CHAPTER X

WELL MATCHED.

Mr. Barton closed the office immediately after the departure of Arthur Prescott, and went straight home. Very wrath was his wife when he told her the events of the day.

“You are a miserable cur, Barton, and I always told you so.” This was all the comfort he got from Rachel. Presently she continued, “at any rate, you ought to get a round sum out of that young Bingham for that paper he gave you.”

Mr. Barton reflected. “Well, yes, Rachel; as you say, something ought to be done there.”

“Something done!” Rachel said, contemptuously; “you are a poor thing, Barton. It’s lucky for you you’ve made up your mind to drop the business; you never had much head, though I was fool enough once to think you had; you’re getting to be a downright fool—that’s what you are.”

Mr. Barton uttered a feeble protest.

“Don’t tell me, Robert Barton. I know you, if no one else does, and you may take my word for it. Do you think this young Bingham could let you keep that paper? Why, when he sees this new heir, he will know at once why you went to him to sell the secret, and he will see that he is all right, for the boy’s life is not worth, you say, a year’s purchase. Well, what would his chance be worth if you were to go to the old man, and prove to him that Bingham knew about the boy being alive, and had paid you to keep it dark? You ought not to give up that paper, Barton, for a penny under a couple of thousand. That will be something out of the fire at any rate.”

“You have got a head on your shoulders, Rachel, there’s no mistake about that.”

“It’s very lucky for you, Barton, I have,” his wife said, mollified; “it’s lucky we’ve one between the two of us, anyhow.”

Fred Bingham came up to town a few days after James had been installed in his new home. The evening after his arrival he as usual went to call upon his uncle. He was astonished upon entering the drawing-room to see a pale young man, sitting in a sort of invalid chair, with his uncle and Miss Heathcote.

“How are you, Fred?” Captain Bradshaw said, warmly. “Here is a gentleman I wish to introduce you to. My grandson James. There, my boy, congratulate me,”

For a moment Fred Bingham felt as though he would have fallen. Fortunately Captain Bradshaw, in the exuberance of his feelings, patting him on the back, shaking his hand, and demanding his congratulations, gave him time to rally and collect his thoughts before he was called upon to speak. At any rate, his uncle’s warmth proved that his first suspicion had been incorrect—Barton had not betrayed the bargain between them. At last he said,

“Really, uncle, I am so surprised I hardly know what to say. Are you in earnest—is this gentleman really your grandson? I had no idea you had one.”

“No more had I, Fred, not the slightest in the world. Can’t tell you all the story now—found it out quite by accident. Most extraordinary coincidence. James, this is my nephew Fred, of whom you have often heard me speak.”

“I am sure, uncle, I am truly glad at the discovery,” Fred Bingham said, with great warmth; “this is, indeed, a most providential restoration.”

“Isn’t it, Fred? Just what I say myself—just what Alice says.”

Fred now uttered a few words to James, as he shook hands with him, expressing his great pleasure at meeting with a new relation, who would, he knew, add so much to the happiness of Captain Bradshaw; and then he turned to speak to Alice. Between them now it was declared war, and Fred felt in the sparkle of Alice’s eye, and in the slight sarcastic smile on her lips, that she had read his first horrified surprise, and appraised his subsequent phrases at their true value.

“Is not this indeed a strange and unexpected pleasure?” she said; “I knew you would join so heartily in our delight.”

Confident and secure as Alice was of her own position, and fearless as she was by nature, she could scarcely repress a little shiver at the glance of deadly hate which Fred Bingham gave her from under his fair eyelashes. Then, as his uncle was speaking to the cripple, he answered in a low tone,

“It is indeed, Miss Heathcote; it is a pity that the one member of the family is absent whose presence would make your happiness complete.”

Feeling contented in the thought that he was nearly quits in this little sparring match, Fred turned and sat down by James, and entered into an animated conversation with him. Cool-headed as he was, however, he could not sustain this long. He wanted to be away in quiet to think over this unexpected misfortune. He soon pleaded an engagement, and rose to leave. Captain Bradshaw, however, insisted on his going down to the library with him, in order that he might give him a short narrative of the matters relating to his newly-found grandson. Fred kept up his attention to the narrative, uttering short ejaculations of wonder or pleasure in their proper places. When Captain Bradshaw had finished his narrative he said,—

“Of course this affair, my dear Fred, will to some extent make a difference in your prospects. I say, frankly, that it was my intention previously to have left all my property to you. Alice is amply provided for, and I had no one else whom I should have cared to enrich; but you need not be afraid, my dear boy, you will have a very handsome slice yet.”

Frank murmured a few words of deprecatory thanks, and then took his leave. Very fast he walked down Lowndes Square, swinging his cane violently, and at times cutting at the air with it. As he turned into the roar of Knightsbridge his speed slackened, and he began, as was his wont, to speak to himself through his closed lips.

