"THE WEB."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8549, 5 October 1907, Page 2

"THE WEB."

[All Eights Reserved.]

CHAPTER lll.—Continued. "I didn't notice you leave the court. I was busy talking to the lawyer, but it's a good job I followed you up because I must be getting back homo, ana it's time we got to some sensible understanding about this business."_ With rather shamefaced recognition, Jack turned to a well-preserved man past middle age with a square jaw and an honest, open face who gazed upon him with a look in which there was a certain measure of commiseration not unmixed with contempt. "Mr Walford said he would wait in his chambers for me so we had better take a cab there at once," the old gentleman added. "Is this a friend of yours?" There was little concealment about the contempt with which the elderly gentleman jerked his thumb at the roan with the scar who had paused on the oavement. Jack hastened to assure him that he had no knowledge of the person. "Well, he's been keeping pretty close to you ever since I've been on your track. Now then, you're younger than I am, just open those cab doors." The two drove off in a hansom, leaving the man with the scar on the kerb.' "A nice sort of bungler you are, said a swarthy young man, stepping briskly up to him. "I suppose you hadn't even the brains to listen to the address given to the cabdriver." The older man turned indignantly to his companion. "How dare you address me in that manner? You will go on now to Lincoln's Inn and leave your place till I relieve you at your peril." The newcomer was about to make a headed rejoinder, when catching the observant eye of a member of the City Police Force he shrugged his shoulders and jumped on a passing 'bus.

CHAPTER IV. VValford, Walford and Rawlins were so serenely respectable a firm that you felt the atmosphere of respectability stealing over you the moment you addressed the prosperous looking porter who attended to the door and carried the messages. An office-boy was too giddy an institution for Walford, Walford and Rawlins. The chief clerk, when he engaged his juniors, made it a rule that no person under thirty need apply- . J The aforementioned porter gazed approvingly on Mr Jacob Hinehcliffe, and with an eye of disapproval on Mr Jack Strangways. He did not know the young man, but he did know that when they had young men as clients his respected employers were pestered with the necessity of severely lecturing them, and that he himself was occasionally the bearer of documents and letters to houses in the West were the modern manservants were sadly lacking in a knowledge of the respect due to the messenger of a highly respectable firm- of family solicitors.

Jack's experience of Mr Walford was mainly associated with severely formal letters addressed to him at the University informing him that the firm had been commissioned by his father 10 "deal with", certain bills which had been forwarded for settlement and that they therewith enclosed a list of the same which had been dealt with accordingly. That word "accordingly" always seemed to him to convey a severely judicial warning. He saw in it a plain intimation Uiat but for their instructions the firm would have been inclined to "deal with" him and his debts in a very different spirit. It was with a feeling of reverence not unmixed with awe that he faced the prim gentleman who cordially shook Mr Jacob Hinchcliffe by the hand, and after a formal greeting with the tips of the fingers to himself waved them both into a couple of leather-seated chairs placed to the exactness of an inch at such an angle as to enable the three men to see each other and to talk together without any one of them having to turn his head from the second or the third of the group. "It is quite possible, Mr Strangways," the solicitor began, "you may deem it somewhat strange that your affairs during a recent crisis should have been regarded as no part of the business of this firm. As you are doubtless aware, we have had the honour of enjoying your late father's confidence for many years, and under ordinary circumstances it would have been our duty to place our advice and assistance at your disposal. Except in very rare instances, we have little or no association with —er— and in your own interest it was therefore desirable that you should seek assistance from other quarters. The paintul circumstances rendered it impossible for us to condiu ; ; the case, and after carefully consuk. : ng our duty we advised Messrs Penh...l and Holmes to act for you. As you possibly know they have a wide practice in this class of work, and they briefc 1 counsel who l}as an equally distinguished career at the criminal bar. We have prepared a statement of your late father's affairs, and should you desire this to be explained by your own solicitors it may be advisable to appoint a meeting with them. The solicitor's manner was perfectly polite, frigidly polite. Jack thoroughly understood the situation. Mr Walford had the same opinion cf him as the rest of the world, and was inclined to wash his hands of him. His father's immense estate naturally provided a lucrative part of a lucrative practice, and it must be a wrench to give it up.

By PAUL URQUHART.

[Published By Special Arrangement.]

He must indeed be an Ishmacl. "Do I understand that you decline to have anything more to do with the estate?" he asked quietly. Mr Hinchcliffe looked appealingly at the lawyer, and Mr Walford looked at the ceiling for a few minutes.

"I don't say wc bhould decline to act," he said slowly, "but should you decide to take your business elsewhere it would be a natter entirely for your own discretion in which we should be sorry to interfere." "Then I will put it plainer. _ Will you wind up my father's affairs for me and tell me exactly how things stand?"

The lawyer reached for a bundle of papers neatly tied with ~ed tape, and spread them out on his blotting-pad. "You are your father's only child and his estate therefore devolves j upon you in the absence of any will ] to the contrary. No wiil was executed by him." The solicitor paused, and held a document between his thumb and forefinger. "It may or may not, be interesting to you," he said, "to kno.v that among his papers there is sorripthing in the nature of a rough draft. It appears that a few years ago he asked his dear friend, and, if I may , say so, my friend, Mr Jacob Hinchcliffe, whether he would under take for him a trust which he was careful to say might involve some little personal difficulty not unattended with risk, The nature of this trust unfortunately he did not disclose, though Mr Hinchcliffe, while advising him to seek out some younger head, did not decline to undertake the responsibility." "He said I should find out all about it when he was dead, and that is one reason, but not the only reason, why I hurried up to London and have waited about here more or less ever since that terrible affair," broke in Mr Hinchcliffe, with a husky catch in his voice.

"And have you no idea at all what this trust is?"

"An idea, certainly, but ,an extremely hazy idea, and one which I fear will be'of little use to anybody. You will notice that this document purports to be a will. It was commenced by your father in his own hand-writing and it puts a charge upon his estate of £I,OOO per annum for the benefit of—" "Of whom?"

"That is the initial difficulty, though that again is swept aside by the mere fact that the will was never finished and never executed. There appears to have been some considerable doubt and hesitation in your father's mind as to the possibility of making it larger, and it appears to me that he was waiting for fuither information as to a certain party whose whereabouts was possibly at the moment unknown to him." Jack took the document impatiently from the solicitor's hand and scanned it hastily. It was written in his father's handwriting sure enough. There were many scatchingd-out and alterations, a few legacies to old servants, some to Charities, and then came this remarkable paragraph : "And I direct that the sum of £I,OOO per annum be secured to Alice "

There the document ceased. Strangways read over these mysterious words again and again. Who was Alice? Why had his father left her this money? He looked up at his solicitor.

"We must find out something more about Alice, and of course you will take steps at once to see that the legacies mentioned- are given to the proper parties." "It is my duty again to point out to you," said the solicitor, "that the will has not been executed. Beyond the fact that it is in your father's handwriting there is no 'proof that it was ever drawn up by him." "The fact that it was his wish is good enough for me," said Jack calmly, as he handed back the document. Mr Jacob Hinchcliffa had been watching the young man intently all this time and with a sudden movement he stood beside him. "Thou'rt a real decent lad," he said, dropping into the vernacular of his country. "I knew there must be good in thee somewhere." These simple words were more than the verdict of the jury, more ihan the sense of freedom. They sent a thrill ot gratitude through the very soul of the Yorkshire lad.

Even Mr Walford's tone from this point assumed a sort of friendship "without prejudice," and when shortly afterwards the three men separated, he extended his whole hand instead of the tips of his fingers. (To be Continued).