Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1488 page)

“She told me,” Mr. Frank went on, “that the great mistake of her father’s life was his selling out of the army and taking to the wine trade. He had no talent for business; things went wrong with him from the first. His clerk, it was strongly suspected, cheated him — ”

“Stop a bit,” says I. “What was that suspected clerk’s name?”

“Davager,” says he.

“Davager,” says I, making a note of it. “Go on, Mr. Frank.”

“His affairs got more and more entangled,” says Mr. Frank; “he was pressed for money in all directions; bankruptcy, and consequent dishonour (as he considered it) stared him in the face. His mind was so affected by his troubles that both his wife and daughter, toward the last, considered him to be hardly responsible for his own acts. In this state of desperation and misery, he — ” Here Mr. Frank began to hesitate.

We have two ways in the law of drawing evidence off nice and clear from an unwilling client or witness. We give him a fright, or we treat him to a joke. I treated Mr. Frank to a joke.

“Ah!” says I, “I know what he did. He had a signature to write; and, by the most natural mistake in the world, he wrote another gentleman’s name instead of his own — eh?”

“It was to a bill,” says Mr. Frank, looking very crestfallen, instead of taking the joke. “His principal creditor wouldn’t wait till he could raise the money, or the greater part of it. But he was resolved, if he sold off everything, to get the amount and repay — ”

“Of course,” says I, “drop that. The forgery was discovered. When?”

“Before even the first attempt was made to negotiate the bill. He had done the whole thing in the most absurdly and innocently wrong way. The person whose name he had used was a stanch friend of his, and a relation of his wife’s — a good man as well as a rich one. He had influence with the chief creditor, and he used it nobly. He had a real affection for the unfortunate man’s wife, and he proved it generously.”

“Come to the point,” says I. “What did he do? In a business way, what did he do?”

“He put the false bill into the fire, drew a bill of his own to replace it, and then — only then — told my dear girl and her mother all that had happened. Can you imagine anything nobler?” asks Mr. Frank.

“Speaking in my professional capacity, I can’t imagine anything greener,” says I. “Where was the father? Off, I suppose?”

“Ill in bed,” says Mr. Frank, colouring. “But he mustered strength enough to write a contrite and grateful letter the same day, promising to prove himself worthy of the noble moderation and forgiveness extended to him, by selling off everything he possessed to repay his money debt. He did sell off everything, down to some old family pictures that were heirlooms; down to the little plate he had; down to the very tables and chairs that furnished his drawing-room. Every farthing of the debt was paid; and he was left to begin the world again, with the kindest promises of help from the generous man who had forgiven him. It was too late. His crime of one rash moment — atoned for though it had been — preyed upon his mind. He became possessed with the idea that he had lowered himself forever in the estimation of his wife and daughter, and — ”

“He died,” I cut in. “Yes, yes, we know that. Let’s go back for a minute to the contrite and grateful letter that he wrote. My experience in the law, Mr. Frank, has convinced me that if everybody burned everybody else’s letters, half the courts of justice in this country might shut up shop. Do you happen to know whether the letter we are now speaking of contained anything like an avowal or confession of the forgery?”

“Of course it did,” says he. “Could the writer express his contrition properly without making some such confession?”

“Quite easy, if he had been a lawyer,” says I. “But never mind that; I’m going to make a guess — a desperate guess, mind. Should I be altogether in error if I thought that this letter had been stolen; and that the fingers of Mr. Davager, of suspicious commercial celebrity, might possibly be the fingers which took it?”

“That is exactly what I wanted to make you understand,” cried Mr. Frank.

“How did he communicate the interesting fact of the theft to you?”

“He has not ventured into my presence. The scoundrel actually had the audacity — ”

“Aha!” says I. “The young lady herself! Sharp practitioner, Mr. Davager.”

“Early this morning, when she was walking alone in the shrubbery,” Mr. Frank goes on, “he had the assurance to approach her, and to say that he had been watching his opportunity of getting a private interview for days past. He then showed her — actually showed her — her unfortunate father’s letter; put into her hands another letter directed to me; bowed, and walked off; leaving her half dead with astonishment and terror. If I had only happened to be there at the time!” says Mr. Frank, shaking his fist murderously in the air, by way of a finish.

“It’s the greatest luck in the world that you were not,” says I. “Have you got that other letter?”

He handed it to me. It was so remarkably humorous and short, that I remember every word of it at this distance of time. It began in this way:

“To Francis Gatliffe, Esq., Jun.

“SIR — I have an extremely curious autograph letter to sell. The price is a five-hundred-pound note. The young lady to whom you are to be married on Wednesday will inform you of the nature of the letter, and the genuineness of the autograph. If you refuse to deal, I shall send a copy to the local paper, and shall wait on your highly-respected father with the original curiosity, on the afternoon of Tuesday next. Having come down here on family business, I have put up at the family hotel — being to be heard of at the Gatliffe Arms. Your very obedient servant, ALFRED DAVAGER.”

“A clever fellow that,” says I, putting the letter into my private drawer.

“Clever!” cries Mr. Frank, “he ought to be horsewhipped within an inch of his life. I would have done it myself; but she made me promise, before she told me a word of the matter, to come straight to you.”

“That was one of the wisest promises you ever made,” says I. “We can’t afford to bully this fellow, whatever else we may do with him. Do you think I am saying anything libelous against your excellent father’s character when I assert that if he saw the letter he would certainly insist on your marriage being put off, at the very least?”

