The Way We Live Now (100 page)

‘Well – it didn't reach you in a very confirmatory manner. We'll just say that. What Mr Longestaffe can have been at to wish to give up his title-deeds without getting anything for them – '

‘Excuse me, Mr Squercum, but that's between Mr Longestaffe and us.'

‘Just so – but as Mr Longestaffe and you have jeopardized my client's property it is natural that I should make a few remarks. I think you'd have made a few remarks yourself, Mr Bideawhile, if the case had been reversed. I shall bring the matter before the Lord Mayor, you know.' To this Mr Bideawhile said not a word. ‘And I think I understand you now that you do not intend to insist on the signature as being genuine.'

‘I say nothing about it, Mr Squercum. I think you'll find it very hard to prove that it's not genuine.'

‘My client's oath, Mr Bideawhile.'

‘I'm afraid your client is not always very clear as to what he does.'

‘I don't know what you mean by that, Mr Bideawhile. I fancy that if I were to speak in that way of your client you would be very angry with me. Besides, what does it all amount to? Will the old gentleman say that he gave the letter into his son's hands, so that, even if such a freak should have come into my client's head, he could have signed it and
sent it off? If I understand, Mr Longestaffe says that he locked the letter up in a drawer in the very room which Melmotte occupied, and that he afterwards found the drawer open. It won't, I suppose, be alleged that my client knew so little what he was about that he broke open the drawer in order that he might get at the letter. Look at it whichever way you will, he did not sign it, Mr Bideawhile.'

‘I have never said he did. All I say is that we had fair ground for supposing that it was his letter. I really don't know that I can say anything more.'

‘Only that we are to a certain degree in the same boat together in this matter.'

‘I won't admit even that, Mr Squercum.'

‘The difference being that your client by his fault has jeopardized his own interests and those of my client, while my client has not been in fault at all. I shall bring the matter forward before the Lord Mayor tomorrow, and as at present advised shall ask for an investigation with reference to a charge of fraud. I presume you will be served with a subpoena to bring the letter into court.'

‘If so you may be sure that we shall produce it.' Then Mr Squercum took his leave and went straight away to Mr Bumby, a barrister well known in the City. The game was too powerful to be hunted down by Mr Squercum's unassisted hands. He had already seen Mr Bumby on the matter more than once. Mr Bumby was inclined to doubt whether it might not be better to get the money, or some guarantee for the money. Mr Bumby thought that if a bill at three months could be had for Dolly's share of the property it might be expedient to take it. Mr Squercum suggested that the property itself might be recovered, no genuine sale having been made. Mr Bumby shook his head. ‘Title-deeds give possession, Mr Squercum. You don't suppose that the company which has lent money to Melmotte on the title-deeds would have to lose it. Take the bill; and if it is dishonoured run your chance of what you'll get out of the property. There must be assets.'

‘Every rap will have been made over,' said Mr Squercum.

This took place on the Monday, the day on which Melmotte had offered his full confidence to his proposed son-in-law. On the following Wednesday three gentlemen met together in the study in the house in Bruton Street from which it was supposed that the letter had been abstracted. There were Mr Longestaffe, the father, Dolly Longestaffe, and Mr Bideawhile. The house was still in Melmotte's possession, and Melmotte and Mr Longestaffe were no longer on friendly terms. Direct
application for permission to have this meeting in this place had been formally made to Mr Melmotte, and he had complied. The meeting took place at eleven o'clock – a terribly early hour. Dolly had at first hesitated as to placing himself as he thought between the fire of two enemies, and Mr Squercum had told him that as the matter would probably soon be made public, he could not judiciously refuse to meet his father and the old family lawyer. Therefore Dolly had attended, at great personal inconvenience to himself. ‘By George, it's hardly worth having if one is to take all this trouble about it,' Dolly had said to Lord Grasslough, with whom he had fraternized since the quarrel with Nidderdale. Dolly entered the room last, and at the time neither Mr Longestaffe nor Mr Bideawhile had touched the drawer, or even the table, in which the letter had been deposited.

‘Now, Mr Longestaffe,' said Mr Bideawhile, ‘perhaps you will show us where you think you put the letter.'

