The Cold Blooded Vengeance: 10 Mystery & Revenge Thrillers in One Volume. E. Phillips OppenheimЧитать онлайн книгу.
he said abruptly. “If I go through fire and water to get it, I’ll have it! I’ll keep on Morris’s flat. I’ll go to his tailor! I’ll—you’re laughing at me. But I mean it! I’ve had enough of grubbing along on nothing a week, and living in the gutters. I want a bit of Morris’s luck.”
Wrayson put his head out of the cab. The young man’s face was not pleasant to look at.
“We are there,” he said. “Come along.”
XV. THE LAWYER’S SUGGESTION
The offices of Mr. Bentham were situated at the extreme end of a dingy, depressing looking street which ran from the Adelphi to the Embankment Gardens. It was a street of private hotels which no one had ever heard of, and where apparently no one ever stayed. A few cranky institutions, existing under the excuse of charity, had their offices there, and a firm of publishers, whose glory was of the past, still dragged out their uncomfortable and profitless existence in a building whose dusty windows and smoke-stained walls sufficiently proclaimed their fast approaching extinction. They found the name of Mr. Bentham upon a rusty brass plate outside the last building in the street, with the additional intimation that his offices were upon the first floor. There they found him, without clerks, without even an errand boy, in a large bare apartment overlooking the embankment. The room was darkened by the branches of one of a row of elm trees, and the windows themselves were curtainless. There was no carpet upon the floor, no paper upon the walls, no rows of tin boxes, none of the usual surroundings of a lawyer’s office. The solicitor, who had bidden them enter, did not at first offer them any salutation. He paused in a letter which he was writing and his eyes rested for a moment upon Wrayson, and for a second or two longer upon his companion.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Bentham!” Wrayson said. “My name is Wrayson—you remember me, I daresay.”
“I remember you certainly, Mr. Wrayson,” the lawyer answered. His eyes were resting once more upon Sydney Barnes.
“This,” Wrayson explained, “is Mr. Sydney Barnes, a brother of the Mr. Morris Barnes, who was, I believe, a client of yours.”
“Scarcely,” the lawyer murmured, “a client of mine, although I must confess that I was anxious to secure him as one. Possibly if he had lived a few more hours, the epithet would have been in order.”
Wrayson nodded.
“From a letter which we found in Mr. Barnes’ desk,” he remarked, “we concluded that some business was pending between you. Hence our visit.”
Mr. Bentham betrayed no sign of interest or curiosity of any sort.
“I regret,” he said, “that I cannot offer you chairs. I am not accustomed to receive my clients here. If you care to be seated upon that form, pray do so.”
Wrayson glanced at the form and declined. Sydney Barnes seemed scarcely to have heard the invitation. His eyes were glued upon the lawyer’s face.
“Will you tell me precisely,” Mr. Bentham said, “in what way I can be of service to you?”
“I want to know where my brother’s money is,” Barnes declared, stepping a little forward. “Two thousand a year he had. We’ve seen it in his bank-book. Five hundred pounds every quarter day! And we can’t find a copper! You were his lawyer, or were going to be. You must have known something about his position.”
Mr. Bentham looked straight ahead with still, impassive face. No trace of the excitement in Sydney Barnes’ face was reflected in his features.
“Two thousand a year,” he repeated calmly. “It was really as much as that, was it? Your brother had, I believe, once mentioned the amount to me. I had no idea, though, that it was quite so large.”
“I am his heir,” the young man declared feverishly. “I’ll take my oath there’s no one else. I’m going to take out letters of administration. He hadn’t another relation on God’s earth.”
Mr. Bentham regarded the young man thoughtfully.
“Have you any idea, Mr. Barnes,” he asked, “as to the source of this income?”
“Of course I haven’t,” Barnes answered. “That’s why we’re here. You must know something about it.”
“Your brother was not my client,” the lawyer said slowly. “If his death had not been quite so sudden, I think that he might have been. As it is, I know very little of his affairs. I am afraid that I can be of very little use to you.”
“You must know something,” Barnes declared doggedly. “You must tell us what you do know.”
“Your brother was,” Mr. Bentham said, “a very remarkable man. Has it never occurred to you, Mr. Barnes, that this two thousand a year might have been money received in payment of services rendered—might have been, in short, in the nature of a salary?”
“Not likely,” Barnes answered, contemptuously. “Morris did no work at all. He did nothing but just enjoy himself and spend money.”
“Nothing but enjoy himself and spend money,” Mr. Bentham repeated. “Ah! Did you see a great deal of your brother during the last few years?”
“I saw nothing of him at all. I was out in South Africa. I have only just got back. Not but that I’d been here long ago,” the young man added, with a note of exasperation in his tone, “if I’d had any idea of the luck he was in. Why, I lent him a bit to come back with, though I was only earning thirty bob a week, and the brute only sent it me back in bits, and not a farthing over.”
“That was not considerate of him,” Mr. Bentham agreed—“not at all considerate. Your brother had the command of considerable sums of money. In fact, Mr. Barnes, I may tell you, without any breach of confidence, I think that if he had kept his appointment with me on the night when he was murdered, I was prepared, on behalf of my client, to hand him a cheque for ten thousand pounds!”
Barnes struck the table before him with his clenched fist.
“For what?” he cried, hysterically. “Ten thousand pounds for what?”
“Your brother,” Mr. Bentham said calmly, “was possessed of securities which were worth that much or even more to my client.”
“And where are they now?” Barnes gasped.
“I do not know,” Mr. Bentham answered. “If you can find them, I think it very likely that my client might make you a similar offer.”
It was the first ray of hope. Barnes moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and drew a long breath.
“Securities!” he muttered. “What sort of securities?”
“There, unfortunately,” Mr. Bentham said, “I am unable to help you. I am an agent only in the matter. They were securities which my client was anxious to buy, and your brother was not unwilling to sell for cash, notwithstanding the income which they were bringing him in.”
“But how can I look for them, if I don’t know what they are?” Barnes protested.
“There are difficulties, certainly,” the lawyer admitted, carefully polishing his spectacles with the corner of a silk handkerchief; “but, then, as you have doubtless surmised, the whole situation is a difficult one.”
“You can get to know,” Barnes exclaimed. “Your client would tell you.”
Mr. Bentham sighed gently.
“Of course,” he said, “I am only quoting my own opinion, but I do not think that my client would do anything of the sort. These securities happen to be of a somewhat secret nature. Your brother was in a position to make an exceedingly clever use of them. It appears incidentally to have cost him his life, but there are risks, of