THEN AND IN THAT CASE.
Even after the business with the Porte-Crayon was settled, however, Linnell did not go straight to his hotel. He had other work to do before he could finish the evening. He jumped into a hansom in hot haste, and drove round to his lawyer’s, whom he wished to see upon important business. He drove to the private address, of course, not to the office; but late as it was, the lawyer was out — at his club most likely, the servant thought; and Linnell, all on fire to conclude his business at the earliest possible moment, drove down to the club forthwith to intercept him. He found the man of law relaxing his mind at that abode of luxury in a hand at whist, and waited with impatience for his hasty interview till the rubber was over. Then he said hurriedly:
‘Mr. Burchell, I want you three minutes in the library. I won’t detain you longer than that. But —— This is a matter that won’t wait. I’m off to Khartoum to join Gordon to-morrow.’
‘And you want your will made!’ the solicitor suggested, with the rapid wisdom born of old experience.
‘Precisely, that’s it. You hit the right nail on the head at once. Can you draw it up for me here and now? I leave to-morrow morning by the 9.40.’
‘My dear sir,’ the lawyer remonstrated, ‘this is very precipitate. But you know your own business better than I do. If you wish it, certainly; a will’s a thing one can do off-hand. We’ll get two witnesses here on the spot. Watson’s here: you know Watson, I think: and your cousin Sir Austen’s dining with him to-night in the club. Shall I ask them to attest? But perhaps that won’t do; you may mean your cousin to benefit under the document.’
Linnell smiled.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said. ‘My bequests are few. Single, in fact. A very short paper. It won’t take you two minutes to draw it up. Testamentary disposition reduced to its simplest and most primitive elements. I leave everything absolutely to a solitary person. Sir Austen will do as well as anybody else if he cares to sign it.’
Mr. Burchell went off for a few seconds to detain two fit and proper witnesses from leaving the club (as it was getting late), and returned triumphant at the end of that time with news that the needful legal attestors might be found when wanted in the first smoking-room.
‘And now,’ he said, taking up a sheet of blank paper with a smile, ‘what’s to be the tenor of this most hasty document?’
‘As I said,’ Linnell answered, looking straight with empty eyes into the vacant fireplace: ‘I leave everything I die possessed of to Psyche, daughter of Haviland Dumaresq, of the Wren’s Nest, Petherton Episcopi.’
And he wrote the names down as he spoke, for better security, on the back of an envelope which he handed to the lawyer.
Mr. Burchell whistled audibly to himself; but he was too old and too practised a hand at his trade to dream of remonstrating or asking any questions. He merely suggested in the most matter-of-fact voice, ‘Shall I add, “whom it is my intention hereafter to marry”? The addition’s usual, and in case of any dispute as to probate of the will, it carries weight with judges and juries. Some reason for a bequest is ordinarily given, when large sums are bequeathed to strangers in blood. The law expects at least a show of explanation. Otherwise, one is apt to have questions raised as to undue influence, inquiries as to sound disposing state of mind at the time, or other doubts as to precise fitness for testamentary disposition at the date of executing. May I add the clause? It simplifies difficulties.’
‘No,’ Linnell answered sharply and promptly. ‘It is not my intention now or at any time to marry the lady. I leave it to her absolutely sans phrase. If you want a reason, say that I bequeath it her as a testimony to the profound respect I feel for the literary and philosophical ability of her distinguished father.’
The lawyer paused, with his pen in his hand.
‘It’s not my place, of course,’ he said in a very quiet voice, ‘to interfere in any way, however tentatively, with a client’s wishes or mode of disposal of his own property; but I think it only my duty to tell you at once that that will has a very small chance indeed of ever getting probate.’
‘Why?’ Linnell asked, half angrily.
‘Now, don’t be annoyed,’ the lawyer answered, balancing his pen judicially on his extended forefinger. ‘My object is not to thwart your wishes, but simply to ensure their being duly carried out. Bear with me while I explain to you in very brief terms wherein such a will is likely to defeat its own purpose. You’re going, you say, to-morrow to the Soudan?’
Linnell nodded.