‘I don't think at all,' said he. ‘Since the matter has been discussed the whole thing has come back upon my memory.'

‘I never signed it,' said Dolly, standing with his hands in his pockets and interrupting his father.

‘Nobody says you did, sir,' rejoined the father with an angry voice. ‘If you will condescend to listen we may perhaps arrive at the truth.'

‘But somebody has said that I did. I have been told that Mr Bideawhile says so.'

‘No, Mr Longestaffe; no. We have never said so. We have only said that we had no reason for supposing the letter to be other than genuine. We have never gone beyond that.'

‘Nothing on earth would have made me sign it,' said Dolly. ‘Why should I have given my property up before I got my money? I never heard such a thing in my life.'

The father looked up at the lawyer and shook his head, testifying as to the hopelessness of his son's obstinacy. ‘Now, Mr Longestaffe,' continued the lawyer, ‘let us see where you put the letter.'

Then the father very slowly, and with much dignity of deportment, opened the drawer – the second drawer from the top, and took from it a bundle of papers very carefully folded and docketed. ‘There,' said he, ‘the letter was not placed in the envelope but on the top of it, and the two were the two first documents in the bundle.' He went on to say that as far as he knew no other paper had been taken away. He was quite certain that he had left the drawer locked. He was very particular in regard to that particular drawer, and he remembered that about this
time Mr Melmotte had been in the room with him when he had opened it, and – as he was certain – had locked it again. At that special time there had been, he said, considerable intimacy between him and Melmotte. It was then that Mr Melmotte had offered him a seat at the board of the Mexican Railway.

‘Of course he picked the lock, and stole the letter,' said Dolly. ‘It's as plain as a pike-staff. It's clear enough to hang any man.'

‘I am afraid that it falls short of evidence, however strong and just may be the suspicion induced,' said the lawyer. ‘Your father for a time was not quite certain about the letter.'

‘He thought that I had signed it,' said Dolly.

‘I am quite certain now,' rejoined the father angrily. ‘A man has to collect his memory before he can be sure of anything.'

‘I am thinking you know how it would go to a jury.'

‘What I want to know is how we are to get the money,' said Dolly. ‘I should like to see him hung – of course; but I'd sooner have the money. Squercum says –'

‘Adolphus, we don't want to know here what Mr Squercum says.'

‘I don't know why what Mr Squercum says shouldn't be as good as what Mr Bideawhile says. Of course Squercum doesn't sound very aristocratic.'

‘Quite as much so as Bideawhile, no doubt,' said the lawyer laughing.

‘No; Squercum isn't aristocratic, and Fetter Lane is a good deal lower than Lincoln's Inn. Nevertheless Squercum may know what he's about It was Squercum who was first down upon Melmotte in this matter, and if it wasn't for Squercum we shouldn't know as much about it as we do at present' Squercum's name was odious to the elder Longestaffe. He believed, probably without much reason, that all his family troubles came to him from Squercum, thinking that if his son would have left his affairs in the hands of the old Slows and the old Bideawhiles, money would never have been scarce with him, and that he would not have made this terrible blunder about the Pickering property. And the sound of Squercum, as his son knew, was horrid to his ears. He hummed and hawed, and fumed and fretted about the room, shaking his head and frowning. His son looked at him as though quite astonished at his displeasure. ‘There's nothing more to be done here, sir, I suppose,' said Dolly, putting on his hat.

‘Nothing more,' said Mr Bideawhile. ‘It may be that I shall have to instruct counsel, and I thought it well that I should see in the presence of both of you exactly how the thing stood. You speak so positively, Mr Longestaffe, that there can be no doubt?'

‘There is no doubt'.

‘And now perhaps you had better lock the drawer in our presence. Stop a moment – I might as well see whether there is any sign of violence having been used.' So saying Mr Bideawhile knelt down in front of the table and began to examine the lock. This he did very carefully and satisfied himself that there was ‘no sign of violence'. ‘Whoever has done it, did it very well,' said Bideawhile.

‘Of course Melmotte did it,' said Dolly Longestaffe, standing immediately over Bideawhile's shoulder.

