of betrayal of his client, a woman of her husband’s honour, or a political Radical of his fellow-conspirators. But in each case the accused and vilified individual might have been motivated by the Higher Duty we all owe to Justice.

  So judge, my friend, but only when all motives are known. And judge your own motives as only you are able. Then if you are sure your motives are pure, you may entrust yourself with Wealth and Power. Think of the good you could do! the Injustices you could right! the Talent and Merit you could bring forward! As you know, I despise Wealth and Power, and so when I urge you to seek them you know how to interpret my motives.

  I therefore urge upon you, in conclusion, the Universal Duty to seek Justice and so gain the means to exercise Philanthropy.

  BOOK IV

  Weddings and Widows

  CHAPTER 116

  Philanthropy? Fiddlesticks!

  However, I must restrain myself for my contribution to our common task is not yet completed.

  I believe it happened more or less like this:

  As the wind is rising a figure strides up Aylesbury-street in Clerkenwell. He stops at a small house and rings the door-bell. The maid-servant who opens the door stares at him in surprise, listens to what he says, then puts the door on the chain and leaves it ajar while she disappears into the house.

  A minute later Mr Sancious himself opens the door, pale and trembling, and hisses: “I told you never to come here!”

  “This couldn’t wait.”

  “You’d better come in,” the attorney says, looking anxiously up and down the street.

  The man enters and is shewn into the parlour where he finds a lady: “Good evening, mum,” he says. Then he grins at the attorney.

  Mr Sancious ignores this and demands: “Well, what have you to tell me?”

  “Sally wasn’t wrong. He didn’t die that time like it said in the papers. She seen him all right.”

  The other two stare at each other in dismay and then the little attorney whispers: “Go on. Have you found him?”

  “Yes. Jist like I reckoned, Joey led me right to him.”

  “And?” enquires Mr Sancious.

  “I was jist doing what I’d ’greed when he told me something that brung me up short. It was something I thought you’d want to know. So I gived over and come straight to you.”

  “You mean you let him go?” the lady demands.

  Mr Sancious waves her down with one hand without looking at her: “What did he tell you?”

  “He said as how the will still exists.”

  His auditors are thrown into consternation by this intelligence.

  “Still exists? How can that be?” the attorney cries, turning to his companion.

  “The old man destroyed it. Vulliamy himself told me so.”

  “The boy was lying to save himself,” the lady rejoins. “It would be just like his audacity.”

  “No, I believe he was telling the truth,” Mr Sancious says. He suddenly turns to Barney and cries: “Then did he have it?”

  “No. I searched him.”

  “Then where can it be?” Mr Sancious exclaims. “Who has it?”

  “You did right not to … That is to say, you were right to let him go,” the lady says to Barney. “But find him again. He must lead us to the will. And when he has done that, then do what you have been paid for.”

  Mr Sancious opens the door as a hint to his guest. With a little bow, Barney leaves the room and the attorney follows him towards the street-door and lets him out.

  When he comes back a moment later, he and the lady stare at each other for a minute. Then he says: “What if the boy doesn’t lead him to the will?”

  The lady answers coolly: “Set your mind at rest. I believe I have an idea about that.”

  CHAPTER 117

  I had little sleep that night for the pain of my wound, and all the next day I stayed in my room thinking over the previous day’s events. I had been betrayed by two of the few people I had come to trust. Though Henry’s treachery had hurt me, Joey’s had wounded me much more grievously for it had re-awakened my own feelings of guilt towards him and his mother over what had happened to Mr Digweed. I had imagined that Joey bore me no grudge for that, and I had clearly been very wrong. Did his mother, then, also nurse a desire for vengeance? I hated even to speculate upon so uncomfortable an idea.

  Towards five in the afternoon I was sitting and gloomily revolving these thoughts when there came a knock at the street-door. I heard the voice of Mrs Quaintance and footsteps on the stair and then someone tapped at the door.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  To my amazement Joey’s voice said: “It’s me.”

  “Is he alone, Mrs Quaintance?” I called out.

  “He is, sir,” she answered in surprise.

  I unlocked the door, Joey entered and I quickly locked it again. He was smiling broadly though with a quizzical expression as if at my odd conduct, but as soon as he saw my bandaged forehead and pale face in the light of the candle he cried out: “Why, whatever has happened to you?”

