LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2365, 1 November 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. ("London Society.") (Continued.) ' I am sorry to say that we have no evidence at all. And his only relation is my client, who—wall, Mr Winter, she is a lady with a most remarkable sense of justice, and— * ' On what, then, do yon rely ?' ' On the chance that the claimant, when he comes to be cross-examined, might break down. We have retained Sergeant Markham—' ' Who knowß how to puzzle the devil himself about his own identity. True. I daresay he could puzzle even me about mine. But jurors, let me tell you, are not quite the puzzle-headed fools that it is tbe fashion to call them. They will most assuredly believe the chaplain, and the surgeons, and the good witnesses from Burgham. They will believe your client's silence, and yonr own inability to show who the man is, if he be not Horace Jones. And in this belief the Judge will direct them to jemain And Sergeant Markham is the last man at the Bar to make a fool of himself, as you, Mr Key, seem bent upon instructing him to do. If he does cross-examine the claimant, he will piaotically throw up his brief as soon as he aits down. Your olient has no case, Mr Key, absolutely none. Good night. Mr Key.' la my own mind I had foreseen what Mr Winter's advice would be ; and I even folt ccubclous that it was a case in which his want of courtesy had been exceedingly exousable. He, unlike us, was not a Burgham man, and had had no opportunity of falling in love with Miss Margaret Jones. He had taken the view of a man of sense ; and his view was final. We Bimply had not a leg, not even a toe, to stand on. Poor Miss

Margaret must lose every penny she had, her hushand mart work for his broad, and the Brambles must go to Mr and Mrs Horace .lonoa and thair gutter children after thorn ; to a drunken scamp and a Mulatto camp follower. I need not dwell upon what that would mean. < . , With a heavy heart next morning 1 called at Mr Winter's chambers in the Temple, and paid his clerk his e-.sily-earned foo for answering what he thought must havo thought ft foci's question, 'l'hen I looked up my friend who hud sent me tho repart; on the manners and customs of Mr Horace ,1 ones, and then took the train to Burgham. It la not a short journey, though I need not Bpecify the number of miles or hours ; and, for that matter, railways were neither so fast nor so dangerous as they are now. So it was late in the afternoon when I reached Burgham, and I went to the office before I went h->me, in order to put off for a few minutes telling my father ail tho bad news. 'I want to speak to you, Mr Thomas,* said the managing clerk, as eoon as I arrived. • Well, Merrit ? I hope it's nothing wrong ? ' ' No, sir, it can't be anything wrong. But it's queer. Every day you've been gone, I've shut np the office at the usual hour. Yon know, sir, we always lock all our own doors; so the housekeeper herself, if she wanted to, couldn't get in without asking for the key. And she never has asked me, and I've never parted with our keys for a single minute from the breeches • pocket where I keep them, and where I've got them now. Well, Mr Thomas, I was out late one evening, having tea at my sister's, and my way home lay past the office door. Naturally, I looked up, and there was a light shining through the window of your father's room as clear as I see you now.' « Well ? '

At first I thought It must be fire or thieves. So I rang up the housekeeper, and we looked into all the rooms, and there we found—' • What ? '

• Nothing, »ir. Everything was dark and quiet, just as If tbere'd been no liaht at all.' « Sour sister makes her tea strong, I suppose. That's all ?' ' It's all very well to have yonr joko, Mr Thomaa, and of course the steadiest of men may see wrong once in a way ; but that's not all. I was so sure I'd seen that light in that window, that I made a point of going to my sister's next night too, so tbat I might see if it happened again.' ' Well 7 Did ic happen again ? ' 1 Yes, Mr Thomas. It did happen again. And 1 woke up the housekeeper again. And we found nothing again. And when I went back into the street there wasn't the ghost of a light to be seen. 8o it couldn't have been the reflection of anything, you see ' ' And you found, in the morning, not a sign of anybody's having been in the room ? '

' Not the shadow of a sitm. And, sir, that isn't all. Every night I've passed by— I've made a point of it before turning in—and every time I've seen that light, except the last ona or two I oan't make it out at all. And the odd thlnga ia, there'* nothing wrong.' • Have you told my father ? ' ' No, sir. He's seemed so worried and nervous that I didn't like to trouble him. I thought best to wait until you came home.'

• Quite right. My father must not be worried any more just now. Well, Merrlt, I've been thinking some time you ought to have a holiday. Go to the sea for a week. We can manage that, now I'm back again.' The man worked hard, and it was aa likely as not that his brain might want resting. ' Has anybody seen th* light besides you?' ' I haven't asked, sir. I've been afraid, Mr Thomas—in fact—'

