Part 42

All this while he was trying to court Margaret up to the accepting point, but he failed signally, and every time he visited her he grew less and less courteous; finally, in the third year, she could not get her annuity as she wanted it. He promised, but did not fulfil at the time as before, and he was "short" in his words with her, and spiteful at times. At last, as if determined to force her into compliance, he visited her one day, and having failed, though using as much severity as he could command to win her consent, he got quite angry, and wished to know of her if she intended to always spurn him; asked her if she had made up her mind to that, at any rate. She objected to the word "spurn," for she wished, she said, to receive and treat him as a brother, but she had always declined his offers of marriage, as she thought, in a clear, frank way, and she considered that he ought to know, after all, that she could never consent to marry him.

"Then you shall suffer," said he, bringing his teeth together with greater firmness, as if he would like to put an end to her existence with one bite; and he manifested himself with such a degree of anger that she was frightened, and arose from her chair to leave the room, when he rushed and caught her firmly by the hand, and telling her to look straight at him, exclaimed,--

"You proud thing! I tell you now that if you had consented to have me at first you should now have half of all father Alvord's property as well as mine; but I have outwitted you. I got him to make his will as he did, and thanks to John's blundering, I knew when he made the other; and now, as there's no witness here, I'll leave you to guess what became of it; and you may groan in poverty for all me, for you'll have to sue me every time you get any more money out of the estate."

He had hardly ejaculated these words, in anger, before he seemed to see his error, and as Margaret, now understanding his villany, tore herself from his grasp, and rushed into another room, he followed her, and tried to laugh away the effect of what he had said.

"Ho! ho! Margaret, haven't I told you a pretty story though? I wish it had been true, I declare; but I must tell you that I never believed a word about the second will. You must have been mistaken, and as to the first, father and Emerson, the old lawyer, got it up without my knowledge."

Margaret, who now began to see into his real character, and who hated hypocrisy, turned upon him, and said, "There's no occasion for you adding falsehood to your rudeness, sir. Father made that will under your direction, in my opinion, and as for the last will, you _do_ believe that it existed, and I see now that you probably abstracted it, and I wish I could never see your face again till you can come prepared to prove that you did not. Good day, sir," and she attempted to pass by him.

But he put himself in her way, and said she shouldn't stir a step till she took back those words.

"I have spoken what I feel must be the truth, and I will not retract a word," said she; "and you must let me pass, or I will call in John. There he is," said she, pointing through the window at John, but a short distance off. The mild, quiet face of Margaret must have assumed great firmness then, for Floramond looked but once into her eyes, and stepped aside; and as she passed, exclaimed,--

"You shall live to rue this, to your full satisfaction."

And she did suffer. Floramond managed to vex her in many ways,--sold off a portion of her garden, on which she depended for her vegetables, contending that it was only the rent of the house that was left her by the will; and sending her ten dollars on her annuity when she wanted perhaps thirty or forty; and getting up stories about her extravagance, etc. But, fortunately, she had a character and reputation formed, and he could only vex her in money matters to any great extent.

Weary months passed, and Margaret frequently thought of the wills, and what Floramond had said; and when the ministerial brother called to see her one day, about the time his hundred-dollar annuity "for a rental" was running out, Margaret told him something of her troubles, and her conviction that Floramond had stolen the will. The minister was not very astute in law matters, but he could see that it would only be by a "sort of miracle," as he told her, that they could ever learn anything of what had become of the will; but Margaret was more hopeful, and continued to plan ways of getting at the truth.

'There was that old lawyer who had drawn the first will. May be he could find out something,--lawyers work for the side that employs them;' but the minister dampened her ardor in that direction, by telling her that Floramond probably held him under a general retainer, and he could not be reached; but finally Margaret was so anxious to have something done, that the minister consented to aid her to the extent of his little ability, as he was modestly pleased to say, and at last it came into his head that when he was once supplying for a few weeks a classmate's pulpit in Brooklyn, he had one evening heard one of the congregation telling some marvelous stories about the adroitness and sagacity of detective officers, and he spoke to Margaret of this.

This was something novel to Margaret. She knew there were police officers, and so forth, but was not aware that there were organized forces of private officers, detectives. The minister told her one of the strange stories he had heard, and Margaret was quite astonished by it, and believed that if detectives could find out "such a thing as that they could really serve us," and it was resolved by them that a detective should be obtained, and he might work out something.

All the rest of the children, except Floramond, were consulted, and agreed to contribute towards procuring the detective; and Margaret, who had got wrought up about the matter, and was a very capable woman to perform whatever she undertook, declared that she would procure the detective. Her cousin had long wished her to visit her at Jamaica (I think it was), Long Island, and in going through New York she would get some advice, and hunt up a detective; and thus it came that I chanced to be called in the case, and I obtained from her about what information I have thus far embodied in my narrative.