At that moment there was a knock at the door – a very distinct, and, we may say, a formal knock. There are those who knock and immediately enter without waiting for the sanction asked. Had he who knocked done so on this occasion Mr Bideawhile would have been found still on his knees, with his nose down to the level of the keyhole. But the intruder did not intrude rapidly, and the lawyer jumped on to his feet, almost upsetting Dolly with the effort. There was a pause, during which Mr Bideawhile moved away from the table – as he might have done had he been picking a lock – and then Mr Longestaffe bade the stranger come in with a sepulchral voice. The door was opened, and Mr Melmotte appeared.

Now Mr Melmotte's presence certainly had not been expected. It was known that it was his habit to be in the City at this hour. It was known also that he was well aware that this meeting was to be held in this room at this special hour – and he might well have surmised with what view. There was now declared hostility between both the Longestaffes and Mr Melmotte, and it certainly was supposed by all the gentlemen concerned that he would not have put himself out of the way to meet them on this occasion. ‘Gentlemen,' he said, ‘perhaps you think that I am intruding at the present moment.' No one said that he did not think so. The elder Longestaffe simply bowed very coldly. Mr Bideawhile stood upright and thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. Dolly, who at first forgot to take his hat off, whistled a bar, and then turned a pirouette on his heel. That was his mode of expressing his thorough surprise at the appearance of his debtor. ‘I fear that you do think I am intruding,' said Melmotte, ‘but I trust that what I have to say will be held to excuse me. I see, sir,' he said, turning to Mr Longestaffe, and glancing at the still open drawer, ‘that you have been examining your desk. I hope that you will be more careful in locking it than you were when you left it before.'

‘The drawer was locked when I left it,' said Mr Longestaffe. ‘I make no deductions and draw no conclusions, but the drawer was locked.'

‘Then I should say it must have been locked when you returned to it.'

‘No, sir, I found it open. I make no deductions and draw no conclusions – but I left it locked and I found it open.'

‘I should make a deduction and draw a conclusion,' said Dolly; ‘and that would be that somebody else had opened it.'

‘This can answer no purpose at all,' said Bideawhile.

‘It was but a chance remark,' said Melmotte. ‘I did not come here out of the City at very great personal inconvenience to myself to squabble about the lock of the drawer. As I was informed that you three gentlemen would be here together, I thought the opportunity a suitable one for meeting you and making you an offer about this unfortunate business.' He paused a moment; but neither of the three spoke. It did occur to Dolly to ask them to wait while he should fetch Squercum; but on second thoughts he reflected that a great deal of trouble would have to be taken, and probably for no good. ‘Mr Bideawhile, I believe,' suggested Melmotte; and the lawyer bowed his head. ‘If I remember rightly I wrote to you offering to pay the money due to your clients –'

‘Squercum is my lawyer,' said Dolly.

‘That will make no difference.'

‘It makes a deal of difference,' said Dolly.

‘I wrote,' continued Melmotte, ‘offering my bills at three and six months' date.'

‘They couldn't be accepted, Mr Melmotte.'

‘I would have allowed interest I never have had my bills refused before.'

‘You must be aware, Mr Melmotte,' said the lawyer, ‘that the sale of a property is not like an ordinary mercantile transaction in which bills are customarily given and taken. The understanding was that money should be paid in the usual way. And when we learned, as we did learn, that the property had been at once mortgaged by you, of course we became – well, I think I may be justified in saying more than suspicious. It was a most – most – unusual proceeding. You say you have another offer to make, Mr Melmotte.'

‘Of course I have been short of money. I have had enemies whose business it has been for some time past to run down my credit, and, with my credit, has fallen the value of stocks in which it has been known that I have been largely interested. I tell you the truth openly. When I purchased Pickering I had no idea that the payment of such a sum of money could inconvenience me in the least When the time came at which I should pay it, stocks were so depreciated that it was impossible
to sell. Very hostile proceedings are threatened against me now. Accusations are made, false as hell' – Mr Melmotte as he spoke raised his voice and looked round the room – ‘but which at the present crisis may do me most cruel damage. I have come to say that, if you will undertake to stop proceedings which have been commenced in the City, I will have fifty thousand pounds – which is the amount due to these two gentlemen – ready for payment on Friday at noon.'