The Lost Heir. Henty George Alfred
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third were clerks or shop assistants, the remainder foreigners of almost every nationality. Betting lists were exposed at one end of the room. Underneath these a bookmaker had a small table, and carried on his trade.
In 1851 there were a score of such places in the neighborhood of the Strand and Fleet Street, but few did a larger business than this. It was generally understood that Wilkinson, the proprietor, had been a soldier; but the belief originated rather from his upright carriage and a certain soldierly walk than from anything he had himself said, and he was not the sort of man whom even the most regular of the frequenters of his establishment cared to question. He was a tall man, some five-and-forty years of age, taciturn in speech, but firm in manner while business was going on. He kept admirable order in the place. He was generally to be found in the room on the second floor, but when a whistle blew, and one of the markers whispered up a speaking-tube that there was a dispute going on between the players or lookers-on, he was at once upon the spot.
"Now, gentlemen," he would say, interposing between them, "you know the rules of this establishment; the marker's decision on all points connected with the game is final, and must be accepted by both parties. I will have no quarrels or disputes here, and anyone making a row goes straight out into the street, and never comes in here again."
In the vast majority of cases this settled the matter; but when the men were flushed with liquor, and inclined to continue the dispute, they were seized by the collar by Wilkinson's strong arm and were summarily ejected from the house. In the inner room he preserved order as strictly, but had much more difficulty in doing so among the foreign element. Here quarrels were not uncommon, and knives occasionally drawn; but Wilkinson was a powerful man and a good boxer, and a flush hit from the shoulder always settled the business.
But though stern in the management of his establishment, Wilkinson was popular among its frequenters. He was acquainted with most of their callings and business. Indeed, none were admitted to the upper room unless well introduced by habitués, or until he had made private inquiries concerning them. Thus he knew among the foreigners whom he could trust, and how far, when, after a run of ill luck, they came to him and asked him for a loan, he could venture to go.
With the English portion of his customers he was still more liberal. He knew that he should not be a loser from transactions with them; they must repay him, for were it known to their employers that they were in the habit of gambling, it would mean instant dismissal. There were among them several lawyers' clerks, some of whom were, in comparison with their means, deeply in debt to him. One or other of those he would often invite up to his private room on the floor above, where a bottle of good wine would be on the table, a box of excellent cigars beside it, and here they would chat more or less comfortably until the roulette room opened.
Mr. Wilkinson made no pretense that these meetings were simply for the purpose of drinking his wine and smoking his cigars. "I am a straightforward man," he would say, "and business is business. I oblige you, and I expect you to oblige me. I have always had a fancy that there is money to be made in connection with lawyers' businesses. There are missing heirs to be hunted up; there are provisos in deeds, of whose existence some one or other would give a good deal to know. Now, I am sure that you are not in a position to pay me the amount I have lent you, and for which I hold your I. O. U.'s. I have no idea of pressing you for the money, and shall be content to let it run on so long as you will let me know what is being done at your office. The arrangement is that you will tell me anything that you think can be used to advantage, and if money is made out of any information you may give me, I will engage to pay you a third of what it brings in. Now, I call that a fair bargain. What do you say?"
In some cases the offer was closed with at once; in others it was only agreed to after threats that the debt must be at once paid or an application would be made forthwith. So far the gambling-house keeper's expectations had not met with the success he had looked for. He had spent a good deal of time in endeavoring to find the descendants of persons who stood in the direct line of succession to properties, but of whom all clew had been lost. He had indeed obtained an insight into various family differences that had enabled him to successfully extort blackmail, but his gains in this way had not, so far, recouped him for the sums he had, as he considered, invested in the speculation.
He was, however, a patient man, and felt, no doubt, that sooner or later he should be able to make a coup that would set him up for life. Still he was disappointed; his idea had been the one held by many ignorant persons, that lawyers are as a class ready to resort to tricks of all kinds, in the interests of their clients or themselves. He had found that he had been altogether wrong, and that although there were a few firms which, working in connection with money-lenders, financial agents, and the lowest class of bill discounters, were mixed up in transactions of a more or less shady character, these were the black sheep of the profession, and that in the vast majority of cases the business transacted was purely technical and connected with the property of their clients. Nevertheless, he took copious notes of all he learned, contending that there was no saying what might come in useful some day.
"Well, Dawkins," he said one day to a dark-haired young fellow with a handsome face that already showed traces of the effect of late hours and dissipation, "I suppose it is the usual thing; the lawsuit as to the right of way at Brownsgrove is still going on, the settlements in Mr. Cochrane's marriage to Lady Gertrude Ivory are being drawn up, and other business of the same sort. You never give me a scrap of information that is of the slightest use. I am afraid that your firm is altogether too eminently respectable to have anything to do with doubtful transactions."
"I told you so from the first, Wilkinson; that whatever your game might be, there would be nothing in our office that could be of the least use to you, even if you had copies of every deed drawn up in it. Ours is what you might call a family business. Our clients have for the most part dealt with the firm for the last hundred years; that is to say, their families have. We have drawn their wills, their marriage settlements, their leases, and done everything relating to their property for years and years. My own work for the last two or three days has been drafting and engrossing the will of a General Mathieson, whose father and grandfather were our clients before him."
"Mathieson – he is an old Indian officer, isn't he, if it is the man I mean? He was in command at Benares twenty years ago. He was a handsome man, then, about my height and build."
"Yes, I have no doubt that is the man – John Le Marchand Mathieson."
"That is him. He was very popular with the troops. He used to spend a good deal of money in improving their rations and making them comfortable. Had a first-rate stable, and they used to say he was a rich man. Anyhow, he spent a good deal more than his pay."
"Yes, he was a second son, but his elder brother died, and he came into the property; but instead of coming home to enjoy it he stopped out in India for years after he came into it."
"He had a daughter, quite a little girl, in those days; her mother died out there. I suppose she inherits his property?"
"Well, no; she married some time back; she and her husband are both dead, and their son, a boy, six or seven years old, lives with the old man."
"How much does he leave?"
"Something over a hundred thousand pounds. At least I know that that is about the value of the estates, for we have always acted as his agents, collected the rents, and so on."
"I should like to see a copy of his will," Wilkinson said, after sitting for some time silent. "I don't want all the legal jargon, but just the list of the legacies."
"I can easily jot those down for you. The property goes to the grandson, and if he dies before coming of age, to a niece, Hilda Covington, who is his ward and lives with him. He leaves her beside only five hundred pounds, because she is herself an heiress. There are a score of small legacies, to old servants, soldiers, widows, and people of that sort."
"Well, you may as well give me the list entire."
Dawkins shrugged his shoulders.
"Just as you like," he said; "the will was signed yesterday, but I have the note of instructions still by me, and will bring round the list to-morrow evening; though, upon my word, I don't see what interest it can possibly have for you."
"I don't know myself," the other