The Mynns' Mystery

“Which he possesses, too,” said the lawyer gravely.

“What! Oh, there must be an end to this. He claims to be George Harrington. I, George Harrington, say that he is a liar and impostor. Now, then, I am ready to confront him. Where is this man?”

There was a dead silence in the room.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Mr Hampton is Uneasy

Mr Hampton was the first to break the silence.

“Mr George Harrington is at present absent from home.”

“I beg your pardon,” was the retort, in firm, convincing tones; “Mr George Harrington is here present, and eager to be confronted with this man.”

“As soon as he returns, sir, you and he will doubtless meet; and, as a matter of course, I presume you will lay claim to the estate?”

“I am not thinking of the estate now, sir. I want to meet this man – I want to be brought face to face with him. I’ll soon bring him to his knees, and make him confess. The villain! – the murderous wretch! I – I beg pardon, ladies. You do not know the truth. This man, Dan Portway, struck me down, and, believing me dead, has imposed upon you all.”

“There! I knew it all the time,” cried Mrs Hampton emphatically.

“My dear Rachel!”

“Oh, don’t talk to me, Phineas. I knew he couldn’t be our George Harrington. A nasty, low-minded, drinking wretch, whose presence I would not have tolerated for a minute if it had not been for Gertrude here. I knew it all the time; something seemed to say to me, as soon as I set eyes upon him, ‘This man is a cheat.’”

“My dear madam,” cried their visitor, smiling, “now you have set eyes on me I hope there is no such whisper to your inner self.”

“Indeed there is not, sir.”

“My dear Rachel?” cried the lawyer firmly, “this is extremely indiscreet. We are face to face with a very great difficulty.”

“No difficulty at all. Wait till the wretched man comes back, and then send him about his business.”

“You are talking like an inconsistent child, Rachel,” said the lawyer sternly. “Mr George Harrington – ”

“The assumed Mr George Harrington,” interposed the new-comer.

“I beg your pardon, sir; until we have the most incontrovertible proofs of the truth of what you advance, this is Mr George Harrington to us; and you seem to forget the old adage: ‘Possession is nine points of the law.’”

“Oh, no, I do not,” said the young man quickly; “and I do not forget that, little as I know of the law, I have you and the other executor to call to account for improperly disposing of my estate.”

With a wholesome horror of the legal tedium of the profession to which he belonged, and startled at the prospect a lawsuit opened out, the old man sank back in his chair, and, for the moment completely taken aback, stared at his verbal assailant.

“Pray do not misjudge Mr Hampton,” said Gertrude coming to his help. “He was my grandfather’s most trusted friend, and he has acted throughout with the strictest impartiality. If he has been mistaken – which we do not know yet,” she said, colouring deeply beneath the young man’s admiring gaze, “he will, I am sure, do everything that is right.”

“I am sure he will, quite sure.”

“This is a terrible position in which we are all placed,” continued Gertrude, with quiet, matter-of-fact courtesy.

“Yes, a very terrible position, my dear,” said the old lawyer, full of gratitude for the way in which she had come to his help when, to his annoyance, he had been completely nonplussed; “and this gentleman must do nothing rash.”

“Will it be rash to seize this scoundrel, and break his neck?”

“Certainly, sir,” said the old man, with the comic gravity of one who takes everything as the French say, au pied de la lettre. “You are in England now and not in the Far West, where your most famous Justice is Judge Lynch.”

“I wish he had hold of this man.”

“Yes, exactly, my dear sir; but listen to simple, matter-of-fact reason. You see, of course, how the executors are placed.”

“Oh, yes, I see,” said the young man, who was watching Gertrude all the time.

“Prove your position then, my dear sir, and rely upon it you shall have justice.”

“Am I to understand by these words that the executors will offer no opposition?”

“I am sorry to say, sir, that the executors are powerless. They have, as they believed, done their duty conscientiously and well. Your actions for the moment, it seems to me, will be two. One for ejectment against Mr George Harrington.”

“Against the impostor, sir.”

The lawyer made a deprecatory motion.

“The other against the unfortunate executors. Perhaps I am wrong, but all this is so sudden that I must confess to being a little off my regular balance.”

“Look here, sir,” cried the young man bluffly. “I have passed my life among tough, lawless men; but there are plenty out West who are true, rough nature’s gentlemen. My father was one of these, and I’ve tried to follow out his teachings. I suppose I shall have to do what you say – go to law; but if it is made plain to me that you and your fellow executor have done your duty as gentlemen, and have unwittingly been imposed upon, why I’d sooner give up everything than come down upon you.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you,” said the old man in a low tone; “thank you for myself and for Doctor Lawrence.”

“Doctor Lawrence!” cried the young man with animation; “ah, I know him by name.”

“And I say thank you, too, Mr George Harrington,” began Mrs Hampton.

“My dear Rachel,” said the old lawyer reprovingly, “you are making an admission.”

“Of course I am. I said Mr George Harrington, because I believe firmly that we have been imposed upon. I am glad to see you back again, George,” she continued, holding out her hand; “and you may depend upon having my help. There, there, there, Phineas, don’t look at me like that,” she continued, as the young man grasped her hand. “You feel the same as I do in your human heart, though you cannot in your legal mind. My making an admission does not injure your position behind your books. I say we have been tricked, and the sooner we repent in sackcloth and ashes the better.”

“Come,” cried the young man, “here’s sunshine through the clouds. I have your support, madam, and that of our dear old granny here.”

“Yes, yes,” said the old housekeeper, who had wept herself nearly blind, and quite dry. “It’s him, Mr Hampton. Oh, I’m sure it’s him.”

“That’s right, old lady; and now I want to enlist another’s sympathy in my cause. Miss Bellwood – Gertrude – I came here to-night to claim my heritage, and to see the lady who would, in all probability, be my wife. You will shake hands?”

He held out his brown, sinewy hand and gazed in the troubled eyes before his, as the poor girl stood trembling by Mrs Hampton’s side, while the rest looked on curiously.

For one moment she shrank and hesitated, then, as if unable to resist the influence of the eyes which held hers, she slowly raised her hand, to have it clenched with a firm, strong pressure, before it was raised to the holder’s lips to be reverently kissed and then let fall.

“This is really very much out of order,” said Mr

Hampton querulously. “I ought not to sit here and – ”