Jim sprang to his feet and gripped the old man’s hand. “And if the law cannot touch him,” he said, “I will make a law of these two hands and strangle the life out of him.”
Mr. Salter looked at him admiringly, but a little amused. “In which case, my dear Steele,” he said dryly, “the law will take you in her two hands and strangle the life out of you, and it doesn’t seem worth while, when a few little pieces of paper will probably bring about as effective a result as your wilful murder of this damnable scoundrel.”
Immediately Jim began his inquiries. To his surprise he learnt that the party had actually been driven to Victoria Station. It consisted of Eunice and old Mrs. Groat. Moreover, two tickets for Paris had been taken by Digby and two seats reserved in the Pullman. It was through these Pullman reservations that the names of Eunice and the old woman were easy to trace, as Digby Groat intended they should be.
Whether they had left by the train, he could not discover.
He returned to the lawyer and reported progress.
“The fact that Jane Groat has gone does not prove that our client has also gone,” said the lawyer sensibly.
“Our client?” said Jim, puzzled.
“Our client,” repeated Septimus Salter with a smile. “Do not forget that Miss Danton is our client, and until she authorizes me to hand her interests elsewhere—”
“Mr. Salter,” interrupted Jim, “when was the Danton estate handed over to Bennetts?”
“This morning,” was the staggering reply, though Mr. Salter did not seem particularly depressed.
“Good heavens,” gasped Jim, “then the estate is in Digby Groat’s hands?”
The lawyer nodded.
“For a while,” he said, “but don’t let that worry you at all. You get along with your search. Have you heard from Lady Mary?”
“Who, sir?” said Jim, again staggered.
“Lady Mary Danton,” said the lawyer, enjoying his surprise. “Your mysterious woman in black. Obviously it was Lady Mary. I never had any doubt of it, but when I learnt about the Blue Hand, I was certain. You see, my boy,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “I have been making a few inquiries in a direction which you have neglected.”
“What does the Blue Hand mean?” asked Jim.
“Lady Mary will tell you one of these days, and until she does, I do not feel at liberty to take you into my confidence. Have you ever been to a dyer’s, Steele?”
“A dyer’s, sir; yes, I’ve been to a dye-works, if that is what you mean.”
“Have you ever seen the hands of the women who use indigo?”
“Do you suggest that when she disappeared she went to a dye-works?” said Jim incredulously.
“She will tell you,” replied the lawyer, and with that he had to be content.
The work was now too serious and the strings were too widely distributed to carry on alone. Salter enlisted the services of two ex-officers of the Metropolitan Police who had established a detective agency, and at a conference that afternoon the whole of the story, as far as it was known, was revealed to Jim’s new helpers, ex-Inspector Holder and ex-Sergeant Field.
That afternoon Digby Groat, looking impatiently out of the window, saw a bearded man strolling casually along the garden side of the square, a pipe in his mouth, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of nature and the architectural beauty of Grosvenor Square. He did not pay as much attention to the lounger as he might have done, had not his scrutiny been interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Bennett, an angular, sandy-haired Scotsman, who was not particularly enamoured of his new employer.
“Well, Mr. Bennett, has old Salter handed over all the documents?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bennett, “every one.”
“You are sure he has not been up to any trickery?”
Mr. Bennett regarded him coldly.
“Mr. Septimus Salter, sir,” he said quietly, “is an eminent lawyer, whose name is respected wherever it is mentioned. Great lawyers do not indulge in trickery.”
“Well, you needn’t get offended. Good Lord, you don’t suppose he feels friendly towards you, do you?”
“What he feels to me, sir,” said Mr. Bennett, his strong northern accent betraying his annoyance, “is a matter of complete indifference. It is what I think of him that we are discussing. The leases of the Lakeside Property have been prepared for transfer. You are not losing much time, Mr. Groat.”
“No,” said Digby, after a moment’s thought. “The fact is, the people in the syndicate which is purchasing this property are very anxious to take possession. What is the earliest you can transfer?”
“Tomorrow,” was the reply. “I suppose “—he hesitated—“I suppose there is no question of the original heiress of the will—Dorothy Danton, I think her name is—turning up unexpectedly at the last moment?”
Digby smiled.
“Dorothy Danton, as you call her, has been food for the fishes these twenty years,” he said. “Don’t you worry your head about her.”
“Very good,” said Bennett, producing a number of papers from a black leather portfolio. “Your signature will be required on four of these, and the signature of your mother on the fifth.”
Digby frowned.
“My mother? I thought it was unnecessary that she should sign anything. I have her Power of Attorney.”
“Unfortunately the Power of Attorney is not sufficiently comprehensive to allow you to sign away certain royalty rights which descended to her through her father. They are not very valuable,” said the lawyer, “but they give her lien upon Kennett Hall, and in these circumstances, I think you had better not depend upon the Power of Attorney in case there is any dispute. Mr. Salter is a very shrewd man, and when the particulars of this transaction are brought to his notice, I think it is very likely that, feeling his responsibility as Mr. Danton’s late lawyer, he will enter a caveat.”
“What is a caveat?”
“Literally,” said Mr. Bennett, “a caveat emptor means ‘let the purchaser beware,’ and if a caveat is entered, your syndicate would not dare take the risk of paying you for the property, even though the caveat had no effect upon the estate which were transferred by virtue of your Power of Attorney.”
Digby tugged at his little moustache and stared out of the window for a long time.
“All right, I’ll get her signature.”
“She is in Paris, I understand.”
Digby shot a quick glance at him.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“I had to call at Mr. Salter’s office to-day,” he said, “to verify and agree to the list of securities which he handed me, and he mentioned the matter in passing.”
Digby growled something under his breath.
“Is it necessary that you should see Salter at all?” he asked with asperity.
“It is necessary that I should conduct my own business in my own way,” said Mr. Bennett with that acid smile of his.
Digby shot an angry glance at him and resolved that as soon as the business was completed, he would have little use for this uncompromising Scotsman. He hated the law and he hated lawyers, and he had been under the impression that Messrs. Bennett would be so overwhelmed with joy at the prospect of administering his estate that they would agree to any suggestion he made. He had yet to learn that the complacent lawyer is a figure of fiction, and if he is found at all, it is in the character of the seedy broken-down old solicitor who hangs about Police Courts and who interviews his clients in the bar parlour of the nearest public-house.
“Very good,” he said, “give me the paper. I will get her to sign it.”
“Will you go to Paris?”
“Yes,” said Digby. “I’ll send it across by—er—aeroplane.”