FullReads

“There are too many things to explain,” Mr. Locket went on, “and the singular provenance of your papers would count almost overwhelmingly against them even if the other objections were met. There would be a perfect and probably a very complicated pedigree to trace. How did they get into your davenport, as you call it, and how long had they been there? What hands secreted them? what hands had, so incredibly, clung to them and preserved them? Who are the persons mentioned in them? who are the correspondents, the parties to the nefarious transactions? You say the transactions appear to be of two distinct kinds–some of them connected with public business and others involving obscure personal relations.”

“They all have this in common,” said Peter Baron, “that they constitute evidence of uneasiness, in some instances of painful alarm, on the writer’s part, in relation to exposure–the exposure in the one case, as I gather, of the fact that he had availed himself of official opportunities to promote enterprises (public works and that sort of thing) in which he had a pecuniary stake. The dread of the light in the other connection is evidently different, and these letters are the earliest in date. They are addressed to a woman, from whom he had evidently received money.”

Mr. Locket wiped his glasses. “What woman?”

“I haven’t the least idea. There are lots of questions I can’t answer, of course; lots of identities I can’t establish; lots of gaps I can’t fill. But as to two points I’m clear, and they are the essential ones. In the first place the papers in my possession are genuine; in the second place they’re compromising.”

With this Peter Baron rose again, rather vexed with himself for having been led on to advertise his treasure (it was his interlocutor’s perfectly natural scepticism that produced this effect), for he felt that he was putting himself in a false position. He detected in Mr. Locket’s studied detachment the fermentation of impulses from which, unsuccessful as he was, he himself prayed to be delivered.

Mr. Locket remained seated; he watched Baron go across the room for his hat and umbrella. “Of course, the question would come up of whose property today such documents would legally he. There are heirs, descendants, executors to consider.”

“In some degree perhaps; hut I’ve gone into that a little. Sir Dominick Ferrand had no children, and he left no brothers and no sisters. His wife survived him, but she died ten years ago. He can have had no heirs and no executors to speak of, for he left no property.”

”That’s to his honour and against your theory,” said Mr. Locket.

“I HAVE no theory. He left a largeish mass of debt,” Peter Baron added. At this Mr. Locket got up, while his visitor pursued: “So far as I can ascertain, though of course my inquiries have had to be very rapid and superficial, there is no one now living, directly or indirectly related to the personage in question, who would be likely to suffer from any steps in the direction of publicity. It happens to be a rare instance of a life that had, as it were, no loose ends. At least there are none perceptible at present.”

“I see, I see,” said Mr. Locket. “But I don’t think I should care much for your article.”

“What article?”

“The one you seem to wish to write, embodying this new matter.”

“Oh, I don’t wish to write it!” Peter exclaimed. And then he bade his host good-by.

“Good-by,” said Mr. Locket. “Mind you, I don’t say that I think there’s nothing in it.”

“You would think there was something in it if you were to see my documents.”

“I should like to see the secret compartment,”

the caustic editor rejoined. “Copy me out some extracts.”

“To what end, if there’s no question of their being of use to you?”