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Updated: July 31, 2024
The circumstances are these: Alfred Hartridge was the elder of two brothers, of whom the younger, Charles, died before his father, leaving a widow and three children. Fifteen years ago the father died, leaving the whole of his property to Alfred, with the understanding that he should support his brother's family and make the children his heirs." "Was there no will?" asked Thorndyke.
"The murdered man was my brother-in-law, Alfred Hartridge, and I am sorry to say he was well, he was a bad man. It grieves me to speak of him thus de mortuis, you know but, still, we must deal with the facts, even though they be painful." "Undoubtedly," agreed Thorndyke.
The man gave me the note and asked me to give it to Mr. Hartridge; then he went away, and I took the note up and dropped it into the letter-box." "What happened next?" "Why, the very next day an old hag of an Italian woman one of them fortune-telling swines with a cage of birds on a stand came and set up just by the main doorway.
The pause, naturally spaced, which fell between Hartridge's 'bout-faced concession and Marr's reply, was not unduly lengthened, yet in that flash of time Marr had analyzed the puzzle of the situation and had found the answer to it. "Bully, Hartridge!" he exclaimed. "You'll never regret it. Our man ought to be here any minute now.... By Jove!
Now, Leonard Wolfe and the deceased, Alfred Hartridge, entered into an agreement, the terms of which were these: Wolfe was to marry Hester Greene, and in consideration of this service Alfred Hartridge was to assign to Wolfe the whole of his property, absolutely, the actual transfer to take place on the death of Hartridge." "And has this transaction been completed?" asked Thorndyke.
"This was in his breast-pocket," said he, laying the bulging case on the table, and drawing up a chair. "Now, here are three letters tied together. Ah! this will be the one." He untied the tape, and held out a dirty envelope addressed in a sprawling, illiterate hand to "Mr. Hartridge, Esq." "Is that the note the Italian gave you?" The porter examined it critically.
"Tell us about those Italians again," he said, addressing the porter. "When did the first of them come here?" "About a week ago," was the reply. "He was a common-looking man looked like an organ-grinder and he brought a note to my lodge. It was in a dirty envelope, and was addressed 'Mr. Hartridge, Esq., Brackenhurst Mansions, in a very bad handwriting.
Only, strictly speaking, it would not be a venture at all, but a moral certainty, a cinch, the surest of all sure things. Guaranties against mischance entailing loss would be provided; he could promise his friend Hartridge that; and the telegraph manager, when he came shortly, would add further proof. The question then was: Would Hartridge join him as a partner?
Hartridge coming to claim his dance gave me an opportunity to escape with such remnants of dignity as I could gather about me. He dawdled up, his thumbs, as usual, in his waistcoat pockets. 'I believe, Miss Lindon, this is our dance. She acknowledged it with a bow, and rose to take his arm. I got up, and left her, without a word. As I crossed the hall I chanced on Percy Woodville.
So they sat and smoked, and pretty soon, the occasion and the conditions and the time being ripe, Marr outlined to his new friend Hartridge, on pledge of secrecy, a wonderfully safe and wonderfully simple plan for taking its ill-gotten money away from a Tenderloin pool room. Swiftly he sketched in the details; the opportunity, he divulged in strict confidence, had just come to him.
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