United States or Marshall Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The only person to profit from such an event would be Percival Nowell; but he was far away, Gilbert believed, and completely ignorant of his reversionary interest in his father's property. There was Medler the attorney, a man whom Gilbert had distrusted from the first. It was just possible that the letter had been from him; yet most improbable that he should have asked Mrs.
Medler replied, with the air of a man who would fain have withheld the information; "he has left it for her own separate use and maintenance." "And it is a property of some importance, I conclude?" "Of some importance yes," the lawyer answered, in the same tone. "Ought not Mrs. Holbrook to have remained to hear the reading of the will?"
"To say nothing of the possibility of her dying without children, and your coming into the property after all," said Mr. Medler, wondering a little at Mr. Nowell's philosophical manner of looking at the question. "Sir," exclaimed Percival indignantly, "do you imagine me capable of speculating upon the untimely death of my only child?" The lawyer shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
Medler sat in his parlour, like the proverbial spider waiting for the advent of some too-confiding fly. The lawyer was at home, and seemed in no way surprised to see Mr. Fenton. "I have come to you about a bad business, Mr.
Medler was to take his clerk with him to Queen Anne's Court, to act as one of the witnesses. He had obtained one other triumph in the course of the discussion, which was the insertion of his own name as executor in place of Gilbert Fenton, against whom he raised so many specious arguments as to shake the old man's faith in Marian's jilted lover.
It was a great thing to know that Marian was safe; but he would have wished her in the keeping of any one rather than of him whom the world would have called her natural protector. Nor was his opinion of Mr. Medler by any means an exalted one.
It had been posted three days before Marian left the Grange. Gilbert now proceeded to inform Mr. Medler of his client's mysterious disappearance, and all the useless efforts that had been made to solve the mystery. The lawyer listened with an appearance of profound interest and astonishment, but made no remark till the story was quite finished. "You are right, Mr. Fenton," he said at last.
It seemed to Gilbert that he could do nothing at present, except write to Marian, telling her of his interview with the lawyer, and advising her to lose no time in placing the conduct of her affairs in more respectable hands than those of Mr. Medler. He mentioned his own solicitors, a City firm of high standing, as gentlemen whom she might wisely trust at this crisis of her life.
Fenton's name announced by the slipshod maid-of-all-work who had admitted the late visitor, Mr. Medler's solitary clerk having departed to his own dwelling some hours before. "I must ask you to excuse this untimely call, Mr. Medler," Gilbert said politely; "but the fact of the matter is, I am a little anxious about my friend Mrs.
"My suspicions do not go quite so far as that," said Gilbert. "God forbid that it should be so. I have a firm belief that Marian Holbrook lives. But it is possible to get a person out of the way without the last worst crime of which mankind is capable." "It would seem more natural to suspect the husband than the father, I should imagine," Mr. Medler answered, after a thoughtful pause.
Word Of The Day