"She'll tell you—Mrs. Mallathorpe'll tell you—that she's very pleased indeed to have my poor services," he said. "She knows that I shall serve her well. She's glad to do a kind service to a poor relation. And since I am your mother's relation, Miss Mallathorpe, I'm yours, too. I'm some degree of cousin to you. You might think rather better, rather more kindly, of me!"
"Are you going to tell me anything more than that?" asked Nesta steadily. Pratt shrugged his shoulders and waved his hands.
"What more can I tell?" he asked. "The fact is, there's a business arrangement between me and your mother—and you object to it. Well—I'm sorry, but I've my own interests to consider."
"Are you going to tell me what it was that induced my mother to sign that paper you got from her the other day?" asked Nesta.
"Can I say more than that it was—a business arrangement?" pleaded Pratt. "There's nothing unusual in one party in a business arrangement giving a power of attorney to another party. Nothing!"
"Very well!" said Nesta, rising from the straight-backed chair, and looking very rigid herself as she stood up. "You won't tell me anything! So—I am now going to the police. I don't know what they'll do. I don't know what they can do. But—I can tell them what I think and feel about this, at any rate. For as sure as I am that I see you, there's something wrong! And I'll know what it is."
Pratt recognized that she had passed beyond the stage of mere anger to one of calm determination. And as she marched towards the door he called her back—as the result of a second's swift thought on his part.
"Miss Mallathorpe," he said. "Oblige me by sitting down again. I'm not in the least afraid of your going to the police. But my experience is that if one goes to them on errands of this sort, it sets all sorts of things going—scandal, and suspicion, and I don't know what! You don't want any scandal. Sit down, if you please, and let us think for a moment. And I'll see if I can tell you—what you want to know."
Nesta already had a hand on the door. But after looking at him for a second or two, she turned back, and sat down in her old position. And Pratt, still seated at his desk, plunged his hands in his trousers pockets, tilted back his chair, and for five minutes stared with knitted brows at his blotting pad. A queer silence fell on the room. The windows were double-sashed; no sound came up from the busy street below. But on the mantelpiece a cheap Geneva clock ticked and ticked, and Nesta felt at last that if it went on much longer, without the accompaniment of a human voice, she should suddenly snatch it up, and hurl it—anywhere.
Pratt was in the position of the card-player, who, confronted by a certain turn in the course of a game which he himself feels sure he is bound to win, wonders whether he had better not expedite matters by laying his cards on the table, and asking his opponent if he can possibly beat their values and combination. He had carefully reckoned up his own position more than once during the progress of recent events, and the more carefully he calculated it the more he felt convinced that he had nothing to fear. He had had to alter his ground in consequence of the death of Harper Mallathorpe, and he had known that he would have to fight Nesta. But he had not anticipated that hostilities would come so soon, or begin with such evident determination on her part. How would it be, then, at this first stage to make such a demonstration in force that she would recognize his strength?
He looked up at last and saw Nesta regarding him sternly. But Pratt smiled—the quiet smile which made her uneasy.
"Miss Mallathorpe!" he said. "I was thinking of two things just then—a game at cards—and the science of warfare. In both it's a good thing sometimes to let your adversary see what a strong hand you've got. Now, then, a question, if you please—are you and I adversaries?"
"Yes!" answered Nesta unflinchingly. "You're acting like an enemy—you are an enemy!"
"I've hoped that you and I would be friends—good friends," said Pratt, with something like a sigh. "And if I may say so, I've no feeling of enmity towards you. When I speak of us being adversaries, I mean it in—well, let's say a sort of legal sense. But now I'll show you my hand—that is, as far as I please. Will you listen quietly to me?"
"I've no choice," replied Nesta bluntly. "And I came here to know what you've got to say for yourself. Say it!"
Pratt moved his chair a little nearer to his visitor.
"Now," he said, speaking very quietly and deliberately, "I'll go through what I have to say to you carefully, point by point. I shall ask you to go back a little way. It is now some time since I discovered a secret about your mother, Mrs. Mallathorpe. Ah, you start!—it may be with indignation, but I assure you I'm telling you, and am going to tell you, the absolute truth. I say—a secret! No one knows it but myself—not one living soul! Except, of course, your mother. I shall not reveal it to you—under any consideration, or in any circumstances—but I can tell you this—if that secret were revealed, your mother would be ruined for life—and you yourself would suffer in more ways than one."
Nesta looked at him incredulously—and yet she began to feel he was telling some truth. And Pratt shook his head at the incredulous expression.
"It's quite so!" he said. "You'll begin to believe it—-from other things. Now, it was in connection with this that I paid a visit to Normandale Grange one evening some months ago. Perhaps you never heard of that? I was alone with your mother for some time in the study."
"I have heard of it," she answered.
"Very good," said Pratt. "But you haven't heard that your mother came to see me at my rooms here in Barford—my lodgings—the very next night! On the same business, of course. But she did—I know how she came, too. Secretly—heavily veiled—naturally, she didn't want anybody to know. Are you beginning to see something in it, Miss Mallathorpe?"
"Go on with your—story," answered Nesta.
"I go on, then, to the day before your brother's death," continued Pratt. "Namely, a certain Friday. Now, if you please, I'll invite you to listen carefully to certain facts—which are indisputable, which I can prove, easily. On that Friday, the day before your brother's death, Mrs. Mallathorpe was in the shrubbery at Normandale Grange which is near the north end of the old foot-bridge. She was approached by Hoskins, an old woodman, who has been on the estate a great many years—you know him well enough. Hoskins told Mrs. Mallathorpe that the foot-bridge between the north and south shrubberies, spanning the cut which was made there a long time since so that a nearer road could be made to the stables, was in an extremely dangerous condition—so dangerous, in fact, that in his opinion, it would collapse under even a moderate weight. I impress this fact upon you strongly."
"Well?" said Nesta.
"Hoskins," Pratt went on, "urged upon Mrs. Mallathorpe the necessity of having the bridge closed at once, or barricaded. He pointed out to her from where they stood certain places in the bridge, and in the railing on one side of it, which already sagged in such a fashion, that he, as a man of experience, knew that planks and railings were literally rotten with damp. Now what did Mrs. Mallathorpe do? She said nothing to Hoskins, except that she'd have the thing seen to. But she immediately went to the estate carpenter's shop, and there she procured two short lengths of chain, and two padlocks, and she herself went back to the foot-bridge and secured its wicket gates at both ends. I beg you will bear that in mind, too, Miss Mallathorpe."
"I am bearing everything in mind," said Nesta resolutely. "Don't be afraid that I shall forget one word that you say."
"I hear that sneer in your voice," answered Pratt, as he turned, unlocked a drawer, and drew out some papers. "But I think you will soon learn that the sneer at what I'm telling you is foolish. Mrs. Mallathorpe had a set purpose in locking up those gates—as you will see presently. You will see it from what I am now going to tell you. Oblige me, if you please, by looking at that letter. Do you recognize your mother's handwriting?"
"Yes!" admitted Nesta, with a sudden feeling of apprehension. "That is her writing."
"Very good," said Pratt. "Then before I read it to you, I'll just tell you what this letter is. It formed, when it was written,