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Updated: April 30, 2025
He had not only thought long and deeply over his conversation with Cobcroft the previous evening, but had begun to think about the crucial point of the clerk's story as soon as he spoke in the morning, and the result of his meditations was that he rose early, intercepted Cobcroft before he started for Mallathorpe's Mill and asked his permission to re-tell the story to Miss Mallathorpe.
Cobcroft, a mild-mannered, quiet man who disappeared early in the morning, and was sometimes seen by Collingwood returning home in the evening. Lately, with the advancing spring, this unobtrusive individual was seen about the garden at the end of the day: Collingwood had so seen him on the evening before the talk with Eldrick and Byner, busied in setting seeds in the flower-beds.
One of 'em had only just come down when the chimney fell. Mr. Mallathorpe, himself, and his manager, and his cashier, had just stepped out of the counting-house and crossed the yard to hear what this man had got to say when down it came! Not the slightest warning at the time. It just collapsed!" "You saw the actual collapse?" asked Collingwood. "Aye didn't I?" exclaimed Cobcroft.
But for purposes of his own he determined to have a talk with Cobcroft, and the next evening, seeing him in his garden again, he went out to him and got into conversation, and eventually led up to the subject of Mallathorpe's Mill, the new chimney of which could be seen from a corner of the garden.
Cobcroft raised no objection, and when Collingwood had been to his chambers and seen his letters, he chartered a car and rode out to Normandale where he told Nesta of what he had learned and of his own conclusions. And Nesta, having listened carefully to all he had to tell, put a direct question to him. "You think this document which Pratt told me he holds is my late uncle's will?" she said.
"You've some idea in your mind about that," said Collingwood, who had watched Cobcroft closely as he talked. "What is it?" Cobcroft smiled and looked round as if to ascertain that they were alone. "Why!" he answered in a low voice. "I'll tell you what I did wonder some time afterwards. I dare say you're aware it was all in the papers that Mr. John Mallathorpe died intestate?"
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