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His extravagance almost ruined me when he was a young man; and his ingratitude would have broken my heart, if I had been weak enough to suffer myself to be crushed by it." "Time works changes amongst the worst of us, Mr. Nowell, I daresay your son has improved his habits in all these years and is heartily sorry for the errors of his youth." "Have you seen him, Medler?" the old man asked quickly.
Several weeks had passed since the beginning of John Saltram's illness, and there were no tidings from Mr. Medler. Every day Gilbert had expected some communication from that practitioner, only to be disappointed. He had called twice in Soho, and on both occasions had been received by a shabby-looking clerk, who told him that Mr.
Nowell knew that, once united to him in the bonds of holy matrimony, the accomplice of his fraud would have no power to give evidence against him. The amount which he had contrived to secure to himself by this plot amounted in all to something under four thousand pounds; and out of this it may fairly be supposed that Mr. Medler claimed a considerable percentage.
Medler had pried into everything, the shopman told Percival Nowell; had declared himself empowered to do this, as the legal adviser of the deceased; and had seemed as suspicious as if he, Luke Tulliver, meant to rob his dead master. Mr. Tulliver's sensitive nature had been outraged by such a line of conduct. "And what has he done with the books?" Mr. Nowell asked.
In any case, I shall try some one else. Do you know anything of the detective force?" Mr. Medler assumed an air of consideration, and then said, "No, he did not know the name of a single detective; his business did not bring him in contact with that class of people."
Medler," Gilbert began, seating himself opposite the shabby-looking office-table, with its covering of dusty faded baize, upon which there seemed to be always precisely the same array of papers in little bundles tied with red tape; "but first let me ask you a question: Have you heard from Mrs. Holbrook?" "Not a line."
The old man had been buried at Kensalgreen, followed to the grave only by the devoted Tulliver, Mr. Medler, and the local surgeon who had attended him in his last illness. He had lived a lonely friendless life, holding himself aloof from his fellow-creatures; and there were neither neighbours nor friends to lament his ending.
"Of course, if she has children, you'd like the money to go to them," said Mr. Medler, the attorney; "that's clear enough, and had better be set out in your will. But suppose she should have no children, you'd scarcely like all you leave to go to her husband, who is quite a stranger to you, and who may be a scoundrel for aught you know."
Medler had been a tacit accomplice in Percival Nowell's fraud; or, at any rate, that he had enabled the pretended Mrs. Holbrook to obtain a large sum of ready money with greater ease than she could have done had he, as executor, been scrupulously careful to obtain her identification from some more trustworthy person than he knew Percival Nowell to be.
The court had been inclined to think that Luke Tulliver would come into all his master's money; and opinion inclined that way even yet, seeing that Mr. Tulliver still held his ground in the shop, and that no strangers had been seen to enter the place since the funeral. From Queen Anne's Court Gilbert Fenton went on to the gloomy street where Mr. Medler had his office and abode.
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