“Feeling as my father does about my marriage, he would insist on its being dropped altogether, if he saw this letter,” says Mr. Frank, with a groan. “But even that is not the worst of it. The generous, noble girl herself says that if the letter appears in the paper, with all the unanswerable comments this scoundrel would be sure to add to it, she would rather die than hold me to my engagement, even if my father would let me keep it.”

As he said this his eyes began to water. He was a weak young fellow, and ridiculously fond of her. I brought him back to business with another rap of the paper-knife.

“Hold up, Mr. Frank,” says I. “I have a question or two more. Did you think of asking the young lady whether, to the best of her knowledge, this infernal letter was the only written evidence of the forgery now in existence?”

“Yes, I did think directly of asking her that,” says he; “and she told me she was quite certain that there was no written evidence of the forgery except that one letter.”

“Will you give Mr. Davager his price for it?” says I.

“Yes,” says Mr. Frank, quite peevish with me for asking him such a question. He was an easy young chap in money matters, and talked of hundreds as most men talk of sixpences.

“Mr. Frank,” says I, “you came here to get my help and advice in this extremely ticklish business, and you are ready, as I know without asking, to remunerate me for all and any of my services at the usual professional rate. Now, I’ve made up my mind to act boldly — desperately, if you like — on the hit or miss, win all or lose all principle — in dealing with this matter. Here is my proposal. I’m going to try if I can’t do Mr. Davager out of his letter. If I don’t succeed before to-morrow afternoon, you hand him the money, and I charge you nothing for professional services. If I do succeed, I hand you the letter instead of Mr. Davager, and you give me the money instead of giving it to him. It’s a precious risk for me, but I’m ready to run it. You must pay your five hundred any way. What do you say to my plan? Is it Yes, Mr. Frank, or No?”

“Hang your questions!” cries Mr. Frank, jumping up; “you know it’s Yes ten thousand times over. Only you earn the money and — ”

“And you will be too glad to give it to me. Very good. Now go home. Comfort the young lady — don’t let Mr. Davager so much as set eyes on you — keep quiet — leave everything to me — and feel as certain as you please that all the letters in the world can’t stop your being married on Wednesday.” With these words I hustled him off out of the office, for I wanted to be left alone to make my mind up about what I should do.

The first thing, of course, was to have a look at the enemy. I wrote to Mr. Davager, telling him that I was privately appointed to arrange the little business matter between himself and “another party” (no names!) on friendly terms; and begging him to call on me at his earliest convenience. At the very beginning of the case, Mr. Davager bothered me. His answer was, that it would not be convenient to him to call till between six and seven in the evening. In this way, you see, he contrived to make me lose several precious hours, at a time when minutes almost were of importance. I had nothing for it but to be patient, and to give certain instructions, before Mr. Davager came, to my boy Tom.

There never was such a sharp boy of fourteen before, and there never will be again, as my boy Tom. A spy to look after Mr. Davager was, of course, the first requisite in a case of this kind; and Tom was the smallest, quickest, quietest, sharpest, stealthiest little snake of a chap that ever dogged a gentleman’s steps and kept cleverly out of range of a gentleman’s eyes. I settled it with the boy that he was not to show at all when Mr. Davager came; and that he was to wait to hear me ring the bell when Mr. Davager left. If I rang twice, he was to show the gentleman out. If I rang once, he was to keep out of the way, and follow the gentleman whereever he went till he got back to the inn. Those were the only preparations I could make to begin with; being obliged to wait, and let myself be guided by what turned up.

About a quarter to seven my gentleman came.

In the profession of the law we get somehow quite remarkably mixed up with ugly people, blackguard people, and dirty people. But far away the ugliest and dirtiest blackguard I ever saw in my life was Mr. Alfred Davager. He had greasy white hair and a mottled face. He was low in the forehead, fat in the stomach, hoarse in the voice, and weak in the legs. Both his eyes were bloodshot, and one was fixed in his head. He smelled of spirits, and carried a toothpick in his mouth. “How are you? I’ve just done dinner,” says he; and he lights a cigar, sits down with his legs crossed, and winks at me.

I tried at first to take the measure of him in a wheedling, confidential way; but it was no good. I asked him, in a facetious, smiling manner, how he had got hold of the letter. He only told me in answer that he had been in the confidential employment of the writer of it, and that he had always been famous since infancy for a sharp eye to his own interests. I paid him some compliments; but he was not to be flattered. I tried to make him lose his temper; but he kept it in spite of me. It ended in his driving me to my last resource — I made an attempt to frighten him.

“Before we say a word about the money,” I began, “let me put a case, Mr. Davager. The pull you have on Mr. Francis Gatliffe is, that you can hinder his marriage on Wednesday. Now, suppose I have got a magistrate’s warrant to apprehend you in my pocket? Suppose I have a constable to execute it in the next room? Suppose I bring you up to-morrow — the day before the marriage — charge you only generally with an attempt to extort money, and apply for a day’s remand to complete the case? Suppose, as a suspicious stranger, you can’t get bail in this town? Suppose — ”

“Stop a bit,” says Mr. Davager. “Suppose I should not be the greenest fool that ever stood in shoes? Suppose I should not carry the letter about me? Suppose I should have given a certain envelope to a certain friend of mine in a certain place in this town? Suppose the letter should be inside that envelope, directed to old Gatliffe, side by side with a copy of the letter directed to the editor of the local paper? Suppose my friend should be instructed to open the envelope, and take the letters to their right address, if I don’t appear to claim them from him this evening? In short, my dear sir, suppose you were born yesterday, and suppose I wasn’t?” says Mr. Davager, and winks at me again.