4
The offices of Messrs Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols werein Lincoln's Inn Fields. The first Nichols had been dead since thereign of King William the Fourth, the second since the jubileeyear of Queen Victoria. The remaining brace were Lord Dawlish'sfriend Jerry and his father, a formidable old man who knew all theshady secrets of all the noble families in England.
Bill walked up the stairs and was shown into the room where Jerry,when his father's eye was upon him, gave his daily imitation of ayoung man labouring with diligence and enthusiasm at the law. Hisfather being at the moment out at lunch, the junior partner waspractising putts with an umbrella and a ball of paper.
Jerry Nichols was not the typical lawyer. At Cambridge, where Billhad first made his acquaintance, he had been notable for anexuberance of which Lincoln's Inn Fields had not yet cured him.There was an airy disregard for legal formalities about him whichexasperated his father, an attorney of the old school. He came tothe point, directly Bill entered the room, with a speed and levitythat would have appalled Nichols Senior, and must have caused theother two Nicholses to revolve in their graves.
'Halloa, Bill, old man,' he said, prodding him amiably in thewaistcoat with the ferrule of the umbrella. 'How's the boy? Fine!So'm I. So you got my message? Wonderful invention, thetelephone.'
'I've just come from the club.'
'Take a chair.'
'What's the matter?'
Jerry Nichols thrust Bill into a chair and seated himself on thetable.
'Now look here, Bill,' he said, 'this isn't the way we usually dothis sort of thing, and if the governor were here he would spendan hour and a half rambling on about testators and beneficiarylegatees, and parties of the first part, and all that sort of rot.But as he isn't here I want to know, as one pal to another, whatyou've been doing to an old buster of the name of Nutcombe.'
'Nutcombe?'
'Nutcombe.'
'Not Ira Nutcombe?'
'Ira J. Nutcombe, formerly of Chicago, later of London, now adisembodied spirit.'
'Is he dead?'
'Yes. And he's left you something like a million pounds.'
Lord Dawlish looked at his watch.
'Joking apart, Jerry, old man,' he said, 'what did you ask me tocome here for? The committee expects me to spend some of my timeat the club, and if I hang about here all the afternoon I shalllose my job. Besides, I've got to get back to ask them for--'
Jerry Nichols clutched his forehead with both hands, raised bothhands to heaven, and then, as if despairing of calming himself bythese means, picked up a paper-weight from the desk and hurled itat a portrait of the founder of the firm, which hung over themantelpiece. He got down from the table and crossed the room toinspect the ruins.
Then, having taken a pair of scissors and cut the cord, he allowedthe portrait to fall to the floor.
He rang the bell. The prematurely-aged office-boy, who wasundoubtedly destined to become a member of the firm some day,answered the ring.
'Perkins.'
'Yes, sir?'
'Inspect yonder _souffle_.'
'Yes, sir.'
'You have observed it?'
'Yes, sir.'
'You are wondering how it got there?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I will tell you. You and I were in here, discussing certain legalminutiae in the interests of the firm, when it suddenly fell. Weboth saw it and were very much surprised and startled. I soothedyour nervous system by giving you this half-crown. The wholeincident was very painful. Can you remember all this to tell myfather when he comes in? I shall be out lunching then.'
'Yes, sir.'
'An admirable lad that,' said Jerry Nichols as the door closed.'He has been here two years, and I have never heard him sayanything except "Yes, sir." He will go far. Well, now that I amcalmer let us return to your little matter. Honestly, Bill, youmake me sick. When I contemplate you the iron enters my soul. Youstand there talking about your tuppenny-ha'penny job as if itmattered a cent whether you kept it or not. Can't you understandplain English? Can't you realize that you can buy Brown's and turnit into a moving-picture house if you like? You're a millionaire!'
Bill's face expressed no emotion whatsoever. Outwardly he appearedunmoved. Inwardly he was a riot of bewilderment, incapable ofspeech. He stared at Jerry dumbly.
'We've got the will in the old oak chest,' went on Jerry Nichols.'I won't show it to you, partly because the governor has got thekey and he would have a fit if he knew that I was giving you earlyinformation like this, and partly because you wouldn't understandit. It is full of "whereases" and "peradventures" and "heretofores"and similar swank, and there aren't any stops in it. It takes the legalmind, like mine, to tackle wills. What it says, when you've peeledoff a few of the long words which they put in to make it moreinteresting, is that old Nutcombe leaves you the money becauseyou are the only man who ever did him a disinterested kindness--andwhat I want to get out of you is, what was the disinterested kindness?Because I'm going straight out to do it to every elderly, rich-lookingman I can find till I pick a winner.'