I told her it was apparently a hopeless case; that probably Floramond (who, I said, had doubtless abstracted the will) destroyed it at once, as any prudent man would have done, and that I saw no possible clew to the matter. But she was so urgent, and so willing to pay me for my time to go and see the rest of the family, and talk with them, and to look the matter over on the spot, that I consented to go, which I did duly. I learned but little more than I have recited, in the place where Margaret lived, but I thought I would like to visit Floramond's lawyer, and found myself duly at his office.

I am very fond of the members of the profession generally. They are apt to be more "men of the world" than most other people. The practice of their profession brings them into contact with all classes of men, and they learn more or less of charity, and are, in fact, among the most reliable of citizens everywhere. But there was something in this lawyer's face (old Boyd, we will call him, and but for a son of his, an honorable man in an important position, I would call the old villain's name fully) which revealed to me that I had a curious customer to deal with; that he lacked moral principle, and was capable of any sort of dark deed, murder included, perhaps.

I said to myself, instinctively, this old Boyd is at the bottom of this matter of the wills, and he has not let an opportunity pass to get Floramond Alvord in his clutches, and keep him there. That second will was taken by Floramond, I said to myself, and the chances are that he showed it to Boyd, and if he did, the old man was cunning enough to keep it. At this point I changed the plan of operations which I had in theory when I entered his office, and talked with him about things in general; told him I was a stranger from New York, stopping a day or two in the village; that when I was younger I had read law a little, and always felt more at home in a lawyer's office than I did in a country bar-room or hotel parlor, and seeing his office, had wandered into it.

The old man had considerably many books, but they did not look very inviting; however, I complimented him on the size of his library, and at last asked him about his practice, and found that he had a good deal of patronage, considerable of which his age prevented him from attending to, such as that in justices' courts; and finally I suggested that I had a brother who had studied law a few months in the city, and I thought it would be better for him to study with somebody in the country; there were a good many temptations for a young man to waste his time, in the city. He seemed pleased, brightened up a little, threw off the sombre shadows from his face, and went to bidding for my brother, by telling me of this and that man who had studied law with him, and who were now eminent in the profession,--which was a fact, as I afterwards learned.

So I contracted with him to have my brother come and study with him; and before I left the town I had secured good board at a moderate price for him, and went away. I lost no time in conferring with Margaret as to her ability to furnish me about such a given sum of money a month for three months, not over six at most, and I found she could do it. I told her that she must ask me no questions, and in fact must not know of any such man as I, or speak my name; and that if my plans succeeded, she would, of course, know the facts, and that would be enough; and if they failed, after proper trial, I would tell them to her, so that she should see what use her money had been put to. She was perfectly reasonable, and consented to all.

I found myself in New York city in two days from that time, and procured a young man, on whom I bestowed my last name, and sent him on with a proper letter of introduction to Mr. Boyd.

I told him he had better tell Mr. Boyd that he had forgotten all the law he had read, and that he guessed he had better read over Blackstone again at first. I had given the young man the points of the entire case as I understood it, and told him what I wanted him to do--to take his time, to study well, and to watch Floramond Alvord's movements in connection with Mr. Boyd for the first two or three weeks, and to write me from time to time what he thought of Floramond. But the first thing he was to do, after being there three or four days, was to "slick up" the dusty office a little, sometime when Boyd was out, and surprise him by its neatness on his return, and thus beginning to win upon the old man's respect as much as possible; to then take down and rearrange the books and the old papers, and so get himself familiarized to everything in the office; and to do these things, finally, in Boyd's presence.

He was as shrewd a young man as I could possibly have found, and he was a handsome fellow, very. Old Boyd told him, when he presented the note of introduction, that he did not much resemble his older brother! (me),--which was a sad but absolute truth. But the young man was ready for him:--

"No," said he; "brother takes after father's family. I'm said to be mother's boy."

"Yes, yes," said old Boyd, "I'd have known that if you hadn't told me."

My "brother" was not long in becoming popular in that village, and old Boyd was quite proud of him; but he did keep him studying, was "faithful" to him, as he promised me he would be. I frequently heard from my "brother," and at last I got a letter, saying, "Come on; I will meet you at No. 1" (which meant Mrs. Margaret's) "at such a time as you may appoint."

I knew by this that my game had worked well, and that there was probably no time to lose; so I hastened on, and sending a letter before me, appointing the time, met my "brother" at Margaret's. There was the document--the lost will! He had it with him. But what was to be done?