‘Very well,’ the lawyer went on, with demonstrative penholder; ‘you go in a very great hurry. I don’t presume to say what may be the causes which have led you to leave England in such breathless haste; but we will suppose, for the purposes of argument alone, that they are causes not entirely unconnected with relations you may have entertained or thought of entertaining with this young lady. You come up here to-night, late in the evening, in a state of obvious and unmistakable nervous excitement, and you ask me to draw up a will for you in the library of a club, at an unseasonable hour, leaving away every penny you possess from your kinsmen in blood, whoever they may be, to a complete stranger, whose name and status you can only define to me by her relationship to a gentleman equally remote in law and fact from you. And then you propose as one of your witnesses to this very doubtful and unsatisfactory transaction the heir-at-law and next-of-kin, Sir Austen Linnell, whom you intend to ignore, and whose interest it is to set aside, if possible, the entire document. As your solicitor, I ask you plainly, isn’t this course of action open to objection? Mind, I don’t suggest such a point of view as my own at all; but won’t a hard-headed, common-sense English jury simply say: “The man came up to town disappointed, in a breathless hurry; ran off to the Soudan, foolishly, at a moment’s notice; got killed there, when he needn’t have gone at all if he didn’t like” — I’m discounting your decease, you observe, because no will, of course, takes effect under any circumstances during the lifetime of the testator— “left all he had to leave to a young girl he had probably only known for a couple of months; and cut off, without even the proverbial shilling, the whole of his own kith and kin, including a real live British baronet, whom any man of sense ought to have coddled and made much of as a distinguished relative?” I put it to you, wouldn’t the average respectable English juryman — pig-headed, no doubt, but eminently practical — say at once: “The man was not of sound disposing mind. He must have been mad to prefer a girl he wasn’t going to marry to his own most esteemed and respected relative”? Observe, I don’t for a moment suggest they would be at all right; but, as your legal adviser, I feel bound to tell you what view I think they’d take in such a contingency.’
‘We must risk it,’ Linnell answered, with enforced quietness. ‘I’m sure myself I was never of sounder disposing mind before — in fact, till now I never had any reason to think of disposing of anything. And as to Sir Austen, we can substitute somebody else for him at a pinch. Though I think him far too much of a gentleman to wish to dispute anybody’s will in his own favour.’
The lawyer’s brows contracted slightly.
‘In matters of business,’ he said with quiet decision, ‘it never does to trust too implicitly one’s own father. Treat all the world as if they were rogues alike, and the honest ones will never owe you a grudge for it. But let that pass. Now see one other point. No will, as I said just now, takes effect in any case during the testator’s lifetime. You’re going on a distant and dangerous errand. The chances are, you may never come back again. It’s our duty to face all possible contingencies beforehand, you see. In case you should meet with any accident over yonder in the Soudan — in case, for example, the whole Khartoum garrison should be blotted out to a man, as Hicks Pasha’s army was the other day — what legal proof of death can we have? and how would you wish me to support myself meanwhile towards this young lady? Am I to communicate with her immediately whenever I have any serious ground to apprehend that some misfortune may possibly have overtaken you; or am I to wait a reasonable length of time after Khartoum’s smashed, before unnecessarily harrowing her delicate feelings by letting her know that my suspicions are justified?’
‘I’m afraid her feelings won’t be particularly harrowed,’ Linnell answered with a gloomy look. ‘But wait, if you like, the reasonable time. It would be awkward if she were to come into the property for awhile, and — and I were afterwards to turn up unexpectedly like a revenant to reclaim it. Not, of course, that under such circumstances I should ever dream of reclaiming it at all.’ The lawyer’s eyebrows executed a rapid upward movement. ‘But still, it’s best to avoid all unnecessary complications. Let twelve months elapse before you communicate with her.’
Mr. Burchell made no audible answer; he simply arched his eyebrows still higher and went on drawing up the short form of will, writing the attestation clause, and taking instructions as to executors and other technical details. When all was finished, he handed the paper to Linnell to peruse.
‘Will that do?’ he asked quietly.
‘That’ll do perfectly,’ Linnell answered, glancing over it. ‘Will you kindly go down now, and get your witnesses?’
In two minutes more the lawyer returned.
‘This is very unfortunate,’ he said. ‘It’s getting late, and there’s nobody I know left in the club at all but Sir Austen and the other man. We can’t go and board an entire stranger with a polite request to come and see somebody he doesn’t know sign an important legal document. I’m afraid, undesirable as it certainly is, we shall have to fall back upon your cousin’s signature.’