Lord Dawlish found speech.
'Jerry, is this really true?'
'Gospel.'
'You aren't pulling my leg?'
'Pulling your leg? Of course I'm not pulling your leg. What do youtake me for? I'm a dry, hard-headed lawyer. The firm of Nichols,Nichols, Nichols, and Nichols doesn't go about pulling people'slegs!'
'Good Lord!'
'It appears from the will that you worked this disinterested gag,whatever it was, at Marvis Bay no longer ago than last year.Wherein you showed a lot of sense, for Ira J., having altered hiswill in your favour, apparently had no time before he died toalter it again in somebody else's, which he would most certainlyhave done if he had lived long enough, for his chief recreationseems to have been making his will. To my certain knowledge he hasmade three in the last two years. I've seen them. He was one ofthose confirmed will-makers. He got the habit at an early age, andwas never able to shake it off. Do you remember anything about theman?'
'It isn't possible!'
'Anything's possible with a man cracked enough to make freak willsand not cracked enough to have them disputed on the ground ofinsanity. What did you do to him at Marvis Bay? Save him fromdrowning?'
'I cured him of slicing.'
'You did what?'
'He used to slice his approach shots. I cured him.'
'The thing begins to hang together. A certain plausibility creepsinto it. The late Nutcombe was crazy about golf. The governor usedto play with him now and then at Walton Heath. It was the onlything Nutcombe seemed to live for. That being so, if you got ridof his slice for him it seems to me, that you earned your money.The only point that occurs to me is, how does it affect youramateur status? It looks to me as if you were now a pro.'
'But, Jerry, it's absurd. All I did was to give him a tip or two.We were the only men down there, as it was out of the season, andthat drew us together. And when I spotted this slice of his I justgave him a bit of advice. I give you my word that was all. Hecan't have left me a fortune on the strength of that!'
'You don't tell the story right, Bill. I can guess what reallyhappened--to wit, that you gave up all your time to helping theold fellow improve his game, regardless of the fact that itcompletely ruined your holiday.'
'Oh, no!'
'It's no use sitting there saying "Oh, no!" I can see you at it.The fact is, you're such an infernally good chap that something ofthis sort was bound to happen to you sooner or later. I thinkmaking you his heir was the only sensible thing old Nutcombe everdid. In his place I'd have done the same.'
'But he didn't even seem decently grateful at the time.'
'Probably not. He was a queer old bird. He had a most almighty rowwith the governor in this office only a month or two ago aboutabsolutely nothing. They disagreed about something trivial, andold Nutcombe stalked out and never came in again. That's the sortof old bird he was.'
'Was he sane, do you think?'
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'Absolutely, for legal purposes. We have three opinions from leadingdoctors--collected by him in case of accidents, I suppose--each ofwhich declares him perfectly sound from the collar upward. But aman can be pretty far gone, you know, without being legally insane,and old Nutcombe--well, suppose we call him whimsical. He seems tohave zigzagged between the normal and the eccentric.
'His only surviving relatives appear to be a nephew and a niece.The nephew dropped out of the running two years ago when his aunt,old Nutcombe's wife, who had divorced old Nutcombe, left him hermoney. This seems to have soured the old boy on the nephew, for inthe first of his wills that I've seen--you remember I told you Ihad seen three--he leaves the niece the pile and the nephew onlygets twenty pounds. Well, so far there's nothing very eccentricabout old Nutcombe's proceedings. But wait!
'Six months after he had made that will he came in here and madeanother. This left twenty pounds to the nephew as before, butnothing at all to the niece. Why, I don't know. There was nothingin the will about her having done anything to offend him duringthose six months, none of those nasty slams you see in wills about"I bequeath to my only son John one shilling and sixpence. Nowperhaps he's sorry he married the cook." As far as I can make outhe changed his will just as he did when he left the money to you,purely through some passing whim. Anyway, he did change it. Heleft the pile to support the movement those people are running forgetting the Jews back to Palestine.
'He didn't seem, on second thoughts, to feel that this was quitesuch a brainy scheme as he had at first, and it wasn't long beforehe came trotting back to tear up this second will and switch backto the first one--the one leaving the money to the niece. Thatrestoration to sanity lasted till about a month ago, when he brokeloose once more and paid his final visit here to will you thecontents of his stocking. This morning I see he's dead after ashort illness, so you collect. Congratulations!'
Lord Dawlish had listened to this speech in perfect silence. He nowrose and began to pace the room. He looked warm and uncomfortable.His demeanour, in fact, was by no means the accepted demeanour ofthe lucky heir.
