United States or Lesotho ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
What does it look like but that he's an impostor, who's just made all he can out of the property while he'd the chance, and is now away to enjoy his ill-gotten gains? That's what I'm saying, Portlethorpe and I insist on my common-sense view of it!" "And I say it's just as common-sense to insist, as I do, that it's all capable of proper and reasonable explanation!" retorted Mr. Portlethorpe.
Portlethorpe with evident surprise it may have been that there was mystery in their countenances. I know that I, on my part, felt as if a purblind man might have seen that I was clothed about with mystery from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot! And he appeared still more surprised when Mr. Lindsey, briefly, but fully, explained why we had called upon him.
That's one thing I have against him whatever you say, it was very suspicious conduct; and he lied about it, in saying he had not been here, when he certainly had been here! But that's far from all. The real Gilbert Carstairs, Mr. Lindsey, as Mr. Portlethorpe knows, lived at Hathercleugh House until he was twenty-two years old.
I had not seen Maisie since she and my mother had left Mr. Lindsey and me at Dundee I had been so fully engaged since then, what with the police, and Mrs. Ralston, and Mr. Portlethorpe, and the hurried journeys, first to Newcastle and then to Edinburgh, that I had never had a minute to run down and see how things were going on.
"I never heard of these sales of land," remarked Mr. Lindsey. "Oh, they've all been sold by private treaty," replied Mr. Portlethorpe. "The Carstairs property was in parcels, here and there the last two baronets before this one had bought considerably in other parts. It was all valuable there was no difficulty in selling to adjacent owners."
I'm inclined to think you may have some right in your notions. We must " But before Mr. Portlethorpe could say what they must do, there was a diversion in our proceedings which took all interest in them clean away from me, and made me forget whatever mystery there was about Carstairs, Smeaton, or anybody else.
Portlethorpe, with a chuckle. "Deeply so. Well, that's how things were until about a year before old Sir Alexander died which, as you know, is fourteen months since. As I say, about six years before his death, formal notice came of the death of Michael Carstairs, who, of course, was next in succession to the title.
And she looked over the two solicitors as if they were candidates for examination, and she the examiner. "I have been to the police, to find out what all this talk is about Sir Gilbert Carstairs," she began at once. "They tell me you know more than they do, Mr. Lindsey. Well, what have you to say? And what have you to say, Mr. Portlethorpe? You ought to know more than anybody.
But, clever as he is, he has more than once given me grounds for suspicion. And I tell you plainly, Mr. Portlethorpe, that since he has been selling property to the extent you report, you ought, at this juncture, and as things are, to find out how money matters stand. He must have realized vast amounts in cash! Where is it!" "At his bankers' in Newcastle, my dear madam!" replied Mr. Portlethorpe.
An impostor! not the real man? The idea was amazing and Mr. Portlethorpe found it amazing, too, and he seconded my exclamation with another, and emphasized it with an incredulous laugh. "My dear madam!" he said deprecatingly. "Really! That's impossible!" But Mr. Lindsey, calmer than ever, nodded his head confidently. "I'm absolutely of Mrs. Ralston's opinion," he declared.
Word Of The Day