The Greatest Murder Mysteries - G.A. Henty Edition. G. A. Henty
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and stay the night with him, to chat over the affair in quiet, and determine upon the best course to be pursued. Mr. Petersfield agreed to stop for the night, saying that he must return to town by the early train in the morning, but that if they would promise that he should do that, he would accompany them.
As this was arranged, they drove into the station, and here the party separated; Dr. Ashleigh, Harry, and Mr. Petersfield to go on to Ramsgate, Robert Gregory to return to London. The latter preserved his quiet demeanour until he was alone in a railway carriage, and then he gave full vent to his fury and disappointment. He raved aloud; he cursed himself, his fortune, and all connected with him; he poured imprecations of every kind and description upon the heads of the Misses Harmer; and his last exclamation as he flung himself down in a corner of the carriage, was, "Let them beware, for by——I will find it, if it is in existence, if it costs me my life!—or," he added, after a pause, "them theirs!"
I now resume my own narrative. How surprised I was that evening when they came in. Of course, just at first I was too much occupied in kissing Harry—whom I now saw for the first time, as he had only arrived from the North the evening before—to notice anything strange about their manner. Then papa introduced me to Mr. Petersfield; and after I had spoken a word or two to him, and had time to look at all their faces, I saw that there was a great gloom upon them, greater even than the occasion warranted; for I had been expecting some little joking remark from papa about my being a woman of property now, so that I was the more struck by the subdued expression of his face.
"Is anything the matter, papa?" I asked, quietly.
"Yes, my dear, a great deal is the matter, I am sorry to say. Mr. Harmer's will is missing."
"Missing, papa!" I exclaimed, almost incredulously.
"Yes, my love; you must not take it too much to heart; it may come to light yet, but at present it is missing."
I sat down with a faint feeling in my heart. It was not that I cared for the money for its own sake; but I thought of Lady Desborough, and I felt a rush of coming trouble sweep round me. However, after a moment, I drove back the feeling, and asked, in as cheerful a voice as I could,—
"But how is it missing, papa?"
"Ah, my dear, that is the rub. Mr. Harmer had it in the house, and now it is nowhere to be found. We all believe—indeed, there can be little doubt—that Miss Harmer has concealed it, or, at any rate, that she knows where it has been hidden away. I have noticed the last week a strange manner, a sort of secret understanding between the sisters, but thought little about it at the time. Now, however, I can understand it all by the light of the present state of affairs; and I remember now, what I smiled at at the time as an impotent threat, that Miss Harmer said, in her passion, that while she lived, Sophy's husband should never enter the doors of Harmer Place."
"But, papa," I said, "she has a very good life-income; why should she do such a thing as this?"
"There are several reasons, my dear; but we will talk them over after tea. I am hungry and tired, and I am sure Mr. Petersfield and Harry are the same; so let us have tea at once; that will do us all good, and we shall be able to look at matters in a far more cheerful light afterwards. What are you going to give us, my dear?"
"Cold pie, papa, and some fresh-boiled mackerel, and a dish of prawns and some muffins."
"Capital! Now we will go and wash our hands, and make ourselves comfortable, and by that time you will be ready for us."
They were soon down again, and seated round the table, and papa began to question Harry about his work in the North; and Harry, who was never depressed above five minutes about anything, entered into a most amusing description of his life on the railway; and we were all laughing merrily, in spite of our troubles, before tea was over. I am sure no one who had looked in upon us would have guessed that we had that day as good as lost £50,000 between us. When we had done, papa said,—
"There, my dear, we are all a hundred per cent better. Now, as we have taken one great consoler—tea, let us take another—tobacco. I am sure Harry is dying for a pipe; and although I do not often smoke indoors, on this special occasion I will make an exception. What say you, Mr. Petersfield?"
"I am very fond of a good cigar," the lawyer said, producing a cigar-case; "but will not Miss Ashleigh object?"
"Not at all," I said. "Harry always smokes when he is at home, and I am quite accustomed to it. If I find it too much, I can easily open the window a little."
The tea-things were soon cleared away, and we took our seats round the fire. For although the weather was not actually cold, we usually had a fire in the evening, as, indeed, by the seaside one can do almost all the year round with comfort. Papa sat on one side, I on a stool by him, Harry next, and Mr. Petersfield on the other side. As soon as the cigars and pipe were fairly alight, the table cleared, and we alone, papa began,—
"Now, my dear, I will answer the question you asked me before tea; and I shall do so at length, as what I am saying to you may be some sort of guide and assistance to Mr. Petersfield, who—from his late partner, Mr. Ransome, having had the management of Mr. Harmer's affairs—does not know very much of the business."
Papa then explained the whole history of the Harmers nearly as I have told it, although of course in far fewer words. "Thus you see," he concluded, "there are several reasons which we may suppose, actuate the Miss Harmers. The first and principal, is the religious question. The Misses Harmer were, as I have said, educated in a convent; they were brought up to, and have ever since lived a life of ascetic severity. They have been taught to look upon the advancement of their Church as the thing to be striven for upon earth, the summum bonum to be aimed at. They were accustomed to consider the Harmer estate as destined to go to the furtherance of that object; and when Herbert Harmer by the accidental death of his two brothers, suddenly succeeded to it, they looked upon it as absolutely stolen from the Church, to which it was, by the elder brother's will, to have gone. They then left the house, went abroad, and did not return until the death of Gerald Harmer seemed again to open the way for them. They have since resided there off and on, in hopes probably that their brother might return to his old faith, might die without a will, or, in fact, that some unexpected contingency might happen. The last three or four years since Mr. Harmer's declared intentions relative to Sophy and yourselves, they have very much intermitted their visits, and only returned on the news of their brother's first paralytic seizure. Thus, you see, the last twenty years of their lives, may be said to have been given to the endeavour; and the temptation to them to suppress the will is of course enormous, in order that the property may come to them, and afterwards, as their eldest brother intended, to the Romish Church. They have, besides this, another motive now, and one which, no doubt, greatly soothes their consciences. They are mercilessly severe upon Sophy, they look upon her as their brother's murderess, and they therefore have the twofold satisfaction of punishing her—and so of avenging their brother's death—and of enriching their own Church."
"Strong inducements, my dear sir," Mr. Petersfield, who was a bachelor, said, "religion and malice, the two strongest motive powers in the female, especially the elderly female, mind."
"Mr. Petersfield," I said, "remember that I am here, and that you are talking treason."
"I apologize humbly, Miss Ashleigh," he said, smiling. "But really," he continued to papa, "what you say explains the whole matter, and gives it an even more awkward appearance, in my eyes, than it had before. The question is, what is to be done?"
"Ah! what is to be done?" papa repeated; "that is indeed a difficult question to decide upon. I believe the will to be in existence, and I do not think they will venture to destroy it; it is one thing to allow a will to lie hid in a secret drawer, another to take it out and deliberately burn it: one requires a very different degree of courage and hardihood to the other. No, I do not think they will venture to destroy it."
"I do not think they will," Mr. Petersfield said; "they quailed so unmistakably under your denunciations. Do you know, doctor, I give you great credit for that, it was grand, sir!" and the lawyer rubbed his hands at the thought. "I give you my word, I never saw anything better done in the whole of my professional experience."