Torwood's trust

hil and Tor had sat up late one night, as was often the case, and it was not until nearly one o’clock that they retired to their respective rooms.

When Tor reached his, he found that a fall of soot had taken place, which had blackened things so much, and left so unpleasant an odour in the room, that to remain there was impossible.

It was too late to disturb the servants, or to have another room made ready for him; but Tor was too much the traveller to care where or how he slept. He merely made his way to an empty bedroom, kicked off his boots, and lay down upon the bed in the smoking-coat he had previously donned.

In five minutes he was sound asleep, with the facility of one used to ‘roughing it;’ but with the instinct of a man not unused to danger, he suddenly woke up, with all his faculties about him, and presently became aware of curious sounds in the room beneath him.

A moment’s thought convinced him that these sounds, whatever they were, came from the library, which was directly underneath the room he accidentally occupied, and which lay in a wing of the building not much used.

There were certainly sounds proceeding from the room below; the longer Tor listened the more was he convinced of this—stealthy sounds, which he could not exactly understand, yet which were, from time to time, distinctly audible.

After a few minutes spent in listening, Tor rose, and without resuming his boots, passed quietly from the room. A dying moon gave a feeble light to corridor and staircase; and after a visit to his own room to fetch his revolver, the young man walked silently down to the library.

The door stood slightly ajar, as if the occupants, whoever they might be, were anxious to hear if any sound should arise in the house. Tor, however, took care to make no noise, and he did not hesitate to push open the door and slip silently into the room, for the feeble light the midnight guests had brought with them was far away at the upper end, and the door and all in its neighbourhood lay wrapped in the deepest gloom.

Once inside, Tor looked well at the intruders, and recognised, with an odd mixture of feeling, Mr. and Mrs. Belassis.

‘What in the name of all the powers brings them here?’ he thought, but he stood motionless, half through surprise, half from an instinct of caution, which warned him that it would be wise to find out, if possible, the reason for this strange nocturnal visit.

Both husband and wife were closely examining a heavy volume they had lifted from the shelf. They shook it, examined its cover, and otherwise pulled it about; after which it was restored to its place, and the next volume lifted down, to be submitted to a similar process.

Tor watched them with a deepening interest. They seemed so absorbed by their task, that many minutes passed before either of them spoke. As, however, Belassis replaced upon a shelf the last of the volumes it contained, he sighed heavily, and remarked:

‘I don’t believe we shall ever find it.’

‘Well, if we don’t, nobody else will, and that’s all I care about; but until we have examined every book the library contains, we can never feel safe.’

Belassis sighed again.

‘It will be an endless task!’

‘No, only a long one; and we can come here as often, in reason, as we please; and Betsy Long can look at the books as she dusts them, if we can’t get here safely ourselves.’

Tor’s gaze deepened in intensity. Metaphorically speaking, he pricked up his ears at this.

‘I believe we shall come to grief, somehow. That girl will betray us.’

‘Not she; she knows better than to forfeit double wages, and lose both her places.’

But Belassis was not to be comforted.

‘I don’t believe we shall ever do any good by this; and I’m getting quite done up with these disturbed nights.’

Mrs. Belassis looked him all over with a cold contempt, which seemed to wither him up. When she spoke, it was with a crushing disdain.

‘Really, Mr. Belassis, I have half a mind to take you at your word, and give up this attempt—and leave others to find Philip Debenham’s last will. It seems to me that you would rather live, with total ruin hanging over your head, than give up a few nights’ rest and take a little trouble. Anyone more hopelessly pusillanimous, it has never been my lot to come across!’

‘It seems such a hopeless search, my dear,’ began Belassis feebly. ‘If we really knew the will was here, it would be different.’

‘We do know it!’ snapped Mrs. Belassis. ‘Philip Debenham told old Tom Maynard that he had hidden it here. We have that in his own handwriting. What more do you want?’

‘Old Maynard could never find the will, though.’

‘Old Maynard had not the same motive that we have. He would soon grow tired of the search.’

‘He thought Debenham must have destroyed it.’

‘He did not know what we do.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He did not know how Philip Debenham feared, and hated, and distrusted us, during the last years of his life.’

There was a pause, which Mrs. Belassis broke.

‘Come, Alfred, do have a little common-sense. You know, as well as I do, that Philip Debenham simply made that will at your dictation, because he was weak and foolish, and believed you had much more power to do him mischief than you really had, if he had only played the man and taken his affairs into his own hands. We both knew he would not allow that will to stand, if he could possibly make another, and we always expected that a later one would turn up amongst his papers, and were prepared to act accordingly; but it did not. Nobody brought one forward, and we never found any evidence of the existence of a second will. You know, however, that we have never felt absolutely at ease on the subject, although, as years passed by, it seemed most improbable that anything could or would turn up. Then, when I found that letter of old Maynard’s to young Philip, and discovered the pencil memorandum inside, which he had never read, it became evident that our suspicions had all along been correct. He had made a new will, and had hidden it, with more cunning than I should have given him credit for, at Ladywell, out of our reach. Knowing all this, how can you pretend that it is not worth searching for?’