'This is awful!' he said. 'Good Lord, Jerry, it's frightful!'
'Awful!--being left a million pounds?'
'Yes, like this. I feel like a bally thief.'
'Why on earth?'
'If it hadn't been for me this girl--what's her name?'
'Her name is Boyd--Elizabeth Boyd.'
'She would have had the whole million if it hadn't been for me.Have you told her yet?'
'She's in America. I was writing her a letter just before you camein--informal, you know, to put her out of her misery. If I hadwaited for the governor to let her know in the usual course of redtape we should never have got anywhere. Also one to the nephew,telling him about his twenty pounds. I believe in humane treatmenton these occasions. The governor would write them a legal letterwith so many "hereinbefores" in it that they would get the ideathat they had been left the whole pile. I just send a cheery linesaying "It's no good, old top. Abandon hope," and they know justwhere they are. Simple and considerate.'
A glance at Bill's face moved him to further speech.
'I don't see why you should worry, Bill. How, by any stretch ofthe imagination, can you make out that you are to blame for thisBoyd girl's misfortune? It looks to me as if these eccentric willsof old Nutcombe's came in cycles, as it were. Just as he was duefor another outbreak he happened to meet you. It's a moralcertainty that if he hadn't met you he would have left all hismoney to a Home for Superannuated Caddies or a Fund for Supplyingthe Deserving Poor with Niblicks. Why should you blame yourself?'
'I don't blame myself. It isn't exactly that. But--but, well, whatwould you feel like in my place?'
'A two-year-old.'
'Wouldn't you do anything?'
'I certainly would. By my halidom, I would! I would spend thatmoney with a vim and speed that would make your respectedancestor, the Beau, look like a village miser.'
'You wouldn't--er--pop over to America and see whether somethingcouldn't be arranged?'
'What!'
'I mean--suppose you were popping in any case. Suppose you hadhappened to buy a ticket for New York on to-morrow's boat,wouldn't you try to get in touch with this girl when you got toAmerica, and see if you couldn't--er--fix up something?'
Jerry Nichols looked at him in honest consternation. He had alwaysknown that old Bill was a dear old ass, but he had never dreamedthat he was such an infernal old ass as this.
'You aren't thinking of doing that?' he gasped.
'Well, you see, it's a funny coincidence, but I was going toAmerica, anyhow, to-morrow. I don't see why I shouldn't try to fixup something with this girl.'
'What do you mean--fix up something? You don't suggest that youshould give the money up, do you?'
'I don't know. Not exactly that, perhaps. How would it be if Igave her half, what? Anyway, I should like to find out about her,see if she's hard up, and so on. I should like to nose round, youknow, and--er--and so forth, don't you know. Where did you say thegirl lived?'
'I didn't say, and I'm not sure that I shall. Honestly, Bill, youmustn't be so quixotic.'
'There's no harm in my nosing round, is there? Be a good chap andgive me the address.'
'Well'--with misgivings--'Brookport, Long Island.'
'Thanks.'
'Bill, are you really going to make a fool of yourself?'
'Not a bit of it, old chap. I'm just going to--er--'
'To nose round?'
'To nose round,' said Bill.
Jerry Nichols accompanied his friend to the door, and once morepeace reigned in the offices of Nichols, Nichols, Nichols, andNichols.
The time of a man who has at a moment's notice decided to leavehis native land for a sojourn on foreign soil is necessarily takenup with a variety of occupations; and it was not till thefollowing afternoon, on the boat at Liverpool, that Bill hadleisure to write to Claire, giving her the news of what hadbefallen him. He had booked his ticket by a Liverpool boat inpreference to one that sailed from Southampton because he had notbeen sure how Claire would take the news of his sudden decision toleave for America. There was the chance that she might ridicule orcondemn the scheme, and he preferred to get away without seeingher. Now that he had received this astounding piece of news fromJerry Nichols he was relieved that he had acted in this way.Whatever Claire might have thought of the original scheme, therewas no doubt at all what she would think of his plan of seekingout Elizabeth Boyd with a view to dividing the legacy with her.
He was guarded in his letter. He mentioned no definite figures. Hewrote that Ira Nutcombe of whom they had spoken so often had mostsurprisingly left him in his will a large sum of money, and easedhis conscience by telling himself that half of a million poundsundeniably was a large sum of money.
The addressing of the letter called for thought. She would haveleft Southampton with the rest of the company before it couldarrive. Where was it that she said they were going next week?Portsmouth, that was it. He addressed the letter Care of The Girland the Artist Company, to the King's Theatre, Portsmouth.