*ln fact, you suspect something you don't like to tell, What is it, please V ' Your father is unquestionably in a nervous condition, Mr Thomas. I've noticed that ever since you've been gone. And sometimes people in that state do very curious things. So I thought it best to wait till you were back again.' ' You mean that my father—lmpossible! My mother would know. Put that out of your head at once, Merrifc, if you please. All the same, you've done right to wait for me. Yes ; you ou ?ht to take a holiday, I'm ouio. .Any Low, there's nothing wrong, it seomß. Nothing bus a common ghost, I suppose ; I don't mind them. And bow has Mr Musty been getting on all this while, eh ? Not much uee to you, I suppose ?' * I'm altering my opinion of Mr Musty, Mr Thomas, lam indeed. He's been working like a pavlor. He's here before I am in the morning, and stays as long as I'll let him. I believe there's stuff in that young man, though its been long enough coming out, I must say.' ' I must see my father now. We'll talk to-morrow about your holiday.' My mother's account of my father was by no means a good one. He had been going backward instead of forward, and was, the doctors suspected, kept down by some mental trouble. He was morbidly anxious about letters, and altogether as different from his old easy-going self aa a man could be She did not wish me to see him that night; but he had heard my voice—he had gone to bed early—and sent for me When I had told him the news, he said sadly, ' For the first time in my life I see we're beat, my boy. Winter's right. We're only a couple of obstinate fools. Poor girl! Well, God will temper the wind. But it's bad to feel beat, very bad indeed.' * oa3 father been at all strati ge ?' I asked my mother. ' Only in the way you have seen,' said she. He Is not like himaelf ; hut that is all'

So unlike himself that I began anxiously to wonder whether there might not be something in Merrit'a suspicions, and that my father, in some mysterious way and without my mother's knowledge, Jmight not be paying some nightly visit tc the office, of which he had another set of keys. People with minds out of gear manage to do things sometime that healthy persons would find impossible. Chapter 111. After supper I strolled out with a cigar to settle in my own mind .'about what ought to be done, and how I should lot Miss Margaret know that she was henceforth without a penny in the world of her own, unless she chose to beg for charity from Mr and Mrs Horace Jones. My only comfort was that she would bear to hear the news a great deal better than I could bear to tell it to her. In our last interview she had shown me the sort of stnff of which she and Evelyn Viner were composed, and that made it all the worse to exchange such neighbours for Mr and Mrs Horace Jones. I loved my father dearly, and was terribly anxious about him; but the immediate trouble of the hour, on which the fortune of a whole town seemed to hang, was all-absorbing. And besides, it was the first serious matter in whioh I had ever been engaged ; and I could not help asking myself a hundred time a minute, if I had neglected any loophole of escape which greater knowledge and experience might have been able to find. Bat there was none, absolutely none. My Lord Chief Justice would have been as hopeless as I. Mr W inter had as good as told me I was a fool for clutching at what was not even so much as a straw.

Poets are not the only people who, when they are In a professional difficulty, stare up at the stars. I did. I was in the lane which led from, the High street, past our office door, into St. Michael's yard, when I looked up towards the Great Bear, and saw —a light in the window of my father's room.

My first impulse was to go home, and see if my father was safe in his room, iut on second thoughts I felt it better to wait a little, »nd then to eil'ect an entrance with more effect than Mr Merrit had done, if ntting the idea of thieves out of the question, the oooupant of the room must either be the housekeeper or my father. If the housekeeper, she certainly had no business there, and mnat be taken by surprise. If my father, he must be dealt with very carefully indeed. So I waited for five minutes, to see if the light was likely to vanieh of its own accord, and then, instead of ringing the housekeeper's bell, I bethought me of an old trick whicb, I am rorry to say, I had not unfrecmently put in practice when a younger man, in order to get in and out of the office when I wanted my temporary absence to be unknown. Without much, though with some, risk of feeling the hand of a passing constable on my shoulder, I climbed over the old coped wall that divided St. Mlchaei'a yard from our baok premises, then pulled myself on to another wall, and thence, very easily, to the

cover of a closed window. I did not make much noise, and there was enough wind about to cover any that I could not help making. Then I took out my pocket-knife, and, by a trick not unknown to sohoolboya and housebreakers, in which former practloe had made me expert In relation to this particular window, passed it between the upper and lower window frameß, pressed back the very inefficient fastening, and had the window open in less time than it has taken me to write the words- Then I took off my boots, dropped them quietly into the room, and followed them. I had no light; but I knew every inch of the ground. My door was locked, but Merrit had given me up the keys. I went out into the passage, In the dark and in my stockings, and listened at my father's door. I did not hear a sound.

I made up my mind that the best thing I could do was to open it quietly, enter in a matter-of-course way, and if, a<s impossibility itself could not keep mo from fearing, I found my father, make believe that there was nothing out of the way In the situation. I would simply ask him if he did not think it time to shut up the offico and come home. 80 I pulled back the outer door of green baize, and opened the inner, and at first, coming so suddenly out of the pitch darkness, was too dazzled by the candle light to underatand clearly what I saw. The candle had not gone out when I came in. It was not, thank God, my father, haunting his offico at midnight in a state of overstrung nerves. It was not the housekeeper, who ought to bo in bed and asleep, and was no doubt doing her duty. It was Richard Musty—Richard Mußty, Bitting at midnight at my father's table, in my father's chair, with a candle before him, and half his face buried In his hands. (To be continued.')