‘He might have removed it himself,’ suggested Belassis humbly.

‘You know better than that. If he had once found a safe place of hiding, out of your reach, he would never have been tempted to remove it. Hating you more and more as he did at the close of his life, is it likely he would ever have changed his mind about the will?’

And then the search continued in silence for a long while, whilst Tor stood concealed in his recess, watching them with lynx-like eyes.

He did not choose to leave the room, even for a moment, lest in that moment the missing paper should be found. He did not feel inclined, now that he was no longer master of the house, to step out and confront them, and demand the reason of this strange nocturnal visit.

So he waited and watched in silence, for what seemed a long time, until a faint blue film stealing into the room, announced the approach of dawn.

‘We must be going now,’ said Mrs. Belassis. ‘We have done a good two hours’ work, and have made a considerable way with the task. Four or five more nights ought to see the end of it. We have done nearly half in the four nights we have spent here already. I wish the light did not come so soon. It is hardly safe to be abroad after dawn. Come, Alfred, we must be going.’

Tor slipped away from the room as they replaced the last volume on the shelf, and mounted a few steps of the staircase. Two minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Belassis came out, and locked the door carefully behind them. Then they took their way towards the offices, and Tor followed quietly, at a discreet distance.

Betsy Long emerged from one of the rooms at the sound of their footsteps, yawning portentously.

Mrs. Belassis slipped something into her hand as she passed, and the girl curtseyed and said:

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

Then the worthy couple made their exit by the back-door, which Betsy carefully locked behind them. Turning round, she uttered a loud scream, for her ex-master stood before her.

‘Nice goings on, these, Betsy,’ remarked Tor quietly. ‘What have you got to say for yourself, eh?’

Betsy trembled and whimpered, and did not seem to have anything at all to say.

‘Now, stop all that noise,’ said Tor, with that quiet authority in his tone which always ensured instant obedience, ‘and answer me truthfully, if you can. Are you and Mrs. Belassis in league together?’

‘Yes, sir, if you please, sir,’ answered Betsy faintly.

‘And you have been her tool and spy ever since you came here?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What have you done for her so far, since you came, besides letting her in these four times to search the library?’

Betsy trembled still more, but felt compelled to answer.

‘Please, sir, not much. I read a few letters, and listened, when I could, to what went on. My missis—I mean Mrs. Belassis—said as she thought all wasn’t right, and bid me watch and find out all I could; but it didn’t seem to me there was much to do except to look for the paper—what’s hidden away in the library.’

‘Well, you’re a nice honest young woman, anyhow!’ remarked Tor, seeing that the girl had not anything of much importance either to tell or to conceal. ‘Now, you go straight up to your room, and stay there till you have leave to quit it. And pack up your things ready to go back to your old mistress when the right time comes; but if you dare to disobey and leave before you have permission, it will be the worse for you.’

And with that Tor strode back to his room, and finished his night in peace.

In the morning, at the breakfast-table, he told his story, which was listened to with great excitement and interest.

‘You never let them go scot-free!’ cried Miss Marjory. ‘Oh, Mr. Torwood, I thought better things of you! Why did you not confront them at their task?’

‘Because I thought that, on the whole, it would be better to confront them later on with the will in my hand, and the information on my lips, that it was to their nocturnal visits I owed the clue which had enabled us to find it. I thought that, on the whole, that would be the most crushing way of doing it.’

‘Perhaps!’ said Miss Marjory, still half-reluctantly; ‘but I never could have resisted the temptation, if I had been there.’

‘And now the will will be found!’ cried Phil, ‘and Maud will have her rights again. Oh, if this isn’t just first-rate! Tor, you rascal, why didn’t you summon me to confront my virtuous aunt and uncle?’

‘I felt it was not safe to let them out of my sight; and I’m not sure, in any case, if I could have trusted your discretion.’

‘You see, he’s boss still, for all his protestations,’ said Phil to Miss Marjory. ‘I always have to play second fiddle to him, in reality.’

‘And a good thing too,’ answered Miss Marjory, with emphasis.

Mrs. Lorraine had listened with intense interest to Tor’s account of what he had overheard the Belassis’ say to one another. When she really understood that the will—whose existence had always been suspected—was supposed to be hidden away in the library at Ladywell, a little pink flush rose in her cheeks, and she hastily left the room, returning, however, in a few minutes with an old-fashioned manuscript-book.

