University of Virginia Library

31. CHAPTER XXXI.
MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY CONSULTS WITH JACOB PENHALLOW,
ESQUIRE.

LAWYER PENHALLOW was seated in his study,
his day's work over, his feet in slippers, after the
comfortable but inelegant fashion which Sir Walter Scott
reprobates, amusing himself with a volume of old Reports.
He was a knowing man enough, a keen country lawyer,
but honest, and therefore less ready to suspect the honesty
of others. He had a great belief in his young partner's
ability, and, though he knew him to be astute, did not think
him capable of roguery.

It was at his request that Mr. Bradshaw had undertaken
his journey, which, as he believed, — and as Mr.
Bradshaw had still stronger evidence of a strictly confidential
nature which led him to feel sure, — would end in the
final settlement of the great land claim in favor of their
client. The case had been dragging along from year to
year, like an English chancery suit; and while courts and
lawyers and witnesses had been sleeping, the property had
been steadily growing. A railroad had passed close to
one margin of the township, some mines had been opened
in the county, in which a village calling itself a city had
grown big enough to have a newspaper and Fourth of July
orations. It was plain that the successful issue of the long
process would make the heirs of the late Malachi Withers
possessors of an ample fortune, and it was also plain that
the firm of Penhallow and Bradshaw were like to receive,

in such case, the largest fee that had gladdened the professional
existence of its members.

Mr. Penhallow had his book open before him, but his
thoughts were wandering from the page. He was thinking
of his absent partner, and the probable results of his
expedition. What would be the consequence if all this
property came into the possession of Silence Withers?
Could she have any liberal intentions with reference to
Myrtle Hazard, the young girl who had grown up with
her, or was the common impression true, that she was bent
on endowing an institution, and thus securing for herself a
favorable consideration in the higher courts, where her
beneficiaries would be, it might be supposed, influential advocates?
He could not help thinking that Mr. Bradshaw
believed that Myrtle Hazard would eventually come to a
part at least of this inheritance. For the story was, that
he was paying his court to the young lady whenever he
got an opportunity, and that he was cultivating an intimacy
with Miss Cynthia Badlam. “Bradshaw would n't make
a move in that direction,” Mr. Penhallow said to himself,
“until he felt pretty sure that it was going to be a paying
business. If he was only a young minister now, there 'd
be no difficulty about it. Let any man, young or old, in a
clerical white cravat, step up to Myrtle Hazard, and ask
her to be miserable in his company through this wretched
life, and Aunt Silence would very likely give them her
blessing, and add something to it that the man in the
white cravat would think worth even more than that was.
But I don't know what she 'll say to Bradshaw. Perhaps
he 'd better have a hint to go to meeting a little more
regularly. However, I suppose he knows what he 's
about.”

He was thinking all this over when a visitor was announced,
and Mr. Byles Gridley entered the study.

“Good evening, Mr. Penhallow,” Mr. Gridley said, wiping
his forehead. “Quite warm, is n't it, this evening?”

“Warm!” said Mr. Penhallow, “I should think it
would freeze pretty thick to-night. I should have asked
you to come up to the fire and warm yourself. But take
off your coat, Mr. Gridley, — very glad to see you. You
don't come to the house half as often as you come to the
office. Sit down, sit down.”

Mr. Gridley took off his outside coat and sat down.
“He does look warm, does n't he?” Mr. Penhallow
thought. “Wonder what has heated up the old gentleman
so. Find out quick enough, for he always goes
straight to business.”

“Mr. Penhallow,” Mr. Gridley began at once, “I have
come on a very grave matter, in which you are interested
as well as myself, and I wish to lay the whole of it before
you as explicitly as I can, so that we may settle this night
before I go what is to be done. I am afraid the good standing
of your partner, Mr. William Murray Bradshaw, is
concerned in the matter. Would it be a surprise to you, if
he had carried his acuteness in some particular case like
the one I am to mention beyond the prescribed limits?”

The question was put so diplomatically that there was
no chance for an indignant denial of the possibility of Mr.
Bradshaw's being involved in any discreditable transaction.

“It is possible,” he answered, “that Bradshaw's keen
wits may have betrayed him into sharper practice than I
should altogether approve in any business we carried on
together. He is a very knowing young man, but I can't
think he is foolish enough, to say nothing of his honesty,

to make any false step of the kind you seem to hint. I
think he might on occasion go pretty near the line, but I
don't believe he would cross it.”

“Permit me a few questions, Mr. Penhallow. You settled
the estate of the late Malachi Withers, did you not?”

“Mr. Wibird and myself settled it together.”

“Have you received any papers from any of the family
since the settlement of the estate?”

“Let me see. Yes; a roll of old plans of the Withers
Place, and so forth, — not of much use, but labelled and
kept. An old trunk with letters and account-books, some
of them in Dutch, — mere curiosities. A year ago or
more, I remember that Silence sent me over some papers
she had found in an odd corner, — the old man hid things
like a magpie. I looked over most of them, — trumpery
not worth keeping, — old leases and so forth.”

“Do you recollect giving some of them to Mr. Bradshaw
to look over?”

“Now I come to think of it, I believe I did; but he reported
to me, if I remember right, that they amounted to
nothing.”

“If any of those papers were of importance, should you
think your junior partner ought to keep them from your
knowledge?”

“I need not answer that question, Mr. Gridley. Will
you be so good as to come at once to the facts on which
you found your suspicions, and which lead you to put these
questions to me?”

