mr. benjamin halfpenny

When Barthorpe Herapath left his cousin, Mr. Tertius, and Selwood in company with the newly discovered will, and walked swiftly out of the house and away from Portman Square, he passed without seeing it a quiet, yet smartly appointed coupÉ brougham which came round the corner from Portman Street and pulled up at the door which Barthorpe had just quitted. From it at once descended an elderly gentleman, short, stout, and rosy, who bustled up the steps of the Herapath mansion and appeared to fume and fret until his summons was responded to. When the door was opened to him he bustled inside at the same rate, rapped out the inquiry, “Miss Wynne at home?—Miss Wynne at home?” several times without waiting for a reply, and never ceased in his advance to the door of the study, into which he precipitated himself panting and blowing, as if he had run hard all the way from his original starting-point. The three people standing on the hearthrug turned sharply and two of them uttered cries which betokened pleasure mixed with relief.

“Mr. Halfpenny!” exclaimed Peggie, almost joyfully. “How good of you to come!”

“We had only just spoken—were only just speaking of you,” remarked Mr. Tertius. “In fact—yes, Mr. Selwood and I were thinking of going round to your offices to see if you were in town.”

The short, stout, and rosy gentleman who, as soon as he had got well within the room, began to unswathe his neck from a voluminous white silk muffler, now completed his task and advancing upon Peggie solemnly kissed her on both cheeks, held her away from him, looked at her, kissed her again, and then patted her on the shoulder. This done, he shook hands solemnly with Mr. Tertius, bowed to Selwood, took off his spectacles and proceeded to polish them with a highly-coloured bandana handkerchief which he produced from the tail of his overcoat. This operation concluded, he restored the spectacles to his nose, sat down, placed his hands, palm downwards, on his plump knees and solemnly inspected everybody.

“My dear friends!” he said in a hushed, deep voice. “My dear, good friends! This dreadful, awful, most afflicting news! I heard it but three-quarters of an hour ago—at the office, to which I happened by mere chance, to have come up for the day. I immediately ordered out our brougham and drove here—to see if I could be of any use. You will command me, my dear friends, in anything that I can do. Not professionally, of course. No—in that respect you have Mr. Barthorpe Herapath. But—otherwise.”

Mr. Tertius looked at Peggie.

“I don’t know whether we shan’t be glad of Mr. Halfpenny’s professional services?” he said. “The truth is, Halfpenny, we were talking of seeing you professionally when you came in. That’s one truth—another is that a will has been found—our poor friend’s will, of course.”

“God bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Halfpenny. “A will—our poor friend’s will—has been found! But surely, Barthorpe, as nephew, and solicitor—eh?”

Again Mr. Tertius looked at Peggie.

“I suppose we’d better tell Mr. Halfpenny everything,” he remarked. “Of course, Halfpenny, you’ll understand that as soon as this dreadful affair was discovered and the first arrangements had been made, Barthorpe, as only male relative, began to search for a will. He resented any interference from me and was very rude to me, but when he came here and proposed to examine that safe, I told him at once that I knew of a will and where it was, though I didn’t know its terms. And I immediately directed him to it, and we found it and read it a few minutes ago with the result that Barthorpe at once quitted the house—you must have passed him in the square.”

“God bless us!” repeated Mr. Halfpenny. “I judge from that, then—but you had better show me this document.”

Mr. Tertius at once produced the will, and Mr. Halfpenny, rising from his chair, marched across the room to one of the windows where he solemnly half-chanted every word from start to finish. This performance over, he carefully and punctiliously folded the document into its original lines, replaced it in its envelope, and grasping this firmly in his hand, resumed his seat and motioned everybody to attention.

“My dear Tertius!” he said. “Oblige me by narrating, carefully, briefly, your recollection of the circumstances under which your signature to this highly important document was obtained and made.”

“Easily done,” responded Mr. Tertius. “One night, some months ago, when our poor friend was at work here with his secretary, a Mr. Frank Burchill, he called me into the room, just as Burchill was about to leave. He said: ‘I want you two to witness my signature to a paper.’ He——”

“A moment,” interrupted Mr. Halfpenny. “He said—‘a paper.’ Did he not say ‘my will’?”

“Not before the two of us. He merely said a paper. He produced the paper—that paper, which you now hold. He let us see that it was covered with writing, but we did not see what the writing was. He folded it over, laid it, so folded, on that desk, and signed his name. Then we both signed it in the blank spaces which he indicated: I first, then Burchill. He then put it into an envelope—that envelope—and fastened it up. As regards that part of the proceedings,” said Mr. Tertius, “that is all.”

“There was, then, another part?” suggested Mr. Halfpenny.

“Yes,” replied Mr. Tertius. “There was. Burchill then left—at once. I, too, was leaving the room when Jacob called me back. When we were alone, he said: ‘That was my will that you’ve just witnessed. Never mind what’s in it—I may alter it, or some of it, some day, but I don’t think I shall. Now look here, I’m going to seal this envelope, and I’ll show you where I put it when it’s sealed.’ He then sealed the envelope in two places, as you see, and afterwards, in my presence, placed it in a secret drawer, which I’ll show to you now. And that done, he said: ‘There, Tertius, you needn’t mention that to anybody, unless I happen to be taken off suddenly.’ And,” concluded Mr. Tertius, as he motioned Mr. Halfpenny to accompany him to the old bureau, “I never, of course, did mention it until half an hour ago.”

