Page:The Talleyrand maxim, by J.S. Fletcher (IA talleyrandmaximb00flet).pdf/18

 after a fit of coughing. "It gets on my lungs, and then it makes my heart bad. Mr. Eldrick in?"

"Gone," replied Pratt. "All gone, Mr. Bartle—only me here."

"You'll do," answered the old bookseller. "You're as good as they are." He leaned forward from the easy chair, and tapped the clerk's arm with a long, claw-like finger. "I say," he continued, with a smile that was something between a wink and a leer, and suggestive of a pleased satisfaction. "I've had a find!"

"Oh!" responded Pratt. "One of your rare books, Mr. Bartle? Got something for twopence that you'll sell for ten guineas? You're one of the lucky ones, you know, you are!"

"Nothing of the sort!" chuckled Bartle. "And I had to pay for my knowledge, young man, before I got it— we all have. No—but I've found something: not half an hour ago. Came straight here with it. Matters for lawyers, of course."

"Yes?" said Pratt inquiringly. "And—what may it be?" He was expecting the visitor to produce something, but the old man again leaned forward, and dug his finger once more into the clerk's sleeve.

"I say!" he whispered. "You remember John Mallathorpe and the affair of—how long is it since?"

"Two years," answered Pratt promptly. "Of course I do. Couldn't very well forget it, or him."

He let his mind go back for the moment to an affair which had provided Barford and the neighbourhood with a nine days' sensation. One winter morning, just two years previously, Mr. John Mallathorpe, one of the