Thereupon Mr. Gridley proceeded to state succinctly
the singular behavior of Murray Bradshaw in taking one
paper from a number handed to him by Mr. Penhallow,
and concealing it in a volume. He related how he was just

on the point of taking out the volume which contained the
paper, when Mr. Bradshaw entered and disconcerted him.
He had, however, noticed three spots on the paper by
which he should know it anywhere. He then repeated the
substance of Kitty Fagan's story, accenting the fact that
she too noticed three remarkable spots on the paper which
Mr. Bradshaw had pointed out to Miss Badlam as the one
so important to both of them. Here he rested the case for
the moment.

Mr. Penhallow looked thoughtful. There was something
questionable in the aspect of this business. It did
obviously suggest the idea of an underhand arrangement
with Miss Cynthia, possibly involving some very grave
consequences. It would have been most desirable, he said,
to have ascertained what these papers, or rather this particular
paper, to which so much importance was attached,
amounted to. Without that knowledge there was nothing,
after all, which it might not be possible to explain. He
might have laid aside the spotted paper to examine for
some object of mere curiosity. It was certainly odd that
the one the Fagan woman had seen should present three
spots so like those on the other paper, but people did sometimes
throw treys at backgammon, and that which not rarely
happened with two dice of six faces might happen if they
had sixty or six hundred faces. On the whole, he did not
see that there was any ground, so far, for anything more
than a vague suspicion. He thought it not unlikely that
Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the young lady up
at The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic
overtures to the duenna, after the approved method of suitors.
She was young for Bradshaw, — very young, — but
he knew his own affairs. If he chose to make love to a

child, it was natural enough that he should begin by courting
her nurse.

Master Byles Gridley lost himself for half a minute in
a most discreditable inward discussion as to whether Laura
Penhallow was probably one or two years older than Mr.
Bradshaw. That was his way, — he could not help it. He
could not think of anything without these mental parentheses.
But he came back to business at the end of his
half-minute.

“I can lay the package before you at this moment, Mr.
Penhallow. I have induced that woman in whose charge
it was left to intrust it to my keeping, with the express intention
of showing it to you. But it is protected by a seal,
as I have told you, which I should on no account presume
to meddle with.”

Mr. Gridley took out the package of papers.

“How damp it is!” Mr. Penhallow said; “must have
been lying in some very moist neighborhood.”

“Very,” Mr. Gridley answered, with a peculiar expression
which said, “Never mind about that.”

“Did the party give you possession of these documents
without making any effort to retain them?” the lawyer
asked.

“Not precisely. It cost some effort to induce Miss Badlam
to let them go out of her hands. I hope you think I
was justified in making the effort I did, not without a considerable
strain upon my feelings, as well as her own, to get
hold of the papers?”

“That will depend something on what the papers prove
to be, Mr. Gridley. A man takes a certain responsibility
in doing just what you have done. If, for instance, it
should prove that this envelope contained matters relating

solely to private transactions between Mr. Bradshaw and
Miss Badlam, concerning no one but themselves, — and if
the words on the back of the envelope and the seal had
been put there merely as a protection for a package containing
private papers of a delicate but perfectly legitimate
character —”

The lawyer paused, as careful experts do, after bending
the bow of an hypothesis, before letting the arrow go. Mr.
Gridley felt very warm indeed, uncomfortably so, and applied
his handkerchief to his face. Could n't be anything
in such a violent supposition as that, — and yet such a
crafty fellow as that Bradshaw, — what trick was he not
up to? Absurd! Cynthia was not acting, — Rachel
would n't be equal to such a performance! — “why then,
Mr. Gridley,” the lawyer continued, “I don't see but what
my partner would have you at an advantage, and, if disposed
to make you uncomfortable, could do so pretty effectively.
But this, you understand, is only a supposed case,
and not a very likely one. I don't think it would have
been prudent in you to meddle with that seal. But it is a
very different matter with regard to myself. It makes no
difference, so far as I am concerned, where this package
came from, or how it was obtained. It is just as absolutely
within my control as any piece of property I call my own.
I should not hesitate, if I saw fit, to break this seal at once,
and proceed to the examination of any papers contained
within the envelope. If I found any paper of the slightest
importance relating to the estate, I should act as if it had
never been out of my possession.

“Suppose, however, I chose to know what was in the
package, and, having ascertained, act my judgment about
returning it to the party from whom you obtained it. In

such case I might see fit to restore, or cause it to be restored,
to the party, without any marks of violence having been
used being apparent. If everything is not right, probably
no questions would be asked by the party having charge of
the package. If there is no underhand work going on, and
the papers are what they profess to be, nobody is compromised
but yourself, so far as I can see, and you are compromised
at any rate, Mr. Gridley, at least in the good
graces of the party from whom you obtained the documents.
Tell that party that I took the package without
opening it, and shall return it, very likely, without breaking
the seal. Will consider of the matter, say a couple of
days. Then you shall hear from me, and she shall hear
from you. So. So. Yes, that 's it. A nice business.
A thing to sleep on. You had better leave the whole matter
of dealing with the package to me. If I see fit to send
it back with the seal unbroken, that is my affair. But
keep perfectly quiet, if you please, Mr. Gridley, about the
whole matter. Mr. Bradshaw is off, as you know, and the
business on which he is gone is important, — very important.
He can be depended on for that; he has acted all
along as if he had a personal interest in the success of our
firm beyond his legal relation to it.”

Mr. Penhallow's light burned very late in the office that
night, and the following one. He looked troubled and
absent-minded, and, when Miss Laura ventured to ask him
how long Mr. Bradshaw was like to be gone, answered her
in such a way that the girl who waited at table concluded
that he did n't mean to have Miss Laury keep company
with Mr. Bradshaw, or he 'd never have spoke so dreadful
hash to her when she ahst about him.