It was certainly true that Squercum himself had seen the letter in Mr Bideawhile's office which conveyed to the father's lawyer the son's sanction for the surrender of the title-deeds, and that that letter, prepared in Mr Bideawhile's office, purported to have Dolly's signature. Squercum said but little, remembering that his client was not always clear in the morning as to anything he had done on the preceding evening. But the signature, though it was scrawled as Dolly always scrawled it, was not like the scrawl of a drunken man.
The letter was said to have been sent to Mr Bideawhile's office with other letters and papers, direct from old Mr Longestaffe. Such was the statement made at first to Mr Squercum by the Bideawhile party, who at that moment had no doubt of the genuineness of the letter or of the accuracy of their statement. Then Squercum saw his client again, and returned to the charge at Bideawhile's office, with the positive assurance that the signature was a forgery. Dolly, when questioned by Squercum, quite admitted his propensity to be 'tight'. He had no reticence, no feeling of disgrace on such matters. But he had signed no letter when he was tight. 'Never did such a thing in my life, and nothing could make me,' said Dolly. 'I'm never tight except at the club, and the letter couldn't have been there. I'll be drawn and quartered if I ever signed it. That's flat.' Dolly was intent on going to his father at once, on going to Melmotte at once, on going to Bideawhile's at once, and making there 'no end of a row,'--but Squercum stopped him. 'We'll just ferret this thing out quietly,' said Squercum, who perhaps thought that there would be high honour in discovering the peccadillos of so great a man as Mr Melmotte. Mr Longestaffe, the father, had heard nothing of the matter till the Saturday after his last interview with Melmotte in the City. He had then called at Bideawhile's office in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and had been shown the letter. He declared at once that he had never sent the letter to Mr Bideawhile. He had begged his son to sign the letter and his son had refused. He did not at that moment distinctly remember what he had done with the letter unsigned. He believed he had left it with the other papers; but it was possible that his son might have taken it away. He acknowledged that at the time he had been both angry and unhappy. He didn't think that he could have sent the letter back unsigned,--but he was not sure. He had more than once been in his own study in Bruton Street since Mr Melmotte had occupied the house,--by that gentleman's leave,--having left various papers there under his own lock and key. Indeed it had been matter of agreement that he should have access to his own study when he let the house. He thought it probable that he would have kept back the unsigned letter, and have kept it under lock and key, when he sent away the other papers. Then reference was made to Mr Longestaffe's own letter to the lawyer, and it was found that he had not even alluded to that which his son had been asked to sign; but that he had said, in his own usually pompous style, that Mr Longestaffe, junior, was still prone to create unsubstantial difficulties. Mr Bideawhile was obliged to confess that there had been a want of caution among his own people. This allusion to the creation of difficulties by Dolly, accompanied, as it was supposed to have been, by Dolly's letter doing away with all difficulties, should have attracted notice. Dolly's letter must have come in a separate envelope; but such envelope could not be found, and the circumstance was not remembered by the clerk. The clerk who had prepared the letter for Dolly's signature represented himself as having been quite satisfied when the letter came again beneath his notice with Dolly's well-known signature.