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Updated: April 30, 2025
"How long was it after you saw the signing of those papers that the accident occurred?" asked Collingwood. "It 'ud be twelve or fifteen minutes, as near as I can recollect," replied Cobcroft. "A few minutes after I'd left the private office, Gaukrodger came out of it, alone, and stood at the door leading into the yard, looking up at the chimney.
Eldrick was already waiting when Collingwood reached his chambers: Byner came there a few moments later. Within half an hour the barrister had told his story of Cobcroft, and the inquiry agent his of his visit to the Green Man and the quarries. And the solicitor listened quietly and attentively to both, and in the end turned to Collingwood.
And of course, the young people, the nephew and niece, they came in for everything so there was an end of it. But I've oft wondered what those papers were. One thing is certain, anyway!" concluded Cobcroft, with a grim laugh, "when those three signed 'em, they were picking up their pens for the last time!"
"Your wife tells me," observed Collingwood, "that you were present when the old chimney fell at the mill yonder?" Cobcroft, a quiet, unassuming man, usually of few words, looked along the hillside at the new chimney, and nodded his head. A curious, far-away look came into his eyes. "I was, sir!" he said. "And I hope I may never see aught o' that sort again, as long as ever I live.
"It would naturally fix itself on your memory." "Aye my memory's very keen about it," said Cobcroft. "I remember every detail of that morning. And," he continued, showing a desire to become reminiscent, "there was something happened that morning, before the accident, that I've oft thought over and has oft puzzled me.
Cobcroft, who, having no children of her own, had adopted a niece, now grown up, and a teacher in an adjacent elementary school: there was a strapping, rosy-cheeked servant-maid, whose dialect was too broad for the lodger to understand more than a few words of it; finally there was Mr.
First: what Cobcroft had seen signed was John Mallathorpe's will. Second: John Mallathorpe had made it himself and had taken the unusual course of making a duplicate copy. Third: John Mallathorpe had probably slipped the copy into the History of Barford which was in his private office when he went out to speak to the steeple-jack.
But I was close at hand our office was filled with the dust in a few seconds." "It was a sudden affair?" asked Collingwood. "It was one of those affairs," answered Cobcroft slowly, "that some folk had been expecting for a long time only nobody had the sense to see that it might happen at some unexpected minute. It was a very old chimney. It looked all right stood plumb, and all that. But Mr.
And he had asked Mrs. Cobcroft, just then in his sitting-room, if her husband was fond of gardening. "It's a nice change for him, sir," answered the landlady. "He's kept pretty close at it all day in the office yonder at Mallathorpe's Mill, and it does him good to get a bit o' fresh air at nights, now that the fine weather's coming on.
"Aye and Gaukrodger, and Marshall, and the steeplejack that had just come down, and another or two," said Cobcroft. "They'd no chance they were standing in a group at the very foot, talking. They were all killed there and then instantaneous. Some others were struck and injured one or two died. Yes, sir, I'm not very like to forget that!" "A terrible experience!" agreed Collingwood.
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