Читать книгу The Devil's Advocate - Fred M. White - Страница 8

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Two days had elapsed, and Richard Farrell was seated in his private office going through his letters, and arranging his day's work. Not that he had very much to do, because, of late, his practice had fallen off, and clients were righting shy of him. Up to the present there was no tangible reason for this, though there were certain vague rumors floating about Hitherfield which were not calculated to impress business men in his favor. He had started well enough, three years ago, and, being the only young lawyer in the place, and possessed of an easy assurance in himself and a glib tongue, had begun to make a name for himself as an advocate in the police courts. And, for a time, he had done very well indeed.

But within the last few months, especially since Macrae had come to Hitherfield, he had lapsed into dubious habits. He had developed a fondness for racing, and the atmosphere of hotel billiard rooms. He was on friendly terms with more than one bookmaker in the neighborhood, and it was whispered that he owed Sam Farmer, the local bookmaker and stock breeder, a great deal of money.

At that very moment he was reading a letter from the man in question. It was not a nice letter, and couched in anything but friendly terms. He knew Farmer to be a generous and kindhearted man, but evidently there were limits to his patience, and the letter hinted something to the effect that unless at least a hundred pounds was forthcoming during the next week steps would be taken which would result in Farrell being posted as a defaulter. This would mean, of course, that he would be warned off every racecourse in future, and worse than that, he would certainly lose the confidence of his few remaining clients. For, as a matter of fact, Farrell was in desperate circumstances. He owed money in every direction, and even the local moneylenders were beginning to regard him with a certain amount of suspicion. He had owed Baines money, to begin with, and Baines had been getting nasty. The recent tragic event had eased the situation in that direction, and therefore Farrell was somewhat troubled in his mind.

Still, the situation was serious enough and he sat himself quietly down to evolve some way out of it. His clerk came in a minute or two later, with the information that Mr. Isaac Blinn would like to see him without delay.

"Ask him to come in," Farrell said.

There entered a little dark man, with a long, thin nose and a mass of black curly hair. This was the Jew manager of the local branch of Douglas & Co., money lenders.

"Good-morning, Mr. Farrell," said he. "If you will give me a few minutes I have some business to discuss with you. In fact, I think I can put a good thing in your way."

"Then you are welcome," Farrell laughed. "Good things have been few and far between recently."

"Yes, I suppose business is quiet. Now, look here, Mr. Farrell, I am here on behalf of my partner, the late Joseph Baines. I daresay that astonishes you."

"Well, it does," Farrell confessed. "I had no idea that your firms were connected. Of course, I know you moneylenders are often hand in glove with one another when there are sheep to be shorn, but I didn't know that there was any partnership between you. I thought you were just the manager for a big London firm."

"Ah, so does everybody else," the little man grinned. "My dear sir, there is no Douglas & Co., at least there isn't if you put me on one side. It is practically all Baines', and I think people will be astonished when they find what a lot of money Baines left behind him. Our two offices are mixed up together, and I want you to straighten things out. I don't care how soon it is done, because these complications stop progress. I am going to ask you to go over all Baines' books and get in the outstanding money. Most of them are loans, repayable on demand, and generally there is a good deal to be done. I expect you will have to issue a lot of writs, but you won't regret that much."

"Oh, I suppose not. I will do what you want with pleasure. You had better let me have all Baines's letter books. I shall be able to do what you want by studying these, and perhaps you might be disposed to hand me over Douglas & Co.'s letter book as well. I can take it home in the evening and let you have it back the next morning. By studying those two books I shall be able to separate the sheep from the goats, so to speak."

"Now that is not a bad idea," Blinn said. "I will let you have Baines's current letter book tonight, and, at the same time, I will leave ours. You can go over them in the evening for an hour or two for the next fortnight, and, by that time, you ought to have the whole thing properly mapped out. And don't you hesitate over getting the money in. You will have a free hand, and, if you have to take proceedings, don't come to me for instructions, but take them. It won't cost us anything, and you ought to make quite a little pile out of it. But mind you, no one is to know that there is any connection between Baines and myself, because I shall probably take on the old man's office and run the show with a manager. It will pay me to do so."

