The Twickenham Peerage Part 19

That gentleman swung round with comical rapidity. 'My lord, I am here.'

'About--what you were asking me. I've--never been married. Curse a wife, I've always said.'

'Is that so, my lord?' Then, in an aside to us,' You are all witnesses.'

'My brother's to have everything. Why the devil--hasn't he come--to see me?'

'I have.'

Reggie moved forward. Foster whispered to him as he drew back.

'Keep him engaged in conversation if you can. I'll draw up a short form embodying what he's said. I'll get him to sign it if it's to be done.'

The lawyer retired to a table on which there were pens and ink. The man in the bed looked up at Reggie with unblinking eyes.

'You're not my--brother.'

'I am.'

'You don't--look--like my brother. He--was only a boy. Come--closer.

Lean--down. I can't--see you--that way off.'

Reggie leaned over the bed. The sick man put up his hand, from which I observed that the bank-notes had disappeared--though I had seen nothing of the sleight-of-hand which had spirited them away--and with his fingers softly stroked the young man's face. Reggie remained perfectly quiescent while he did it.

'You're--like--your mother. Thank G.o.d--you're not--your father's son.'

When he said this I was conscious of a catching in my breath. The thing was true. Though how he knew it--save on one presumption--was beyond me altogether. Reggie bore a striking resemblance to his mother, and none whatever to his father. The man in the bed droned on.

'Your--mother--was a good woman. Your--father--was a beast. Like me.

Are you--a beast?'

'I hope not.'

'Most men are. Poor devils!' There was a pause before he spoke again.

He still touched Reggie softly with his finger-tips, as if doing so brought him a curious sort of comfort. 'You're like your mother, Reggie?'

'Yes.'

'I wish--I wish----. You know what I wish.'

His hand dropped limply back upon the bed. He lay still, though his eyes continued open. Hanc.o.c.k turned to Foster.

'If you want him to do anything you had better try him now.'

After a moment's more spluttering with the pen, Foster came hurrying forward, with a sheet of paper, pen, ink, and blotting-pad.

'My lord, I have ventured to embody your wishes, as you have just expressed them, on this sheet of paper. I will read you what I have written: "I give and bequeath so much of my estate, real and personal, as I have the power of devising, to my brother, Reginald Sherrington, absolutely." It is informal, but will serve. Will your lords.h.i.+p be pleased to attach his signature?'

'What's that?'

'You understand what I have said?'

'Reggie to have all?'

'Precisely. You will secure the due and proper execution of your wishes by signing this paper.'

'I--hate wills.'

'I implore your lords.h.i.+p not to do your brother the crowning injustice of dying without doing something to protect his interests. He is already suffering much on your account. Sir Gregory, will you a.s.sist his lords.h.i.+p to sit up?'

Again Hanc.o.c.k shrugged his shoulders.

'It's a risk,' he whispered.

'We must take it.'

Hanc.o.c.k raised the sick man, using as much gentleness as was possible, and the lawyer placed before him the sheet of paper on the blotting-pad. He also insinuated a pen between the wasted fingers.

'What's this?'

'Your lords.h.i.+p understands what you are about to do? You are about to sign your will.'

'Everything to Reggie?'

'Exactly. You are leaving everything to Lord Reginald; as is set forth on this sheet of paper. Your lords.h.i.+p will please attach your signature here.'

The sick man dug the point of his pen into the paper at the place to which Foster had guided his hand. Then he stopped. He looked up, with on his face a very singular expression; as of wistfulness. We watched; wondering what it was he desired to say. There was evidently something. When it came it was not at all what any of us had supposed.

'I want--to see--a good woman. Isn't there--a good woman--in the world?'

I do not know what we had expected him to say. I, of course, cannot answer for all. But I am tolerably certain that neither of us had imagined him to be struggling to give expression to such a wish as that. We exchanged glances. Did it mean that his wits were wandering?

What immediately ensued seemed to suggest that his wits were, if anything, keener than ours.

CHAPTER IX

DEAD

I am inclined to think that I had not given Mr. Montagu Babbacombe credit for all the cleverness he possessed. I began, indeed, to suspect that to his cleverness--if it was only cleverness--there were no limits. While we stared and wondered, a waiter entered the room with a card on a salver, which he brought to me. It was Edith's card.

On it she had pencilled a line:

'I am here with Violet. Can't I see him? I should like to.'

'Let her come! Let her come!'

The instruction--it amounted to that--came from the man in the bed. It seemed that he had not only known that the women were in the house before I had had any intimation of their presence, and that the knowledge had prompted him to make his remark, but it also appeared that he knew what was written on that card. Was the fellow possessed of the occult powers of which we read in fairy-books? While the others eyed me askance, inquiring his meaning, I eyed him.