Squercum sat at a desk, covered with papers in chaotic confusion, on a chair which moved on a pivot. His desk was against the wall, and when clients came to him, he turned himself sharp round, sticking out his dirty shoes, throwing himself back till his body was an inclined plane, with his hands thrust into his pockets. In this attitude he would listen to his client's story, and would himself speak as little as possible. It was by his instructions that Dolly had insisted on getting his share of the purchase money for Pickering into his own hands, so that the incumbrance on his own property might be paid off. He now listened as Dolly told him of the delay in the payment. 'Melmotte's at Pickering?' asked the attorney. Then Dolly informed him how the tradesmen of the great financier had already half knocked down the house. Squercum still listened, and promised to look to it. He did ask what authority Dolly had given for the surrender of the title-deeds. Dolly declared that he had given authority for the sale, but none for the surrender. His father, some time since, had put before him, for his signature, a letter, prepared in Mr Bideawhile's office, which Dolly said that he had refused even to read, and certainly had not signed. Squercum again said that he'd look to it, and bowed Dolly out of his room. 'They've got him to sign something when he was tight,' said Squercum to himself, knowing something of the habits of his client. 'I wonder whether his father did it, or old Bideawhile, or Melmotte himself?' Mr Squercum was inclined to think that Bideawhile would not have done it, that Melmotte could have had no opportunity, and that the father must have been the practitioner. 'It's not the trick of a pompous old fool either,' said Mr Squercum, in his soliloquy. He went to work, however, making himself detestably odious among the very respectable clerks in Mr Bideawhile's office,-- men who considered themselves to be altogether superior to Squercum himself in professional standing.
And now there came this rumour which was so far particular in its details that it inferred the forgery, of which it accused Mr Melmotte, to his mode of acquiring the Pickering property. The nature of the forgery was of course described in various ways,--as was also the signature said to have been forged. But there were many who believed, or almost believed, that something wrong had been done,--that some great fraud had been committed; and in connection with this it was ascertained,--by some as a matter of certainty,--that the Pickering estate had been already mortgaged by Melmotte to its full value at an assurance office. In such a transaction there would be nothing dishonest; but as this place had been bought for the great man's own family use, and not as a speculation, even this report of the mortgage tended to injure his credit. And then, as the day went on, other tidings were told as to other properties. Houses in the East-end of London were said to have been bought and sold, without payment of the purchase money as to the buying, and with receipt of the purchase money as to the selling.