Farrell breathed a little more freely. It was quite evident to him that Baines had not altogether taken his partner into his confidence. They might have placed a good deal of dirty business in one another's hands, but, no doubt, there had been secrets on both sides. It was quite plain, for instance, that Blinn was ignorant of the fate that he, Farrell, was rather deeply indebted to the dead man for money lent. Otherwise Blinn would certainly have mentioned it, and suggested that Farrell should have done all the work for nothing, by way of working off his loan. And if this was so, then those books were to be entrusted to him, and Farrell began to see a way of obliterating all trace of the transactions which had taken place between Baines and himself.

"Very well," he said. "We will let it go at that, shall we? You pack up those letter books, and deliver them at my lodgings, and I will have a go at them tonight. My clerks will bring them back first thing in the morning."

Blinn fell in with this arrangement, and went on his way, leaving Farrell in a more easy frame of mind. To begin with, here was a slice of business which, properly handled, should mean a couple of hundred pounds at least, with more to follow. And, still better, was the knowledge that, with any luck, he would be able to free himself from claims made against him by Baines's executors. He could remove from the dead man's letter book all traces of correspondence between Baines and himself, and it would go hard indeed if he could not find some excuse for handling Baines's ledger.

It was with quite a keen zest, therefore, that he found himself that evening examining Baines's letter book. There was a deal of absorbing reading there, which threw an interesting sidelight upon certain businesses in Hitherfield. Here were men whom Farrell regarded as quite prosperous, having dealings with Baines upon terms which could only have one result.

"My word," Farrell muttered to himself. "If some of the local gossips could see these letters they would have enough to talk about for the rest of their natural lives. Not that it concerns me. Now, where the Dickens is the record of the last letter that Baines wrote to me? We must get rid of that."

After a long search he found the copies he required, and with a sharp penknife removed the thin flimsy sheets from the book and carefully put a match to them. With the exception of Baines' business ledgers, all trace of that dreadful debt had been removed. It seemed to Farrell that he was comparatively safe now. On the morrow he would ask Blinn casually to lend him the loan of the ledger for an hour or two, and, when he had finished with that he would be in a position to defy anyone to prove that he had ever been so much as a penny in Baines' debt.

Then another thought struck him.

"Stop a moment," he went on, communing with himself. "Those rascals are mixed up together, and it is just possible that in the letter book of Douglas and Co. is some reference to me. If so, then I have had all my trouble for my pains. I'll have to go through Douglas and Co.'s book from end to end and make sure."

It was a long and weary task, for the book contained some six or seven hundred leaves of copied letters, and it was necessary, at any rate, to glance over every one of them. The whole town was fast asleep, the street lamps were out, and the first flush of early dawn was beginning to glow in the east before Farrell had finished, and still nearly a hundred of the flimsy tissues were, as yet, unread. He helped himself to another cigarette, and went on doggedly with his uncongenial task.

Then he came to something that brought him up, all standing. It was a copy of the typewritten letter which had been sent from the office of Douglas and Co. to David Macrae, asking for the immediate payment of a hundred pounds, and calling attention to the fact that a judgment had been obtained for the amount, payment of which would be enforced by 12 o'clock the following day, unless the loan was liquidated in the meantime. And there followed that straggling scrawl in Baines' untidy handwriting.

"Oho," Farrell whispered to himself. "This is something like a discovery. If this had been disclosed to the jury the night before last, it seems to me that they might have brought in another verdict. Because, here we have a motive for getting Baines out of the way."

Farrell sat there for quite a long time, turning this matter over and over in his mind. He was wondering how he could turn it to the best advantage. No doubt it was the original of this letter that had impelled Macrae to set out on the night of the murder to see if he could do anything with his creditor.

"Of course, he had that letter," Farrell went on to himself. "And he deliberately suppressed it. He didn't even tell me, his solicitor. My word, what a chance for me. Ah, my hated rival, you are not the husband of Philippa Goldfinch yet, and if I have anything to do with it you never will be."