In the first place, the witnesses had long been away in California, as was supposed, and nobody knew where. Efforts had been made by Margaret to institute a correspondence with them. If they could not be found, however, we could prove their signatures by others, if we could find the experts; but Margaret had never been able to find anybody who ever saw their writing, except the old man's, with chalk on his barn door, noting number of bushels of wheat, or when his cows would "come in," and that would hardly do.

But I bethought me that they had sold out their farm when they went away, and must have signed the deed, the wife to convey her right of dower, and I felt easy. I instructed my brother to return to the office next morning as usual, and go on with his studies, and I would go to the county seat next day, hunt up the records, and possibly find the deed still on file there, as well as the record, and then, if it was not there, I would go to the grantees, and ask for the deed; but these people were indebted to Floramond largely, Margaret said, and would have to be approached carefully. She was still in ignorance of the will being found, but knew, of course, that I had some good reason for what I was about, and she was equally ignorant that my "brother" was studying with old Boyd.

I took the will and went next day to the county seat, and though I could not find on file there the deed which I expected to, I found the record of it, and the record and the deed, too, of another conveyance made by the same grantors, and, as luck had it, made on the very day after the will was signed; and the signatures to the two instruments were wondrously similar. I was satisfied on this point.

But there was another point to be gotten over; and this troubled my "brother" a good deal. Although he had been but two months with Mr. Boyd, he had fallen in love with a beautiful girl (who was the daughter of the richest man in the town, except Floramond Alvord, and was on intimate terms with Floramond's daughters), and they were already "engaged," and he wanted the matter worked so that he need not be found out in it, for the girl, he feared, would "sack him," as the village phrase was, if he was known as having searched for and delivered up the will. So I managed to stop in disguise at the same hotel where I had been before, and to find my brother in when old Boyd was out, and learned precisely where he found the will, and the character of the documents which were in the same drawer with it; a drawer which had evidently not been opened for many years, save to hide away the will in. Among the other documents were some curious letters to old Boyd, from a man by the name of Andrew Wilcox, who had gone away years before to the west, and died, and who was a waggish fellow, and wrote funny letters, in a very peculiar style of penmanship.

I was put to my wits' end how to work matters; but my brother told me that in two days old Boyd was going to start on a journey, to be gone a week; that the stage would leave the hotel at ten o'clock in the morning, and after that I could come in again, and may be could arrange something. But he had told me enough. I had formed my plan before his words were cold. That night I found myself at one of the adopted brother's, about ten miles off; told him he must ask me no questions why, but that I wanted him to appear in the village at the time the stage was going off, and to ask old Boyd if he didn't use to correspond with old Andrew Wilcox,--to which he would, of course, say "Yes;" and then Mr. Alvord was to say, "I thought so, and I'd like, for a certain reason, to get hold of some of his letters to read. He wrote such a curious hand, didn't he?" that probably old Boyd would say he was going to be back in a week, and then he'd hunt them up; but Mr. Alvord should evince a desire to see them as soon as possible, and ask him if his clerk couldn't hunt them for him; this to be done just as the stage was loading up to start; all of which was done, and resulted better than we expected, for old Boyd was in pretty good spirits that morning, very accommodating; and told Mr. Alvord that his clerk might hunt up the papers; though he didn't call him his clerk but said, "Tell the handsome rascal in my office to hunt and get you all of Wilcox's letters to read he can find; and I don't mind if you take one or two along with you, so that you leave me some. Good morning!" and away the stage rolled.

I told Mr. Alvord that I would go over to the office, and he might drop in and ask the clerk for the letters, in the course of ten minutes. I went and arranged things, and he came and told my brother what Boyd had said. My brother made unsuccessful search in three or four places, and at last came upon the letters; hauled out a few of them, which Mr. Alvord run over, laughing here and there at the odd, eccentric expressions, which he said were just like the stories he had heard about the old man, when my brother asked if he would like to see more. As he wished to, they were produced, and among them was reposing the will where I had placed it.

Mr. Alvord was sitting by a little round table, and as my brother placed the second batch on the table, I asked him if he would not be kind enough to go over to the hotel (but a few steps off,) and buy himself a cigar, and bring some to me, handing him money. He went out; and placing my hand among the letters, I drew out the will, and placed it in Mr. Alvord's hands--"_You found that--do you understand?_ But I will take it, and be responsible for its return, if, after we have examined it, you think it better be returned." He had no notion of the will yet, and acted with a sort of mechanical blindness, as I guided him, throughout wondering what I could be up to. (I had agreed to pay him very liberally for his time.) "When the clerk comes in," said I, as I put the paper into my pocket, "remind him that old Boyd said you might take off some of the letters; the whole stage full heard him say so; and do you select a few, and when you come out, come over to the hotel, and find me. I'll be there."