‘Very well,’ Linnell replied with perfect trustfulness. ‘Sir Austen let it be. We’ve met once or twice on neutral ground before, and we shall meet often enough now at Khartoum. I don’t like him, but I trust him implicitly. In matters of that sort, one can always trust an English gentleman.’
‘Not when you’ve seen as much of probate as I have,’ the lawyer interposed with quiet emphasis. ‘Where probate’s concerned, a man should never trust his own mother. But if you must go to Africa to-morrow, and if this will must be signed to-night, we must get whoever we can to attest it. Ten minutes to twelve, and it’s dated to-day. No time to be lost. I’ll go down again and bring up your cousin.’
Two minutes later Sir Austen came up, coldly polite.
‘Good-evening, Mr. Linnell,’ he said with a chilly bow. ‘Under other circumstances, I might perhaps have declined to undertake this little service. But we needn’t conceal from ourselves at present the fact that my cousin Frank’s sudden death, of which you have now of course already heard, has altered to some extent our relations towards one another. It’s no longer necessary for his sake to adopt the attitude I once felt constrained to adopt towards you. I have to thank you, too, for your letter in reply to mine, and for what under the circumstances I must certainly call your very generous and friendly conduct — now unfortunately of no avail. You sign, do you? Thank you: thank you. Where do I put my name? There? Ah, thanks. — Here, Watson, you put your signature under mine. — That concludes the business, I suppose? Very well, then, Burchell, the thing’s finished: now you can release us. — I understand, Mr. Linnell, you leave England to-morrow.’
‘For the Soudan, yes. Viâ Brindisi.’
Sir Austen started.
‘Why, how odd!’ he said. ‘A strange coincidence! I go by the same train. To the Soudan! Incredible. You’re not going out to join Gordon, then, are you?’
‘I’m going as special artist for the Porte-Crayon,’ Linnell answered quietly. ‘I didn’t think of it till this afternoon; but I met a friend who told me of the post, and I made up my mind at an hour’s notice; so now I’m off by to-morrow’s Oriental express.’
They stopped there talking for half an hour or so, Sir Austen’s iciness thawing a little when he learned that his cousin was to be thrown in with him so much for an indefinite period: and then, as the small-hours were closing in, they drove off separately to their various resting-places, to snatch a few hours’ sleep before to-morrow’s journey. At the foot of the club stairs, Sir Austen detained the lawyer a moment after Linnell had hailed a loitering hansom.
‘I say, Burchell,’ he said, lighting a cigar in the vestibule, ‘what’s your opinion of Charles Linnell’s condition to-night? Didn’t seem quite in testamentary form, did he? Odd he should want to make a will in such a precious hurry just now, isn’t it?’
‘Not at all,’ the lawyer answered with prompt decision. ‘You’ve settled up all your own affairs, no doubt, before leaving the country for so dangerous an expedition.’
‘Ah, but that’s different, you know. I’m going with her Majesty’s approbation on active service. This painter fellow’s chosen to visit Khartoum of his own accord, and he’s chosen to start at a moment’s notice; and as far as I could see — just glancing at the body of the will hurriedly — he’s left everything he possesses to some play-actress or somebody. Psyche Dumaresq, that was the name. Theatrical, obviously. It won’t hold water. The man’s in a very excited state of mind, that’s clear. He laughs and talks in a dreary, weary way. Miss Psyche Dumaresq must have thrown him overboard. And now he wants to set out for Khartoum and get shot through the head, for no other reason than just to make that faithless lady sensible of her error with a thumping legacy. He was always as mad as a hatter, this Yankee painter fellow, and to-night he’s more excited and madder than ever. I tell you what it is, Burchell: the will won’t stand. The next-of-kin will inherit the estate. Miss Psyche Dumaresq may whistle for her money.’
Mr. Burchell only shook his head in quiet dissent.
‘As sane as you are,’ he answered with a nod; ‘but a great deal too good for this world of ours in many ways. He doesn’t want to wait for dead men’s shoes. He doesn’t want to get anybody’s money.’ And he murmured to himself, as he went down the club steps in the summer drizzle: ‘If only I knew where Linnell was stopping, I’d go round to him now, late as it is, and advise him to make another will on spec. at Cairo or Alexandria. Sir Austen’s far too sharp for my taste. But Linnell forgot to tell me where he put up, and I can’t go round to every hotel in all London at this time of night and knock them up on the bare chance of finding him.’