“So that is the heir. I can understand now why Barton came to me. He did not think he would live till he came to be of age. He may not. No one can say. He may live for years—these sort of people always do. If he outlives the old man, as is likely enough, I shall at most get a third. I suppose he will leave the boy the estates and me his money, and, perhaps, some of the farms. Of course I must make myself pleasant to this imp, in case he should outlive the old one. But I don’t think he will,” he added, more cheerfully; “Barton evidently did not give him a year—and he mayn’t even last that. Still this will shake my credit with the Jews. I shall have difficulty in getting them to wait. Of course my agreement is at an end with Barton. I agreed to pay him at my uncle’s death, in the event of no nearer heir appearing. Yes, he will be sold anyhow. If the boy dies it will, after all, be a lucky thing he has turned up. Besides, even after paying Barton, he might have been an annoyance in some sort of way. Yes, it may be for the best after all. How Barton must have sworn when he heard it. I wish I had been there to watch his face. The laugh would have been upon my side, I fancy. No wonder he wouldn’t tell me who the heir was—an old fox. By Jove!” and here he stopped in his walk in consternation, “he has got that paper of mine. He was safe enough to keep it dark before, for it was worth twelve thousand pounds to him; now it’s worth nothing, and if he chooses to show it to the old man I am ruined. By Gad! I am completely under his thumb;” and for once, in his despair at this new danger, Fred Bingham lost his jaunty, elastic walk, and crawled along Piccadilly with the step of an old man. Presently he hailed a cab, and when he reached home astonished the servant by taking a candle and going straight up to his bedroom, without a single unpleasant remark. The next morning he went down to Mr. Barton’s office. That worthy had by one of his emissaries learnt that Fred Bingham had returned to town the day before, and had gone up in the evening to Captain Bradshaw’s. Fred Bingham was paler than usual, but he was cool and collected, and thoroughly prepared for the encounter. He began the conversation.

“Of course you have heard that the boy has turned up?”

“Yes, Mr. Bingham; I have heard that, and it is a bad job for both of us—worse for me though than for you. It will do you no harm in the long run; he won’t live the year out.”

“It was sharp practice of yours, Barton, coming to me when you found he was not likely to live to come of age. A deucedly clever stroke though. But I don’t think he’s as bad as you think. My uncle told me he has picked up a great deal in the few days since he came there.”

“I tell you he won’t see out the year, sir. I heard him cough every three minutes the last time I was with him; if he ain’t in a consumption I never heard anyone. Naturally enough the excitement has brightened him up for a while; but, take my word, he is not good for a year.”

Fred Bingham felt his hopes revive. “Well, you may be right,” he said. “By the way,” he added, indifferently, “as he has turned up, you may as well return me that agreement of mine; of course it is useless now.”

“Well, Mr. Bingham, I have been thinking that little matter over, and I think, on the whole, I should prefer to keep it,” the detective said, with a cold smile.

“I do not see that it can be of any use to you now, Barton. It expressly states the money is only to be paid in the event of no nearer heir making his appearance, and now this boy has turned up it is of course worthless.”

“Well, as a legal document it is not of much value, I allow. But it’s as a sort of keepsake I should wish to preserve it, for a while at least. It’s all I’ve got, you see, after twenty years waiting.”

“Come, Barton, it’s no use our beating about the bush—what will you take to give it up?”

“Well, you see, Mr. Bingham, it is not worth much to me, but it’s worth all Captain Bradshaw’s estates to you. I only have to put that paper into your uncle’s hand, and explain the little circumstance connected with it, for you to lose every penny.”

“You are putting the case strongly, Barton, very strongly,” Fred Bingham said, with a coolness that surprised and alarmed the detective; “yes, if Captain Bradshaw saw that document and believed it—and believed it—it would, as you say, cost me the whole of the property, which, if the lad dies, as I believe he will, no doubt will come to me. But you would not gain a single penny by it, Barton, and, as you owe me no grudge, there would be no satisfaction in ruining me. Besides, Captain Bradshaw would not believe you. If I have not that deed in my possession when I leave this office—I have a cab with a fast horse at the door—I shall go straight to my uncle and tell him that a scoundrel named Barton, with whom I have had a little business once or twice in making inquiries as to character, has been threatening to ruin me with him by means of a forged paper, pretending that I knew of the boy’s existence. Captain Bradshaw already knows you are a scoundrel; he knows you have deceived him all these years, and believes you capable of any crime. When, therefore, you appear before him, and show him a document signed with a signature perfectly unlike mine—perfectly unlike, Mr. Barton—you will probably find yourself kicked into the street by the footman. So, you see, the game is not so completely in your hands as you thought.”

Mr. Barton sat completely staggered by his visitor’s coolness. Fred Bingham followed up his advantage.

“Come, Barton, you are a clever fellow, but you have lost the game. The signature does not in the slightest degree resemble my own. I did it, not with any intention of disputing the claim if you acted fair, but as a precaution in case you did not. Now I don’t want to act hardly on you, and I don’t want, I say honestly, even a suspicion to arise in my uncle’s mind. I tell you what I will do in exchange for that deed. I will give you a bond, stating that in consideration of valuable services you have rendered me in the exercise of your business as a detective, I undertake to pay you three thousand pounds upon the death of Captain Bradshaw, should he carry out his declared intention of making me either wholly or partially his heir. These are my terms, what do you say?”

“And you will sign that before a witness?”

“Certainly,” Fred Bingham said.

Mr. Barton rose, and gave his clerk directions to go out and get a stamp of the necessary value. The agreement was then drawn up and signed, the exchange was effected, and Fred Bingham tore up the former deed into the smallest possible pieces. Then, greatly satisfied with the result of this his second encounter with Mr. Barton, he went out into the City to transact the business which had brought him up to London.