  His surprise and his concern were so manifestly sincere that I am not ashamed to say that I seized him and began to weep. Why I wept I did not know then and hardly know now, but I believe it was not merely relief at having found him a true friend after all but remorse for having ever doubted him. (And, remember, I was weakened by my injuries.) Joey patted my shoulder and muttered something as unintelligible as my own words.

  “Forgive me, Joey,” I said. “I doubted you. I thought you had deserted me when you didn’t come, and then that you had ’peached on me to Barney.”

  He was moved too. I had never seen him look as he did now: all the suspiciousness and the reserve had gone for once.

  He led me to the sopha and sat me down. “And why shouldn’t you think that,” he said, “when I’ve done it twice a-fore?”

  “No, no, I had no right. You’ve taken such risks on my behalf and given up so much.” I paused and tried to say: “Your father, Joey. I want to tell you how I … how …”

  “Never mind saying it,” he said gently. “I know what you mean, Master John.”

  When we were both more collected I told him about the attack by his uncle. He must have learned (I now understood and explained to Joey) that I was still alive from Sally, who had seen me one night in the West-end a few weeks ago.

  Then Joey said: “I’ll tell you where I’ve been since yesternight and why I nivver come. I was on my way here when I noticed someone dodging me. Well, I went roundabout and roundabout and thought I’d been one too many for ’em, though now I reckon it was Barney and he must have stuck close to me arter all. So that’s how he found you, I’m ’shamed to say.”

  When I had protested that I blamed him not at all, he went on: “So about six o’clock I was just outside here when I seen someone leave. Do you know who it was?”

  “Yes, I had a visiter and he left about then. I must tell you about it. It was Henry Bellringer, whom I have told you of. Have you never seen him?”

  “I didn’t think so, but when I seen him last night I knowed him all right.”

  “What can you mean?”

  “Why, do you rec’lleck that time I come to your grand-dad’s crib at Charing-cross? You was inside and my old feller was waiting outside?”

  I nodded. Someone knocking at the door had in
terrupted old Mr Escreet’s story and I had left the house by the rear and found Joey waiting with his father.

  “Well,” Joey went on, “that was the cove I seen coming to the door then.”

  “By Heavens!” I cried. “Of course! That was what his knock reminded me of!”

  This was astonishing news for I could not begin to understand what business he could have with Mr Escreet. Here was another extraordinary connexion that I could make nothing of.

  Now, casting reserve aside, I told Joey what Bellringer had come to tell me: the will — the document for which his father had lost his life — had not been destroyed after all.

  “But that’s not what I meant to tell you,” Joey said when we had briefly discussed the implications of this. “I remembered that you had wanted to know who this cove was, so I decided to dodge him. And can you guess where he went? To the Mumpseys’ crib in Brook-street!”

  This was stranger and stranger!

  “It was all lit up for they was having a big party. And in he went, straight past the door-keepers as if he was knowed there.”

  “What!” I exclaimed. “That’s extraordinary!”

  Not merely was Henry connected with Mr Escreet but with the Mompessons too!

  Now I told Joey about the conversation I had heard between Henry and Mr Pamplin in which they had referred to “Sir Thomas” and how I had discovered from Miss Quilliam (because of the connexion through Mr Pamplin) that this was Sir Thomas Delamater who was a friend of David Mompesson. I had taken these links for random coincidences, but suddenly they began to come clear to me. David Mompesson’s friendship with Sir Thomas linked him with Mr Pamplin (who held a living in the gift of Sir Thomas) and with Miss Quilliam (whose father should have been given that very living). Sir Thomas had found Miss Quilliam her post with the Mompesson family, so all of that was straightforward enough. But how did Henry come to know David? Through Mr Pamplin? Suddenly it came to me that it was the other way around: Henry was a friend of David Mompesson’s and through him had become acquainted with the clergyman and Sir Thomas, for Henry was none other than the “Harry” mentioned by Miss Quilliam in her story of the evening that led to her dismissal! I had half-known this for a long time, but now it all fell into place. The way she had described him in age, appearance, and manner of speech all matched the man I knew. Then how did Henry come to know David and how was he connected with the Mompessons? I could make no headway with that, but at that moment another realization came to me: He was the spy of the Mompessons in Chancery whom Lydia warned me about! So I had taken the will straight to the worst person in the world!