Helen Ford. Alger Horatio Jr.
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see that I have been successful. Read it.”
The copyist drew the lamp nearer, and read it slowly and deliberately.
“Yes,” said he, at length, looking up thoughtfully; “the contents are as you have described. May I ask what it is your intention to do about it, and what is the service I am to render you?”
“Can you not guess?” demanded his visitor, fixing his eyes meaningly upon him.
“No,” returned the scrivener, a little uneasily; “I cannot.”
“You are skilful with the pen, exceedingly skilful,” resumed Lewis, meaningly. “Indeed, there has been a time when this accomplishment came near standing you in good stead, though it might also have turned to your harm.”
Jacob winced.
“Ah!” pursued the visitor, “I see you have not forgotten a little occurrence in the past, when, but for my intervention, you might have been convicted of—shall I say it?—forgery. You need not thank me. I never do anything without a motive. I don’t believe in disinterestedness. The idea struck me even at that time that I might at some time have need of you.”
“I am ready,” said Jacob, submissively.
“That is well. What I want you to do is this. You must draw me up another will as nearly like this as possible, except that the whole estate shall be devised to me unconditionally. Well, man, what means that look of alarm?”
“It will be very dangerous to both of us,” faltered the copyist.
“It will be a forgery, I admit,” said Lewis, calmly; “but what is there in that word, forgery, which should so discompose you? Did it ever occur to you that the old charge might be renewed against you, when no intervention of mine will avail to save you?”
The copyist perceived the threat implied in those words, and hastened to propitiate his visitor, of whom he seemed to stand in wholesome fear.
“Nay,” said he, submissively, “you know best the danger to both of us.”
“And I tell you, Jacob, there is none at all. You are so cunning with the pen that you may easily defy detection, and for the rest, I will take the hazard.”
“And what will be the recompense?” inquired the scrivener.
“Two hundred dollars as soon as the task is completed,” was the prompt reply. “One thousand more when the success of the plan is assured.”
Jacob’s eyes sparkled. To him the bribe was a fortune.
“I consent,” he said; “give me the will. I must study it for a time to become familiar with the handwriting.”
He drew the lamp nearer and began to pore earnestly over the manuscript, occasionally scrawling with the pen which he held in his hand an imitation of some of the characters. It was a study for an artist,—those two men,—each determined upon a wrong deed for the sake of personal advantage. Lewis, with his cool, self-possessed manner, and the copyist, with his ignoble features and nervous eagerness, divided between the desire of gain and the fear of detection.
All this time a woman’s eye might have been seen peering through a slightly open door, and regarding with a careful glance all that was passing. The two men were so intent upon the work before them that she escaped their notice.
“Oho,” said she to herself, “there shall be a third in the secret which you fancy confined to yourselves. Who knows but it may turn out to my advantage, some day? I will stay and see the whole.”
She drew back silently, and took her position just behind the door, where nothing that was said could escape her.
Meanwhile Jacob, having satisfied himself that he could imitate the handwriting of the will, commenced the task of copying. Half an hour elapsed during which both parties preserved strict silence. At the end of that time the copyist, with a satisfied air, handed Lewis the manuscript he had completed. The latter compared the two with a critical eye. Everything, including the names of the witnesses, was wonderfully like. It was extremely difficult from the external appearance, to distinguish the original from the copy.
“You have done your work faithfully and well,” said Lewis, with evident satisfaction, “and deserve great credit. You are wonderfully skilful with the pen.”
The copyist rubbed his hands complacently.
“With this I think we need not fear detection. Here are the two hundred dollars which I promised you. The remainder is contingent on my getting the estate. I shall be faithful, in that event, to my part of the compact.”
Jacob bowed.
“It must be very late,” said Lewis, drawing out his watch. “I am sorry to have kept you up so late; but no doubt you feel paid. I must hasten back.”
He buttoned his coat, and went out into the street. A smile lighted up his dark features as he speculated upon the probable success of his plans. He felt not even a momentary compunction as he thought of the means he had employed or the object he had in view.
Meanwhile those whom he was conspiring to defraud were sleeping tranquilly.
CHAPTER V.
THE PETTIFOGGER
The legal profession numbers among its disciples a large class of honorable and high-minded men; and it also includes some needy adventurers well versed in the arts of pettifogging and chicanery, and willing, for a consideration, to throw over the most discreditable proceedings the mantle of the law, thus perverting, to the injury of the public, that which was intended for its principal safeguard.
Of this latter class was Richard Sharp, Banister, whose name might have been read on the door of an exceedingly dirty little office not far from Wall Street. Being under the necessity of introducing my reader to some acquaintances and localities not altogether desirable I must trouble him to enter Mr. Sharp’s office.
In the centre of the office stands a table covered with green baize. Scattered over it are diverse bundles tied with red tape, evidently intended to give the unsophisticated visitor the impression that Mr. Sharp’s business is in a most flourishing condition. Nevertheless, since the novelist is permitted to see farther into the shams which he describes than is accorded to others less privileged, it may be remarked that these identical bundles have lain upon the table with no other alteration than an occasional change of arrangement, ever since the office was opened.
The enterprising proprietor of the bundles aforesaid is smoking a cigar, while reading the Morning Herald, and occasionally glancing out of the window near by. His features would hardly justify the description of “beauty in repose,” being deeply pitted with smallpox, which is not usually thought to improve the appearance. His nose is large and spreading at the base. His hair is deeply, darkly, beautifully red, bristling like a cat’s fur when accidentally rubbed the wrong way. Add to these a long, scraggy neck, and the reader has a tolerable idea of Mr. Sharp as he sat in his office on the first day of October, 18—.
How long he would have sat thus, if uninterrupted, is uncertain. His meditations were broken in upon by a quick, imperative knock at the door. The effect upon Mr. Sharp was electrical. He sprang from his seat, tossed his cigar away, wheeled his chair round to the table, and drawing a blank legal form towards him, knit his brows and began to write as if life and death depended upon his haste. Meanwhile the visitor became impatient and rapped again, this time more imperatively.
“Come in,” called Mr. Sharp, in a deep bass voice, not raising his eyes from the paper on which his pen was now scratching furiously. “Take a seat; shall be at leisure in a moment,—full of business, you know,—can’t get a moment’s rest.”
When at length he found time to look up, he met the gaze of our recent acquaintance, Lewis Rand. The latter, who had penetration enough to see through the lawyer’s artifice, smiled a little derisively.
“It must be a satisfaction to you,” he said, rather dryly, “to find your services in such request.”
“Why, yes, ahem! yes,” said the lawyer, passing his fingers through his bristling