‘My dear,’ she began, half-timidly, half-eagerly, ‘I think I have something here which may prove a clue. I have not thought of it for many years; but perhaps there was a meaning in it which I did not understand. I will read you a little bit out of my diary, about the death of your dear father, Philip. I think I can understand better now what it was he meant.’

Everyone listened with interest to the extract, which Mrs. Lorraine proceeded to read:

Mrs. Lorraine ceased reading, and looked round.

‘I never could understand how it was that my saying those words could have comforted him so, but it did. I have always kept his Aristotle in remembrance of what he said; but I never could make any sense of his words, and thought I must quite have misunderstood them. I fancied afterwards that what he really wished to say was something about a will he might have made, doing more justice to Maud; but I never could see what Aristotle could have to do with it.’

‘Come along!’ cried Phil eagerly, springing up. ‘Let us all go and search for this valuable document. Aristotle is our clue, and before an hour is over, Maud shall have her own again! Hurrah! A bas Belassis! Won’t the old villain just curse and swear when he finds that he has betrayed the hiding-place himself!’

Maud’s eyes sparkled, more with excitement at the idea of the Belassis overthrow than at any special desire for an increase of fortune. She seized Ethel by the hand, and rushed after Phil; Mrs. Lorraine followed, and Miss Marjory and Tor brought up the rear.

‘This will ruin Belassis if it is found,’ remarked she, as they crossed the hall.

‘How so?’

‘Because he’s speculated with the trust-money, and lost it. He told Lewis so—told him he should be ruined if he insisted on claiming it and handing it over to Maud, as he wished to do.’

‘He’s a nice kind of guardian and executor!’ said Tor grimly. ‘Well, if this will is found, he will have to abide by the consequences of his own act.’

‘And serve him right, too!’ said Miss Marjory briskly. ‘It is time punishment did overtake him at last.’

Already the room had been reached, and an eager search begun. Mr. Maynard’s library was extensive, and not over-well arranged; but all the authors were together, and in a moment Aristotle was pounced upon, and every volume of every edition was pulled down from the shelves for inspection.

But after about five minutes of eager, rapid search, a silence and slight consternation fell upon the searchers, for it became evident that there was no will hidden away in these volumes.

‘It’s gone!’ cried Phil dismally, ‘or else it’s in some of the other books. What a sell! I thought we were safe to find it. Can anybody else have been beforehand with us?’

‘Not likely,’ said Tor, ‘as the Belassis’ have failed in their attempt. Bar accident, it ought still to be here. Does anybody know if the books have been left just as they were when Mr. Maynard was alive?’

‘Yes; they have not been disturbed at all,’ said Mrs. Lorraine. ‘They are all in their old places, as he kept them.’

‘That is well,’ said Tor, and strode across to where the vacant space yawned, from which the books had just been removed.

The rest crowded round him as he began a careful examination of the woodwork behind the shelves, tapping with his knuckles on every inch of exposed wood.

‘There!’ cried Miss Marjory suddenly; ‘there’s a hollow there. Try again!’

Tor did so, and the doubt became a certainty.

‘There’s a crack in the woodwork here, too,’ he said, scanning it eagerly. ‘A chisel and a hammer, and we’ll see what we shall see!’

Maud darted off and quickly returned, bringing the required implements.

A little dexterous manœuvring and a square of wood fell forwards, disclosing to view a cavity into which was inserted a paper, folded square, so as just to fit the place made for its reception.

‘Maud,’ said Tor, turning round, ‘you had better take it out. I am convinced that it is your father’s last will.’

Maud’s hand trembled a little as she did his bidding. In perfect silence she drew the paper out of its long-hidden place of concealment, and looked at the superscription: ‘To my daughter, Maud Debenham.’

‘You open it,’ she said, giving it to Tor. ‘I don’t feel as if I could.’

Tor obeyed. The envelope addressed to Maud contained two documents; one was a letter, the other a paper, which bore the important words, ‘Last will and testament of Philip Debenham,’ dated four months later than the will which had been produced by Belassis.

‘Read it, Tor,’ said Maud.

He obeyed. It was not a long will. It merely, as before, left all the father’s property to Philip and the mother’s to Maud—without any condition whatever. Mr. Twyne, the lawyer, and Mr. Maynard were appointed executors, and Mr. Maynard was made guardian to the children. Mr. Debenham seemed to have a presentiment that his hale and hearty old uncle would outlive him, as indeed had been the case. He had had an idea that he would die young, which also had verified itself. No mention whatever was made in the will of Belassis or of his son.

The letter to Maud was next read; it was a very different production from the one Mr. Belassis had brought forward.