Mr. Halfpenny solemnly inspected the secret drawer, made no remark upon it, and reseated himself.

“Now,” he said, “this Mr. Frank Burchill—the other witness? He left our old friend?”

“Some little time ago,” replied Mr. Tertius.

“Still, we have his address on the will,” said Mr. Halfpenny. “I shall call on Mr. Burchill at once—as soon as I leave here. There is, of course, no doubt as to the validity of this will. You said just now that Barthorpe left you as soon as he had seen it. Now, what did Barthorpe say about it?”

“Nothing!” answered Mr. Tertius. “He went away without a word—rushed away, in fact.”

Mr. Halfpenny shook his head with profound solemnity.

“I am not in the least surprised to hear that,” he observed. “Barthorpe naturally received a great shock. What I am surprised at is—the terms of the will. Nothing whatever to Barthorpe—his only male relative—his only brother’s only son. Extraordinary! My dear,” he continued, turning to Peggie, “can you account for this? Do you know of anything, any difference between them, anything at all which would make your uncle leave his nephew out of his will?”

“Nothing!” answered Peggie. “And I’m very troubled about it. Does it really mean that I get everything, and Barthorpe nothing?”

“That is the precise state of affairs,” answered Mr. Halfpenny. “And it is all the more surprising when we bear in mind that you two are the only relations Jacob Herapath had, and that he was a rich man—a very rich man indeed. However, he doubtless had his reasons. And now, as I conclude you desire me to act for you, I shall take charge of this will and lock it up in my safe as soon as I return to the office. On my way, I shall call at Mr. Burchill’s address and just have a word with him. Tertius, you had better come with me. And—yes, there is another thing that I should like to have done. Mr. Selwood—are you engaged on any business?”

“No,” replied Selwood, who was secretly speculating on the meaning of the morning’s strange events. “I have nothing to attend to.”

“Then will you go to Mr. Barthorpe Herapath’s office—in Craven Street, I think?—and see him personally and tell him that Mr. Benjamin Halfpenny is in town, has been acquainted with these matters by Mr. Tertius and Miss Wynne, and would esteem it a favour if he would call upon him before five o’clock. Thank you, Mr. Selwood. Now, Tertius, you and I will attend to our business.”

Left alone, Peggie Wynne suddenly realized that the world had become a vastly different world to what it had seemed a few short hours before. This room, into which Jacob Herapath, bustling and busy, would never come again, was already a place of dread; nay, the whole house in which she had spent so many years of comfort and luxury suddenly assumed a strange atmosphere of distastefulness. It was true that her uncle had never spent much time in the house. An hour or two in the morning—yes, but by noon he had hurried off to some Committee at the House of Commons, and in session time she had never seen him again that day. But he had a trick of running in for a few minutes at intervals during the day; he would come for a cup of tea; sometimes he would contrive to dine at home; whether he was at home or not, his presence, always alert, masterful, active, seemed to be everywhere in the place. She could scarcely realize that she would never see him again. And as she stood looking at his vacant chair she made an effort to realize what it all really meant to her, and suddenly, for the first time in her life, she felt the meaning of the usually vague term—loneliness. In all practical essentials she was absolutely alone. So far as she knew she had no relations in the world but Barthorpe Herapath—and there was something—something shadowy and undefinable—about Barthorpe which she neither liked nor trusted. Moreover, she had caught a glimpse of Barthorpe’s face as he turned from looking at the will and hurried away, and what she had seen had given her a strange feeling of fear and discomfort. Barthorpe, she knew, was not the sort of man to be crossed or thwarted or balked of his will, and now——

“Supposing Barthorpe should begin to hate me because all the money is mine?” she thought. “Then—why, then I should have no one! No one of my own flesh and blood, anyway. Of course, there’s Mr. Tertius. But—I must see Barthorpe. I must tell him that I shall insist on sharing—if it’s all mine, I can do that. And yet—why didn’t Uncle Jacob divide it? Why did he leave Barthorpe—nothing?”

Still pondering sadly over these and kindred subjects Peggie went upstairs to a parlour of her own, a room in which she did as she liked and made into a den after her own taste. There, while the November afternoon deepened in shadow, she sat and thought still more deeply. And she was still plunged in thought when Kitteridge came softly into the room and presented a card. Peggie took it from the butler’s salver and glanced half carelessly at it. Then she looked at Kitteridge with some concern.

“Mr. Burchill?” she said. “Here?”

“No, miss,” answered Kitteridge. “Mr. Burchill desired me to present his most respectful sympathy, and to say that if he could be of any service to you or to the family, he begged that you would command him. His address is on this card, miss.”

“Very kind of him,” murmured Peggie, and laid the card aside on her writing-table. When Kitteridge had gone she picked it up and looked at it again. Burchill?—she had been thinking of him only a few minutes before the butler’s entrance; thinking a good deal. And her thoughts had been disquieted and unhappy. Burchill was the last man in the world that she wished to have anything to do with, and the fact that his name appeared on Jacob Herapath’s will had disturbed her more than she would have cared to admit.

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