The clerk came in, and brought me the cigars, and I offered one to Mr. Alvord, who declined to smoke, but kept on reading the letters; and I, bidding him good morning, walked out after lighting my cigar. In the course of a quarter of an hour he came out; said he found "Wilcox's letters very interesting;" and now, said he, "I want to know what all this means." I got him aside as soon as I could, and we went up to my room.

Locking the door, I said, "Mr. Alvord, on turning over these letters of Wilcox's, you came across a paper which you took possession of for a moment. Now I want it understood that you _kept_ possession of that; that the clerk handed you a bundle in which you found it, (poor fellow, what _would_ he say, if he knew that he had unwittingly disclosed the profoundest secret in all old Boyd's life and practice? But no matter for that.) You took the paper, and you handed it over to me, and I am going to keep it for the general good, unless you prefer to keep it. Do you understand?"

"Why, yes, and no, too," said he. "I understand the language you use, but I don't know what it's all about. Pray tell me at once, and end my suspense."

"Well, you promise me on your word, as a gentleman, to be guided by me in the matter which is to follow, if you think what I shall point out to be right and just?"

"Why, yes; any man could safely promise that."

"Are you under any special obligations to your brother Floramond?"

"No, sir; only he has lent me little sums of money, from time to time--which"--

"You have doubtless always paid up?"

"Yes, with interest."

"Ah, ha! then he was lending you money, and getting interest on it, which really ought to have been your own--wasn't he?"

"Well, yes, I've felt so sometimes; but there's doubt about it, perhaps."

I had sounded the man deeply enough, and saw his temper towards Floramond; and so, drawing a little nearer him, I said,--

"You have heard of me before, but have never seen me till night before last; but we must be intimate friends for a while. Your sister Margaret has told you of me. I am the detective from New York; and this paper (pulling it from my pocket) is old Mr. Alvord's last will and testament--the last one, and you are here entitled to a fortune."

Mr. Alvord's face turned pale with astonishment.

"Let me put my eyes on it!" said he; and I handed it to him, opened. He ran it over hurriedly, looked at the signature, saying, "There's no mistake about it; and that's father's signature--just as Margaret always said it was. I had feared father had destroyed it, and I had entirely forgotten all about the matter for a good while. I gave up all as lost the day that Floramond produced the old will, and we searched the house, all of us, for this."

It was not long from that morning before we had everything arranged for bringing Mr. Floramond Alvord to terms, and I remained near the scene directing matters. I held on to the will, while the brother wrote from his home to Floramond, that his father's last will had been finally found; that he felt it his duty to inform him of it at once, and that legal steps would be taken directly; but this letter was not sent till on the day before old Boyd was expected back.

That day Mr. Floramond Alvord visited old Boyd's office, very earnest to learn when he would be back, and asked my "brother" to ask Mr. Boyd to call on him at his house as soon as he should arrive. "Tell him I have a very important matter for him to attend to," said he, "and want to see him at once."

Old Boyd arrived, and the clerk gave him the word from Mr. Alvord.

"Some devilish speculation on hand, I 'spose," said old Boyd, gruffly, as he left his office, and proceeded to Alvord's house. But he wasn't gone long, and soon came back to the office, and went silently to rummaging his papers. He looked here and there, as if his memory didn't serve him exactly; finally he came to the drawer with the Wilcox letters in them, and my brother watched his manner intently. The old man took up the letters, laid them out; took up other packages, and laid them out, and then laid them back, and looking at the Wilcox letters, said,--

"These look as if they had been disturbed lately. Have you been arranging this box?"

"No, sir. I've not been re-arranging the papers; but there's a man been here, the morning you went off, and said you told him he might hunt for some letters of one Wilcox; and, in fact, as the door happened to be open, I overheard you tell him so, just as you got into the coach, and I hunted them up, and he took some of 'em, as he said you said he might; but he said he would return them," said my brother, very seriously, "if you thought, when you got home, that he had taken too many."

"Did you ask him his name?" inquired old Boyd, very gravely.

"No, I didn't think of that. I supposed, by the way you spoke to him, you were old friends, and I didn't wish to question the gentleman," replied my brother, naively, with a probable cock in his eye, which might have revealed a great deal if old Boyd had seen it.

Old Boyd, with an assumed manner of great composure, said, in response,--

"I wish you had asked his name. I do remember somebody speaking to me, in my haste of getting off, about Wilcox's letters. Wonder who it was?"

"I hope he hasn't taken off the most valuable ones," replied the clerk.

"Well, I can't tell; but I fear he has," said old Boyd. "I must find out who he was. They'll remember over to the hotel, perhaps," and off he went over there; but it wasn't long before the clerk saw him on his way to Alvord's house. What transpired there then is only known to old Boyd and Floramond Alvord.