第32章 PROBLEM V(2)

"I am the person you have come here to see," she said. "Your name is not unfamiliar to me, but you may not know mine. It is Quintard; Mrs. Quintard. I am in difficulty. I need assistance--secret assistance. I did not know where to go for it except to a detective agency; so I telephoned to the first one I saw advertised; and--and I was told to expect Miss Strange. But Ididn't think it would be you though I suppose it's all right. You have come here for this purpose, haven't you, though it does seem a little queer?""Certainly, Mrs. Quintard; and if you will tell me--""My dear, it's just this--yes, I will sit down. Last week my brother died. You have heard of him no doubt, C. Dudley Brooks?""Oh, yes; my father knew him--we all knew him by reputation. Do not hurry, Mrs. Quintard. I have sent my car away. You can take all the time you wish.""No, no, I cannot. I'm in desperate haste. He--but let me go on with my story. My brother was a widower, with no children to inherit. That everybody knows. But his wife left behind her a son by a former husband, and this son of hers my brother had in a measure adopted, and even made his sole heir in a will he drew up during the lifetime of his wife. But when he found, as he very soon did, that this young man was not developing in a way to meet such great responsibilities, he made a new will--though unhappily without the knowledge of the family, or even of his most intimate friends--in which he gave the bulk of his great estate to his nephew Clement, who has bettered the promise of his youth and who besides has children of great beauty whom my brother had learned to love. And this will--this hoarded scrap of paper which means so much to us all, is lost! lost! and I--" here her voice which had risen almost to a scream, sank to a horrified whisper, "am the one who lost it.""But there's a copy of it somewhere--there is always a copy--""Oh, but you haven't heard all. My nephew is an invalid; has been an invalid for years--that's why so little is known about him.

He's dying of consumption. The doctors hold out no hope for him, and now, with the fear preying upon him of leaving his wife and children penniless, he is wearing away so fast that any hour may see his end. And I have to meet his eyes--such pitiful eyes--and the look in them is killing me. Yet, I was not to blame. I could not help--Oh, Miss Strange," she suddenly broke in with the inconsequence of extreme feeling, "the will is in the house! Inever carried it off the floor where I sleep. Find it; find it, Ipray, or--"

The moment had come for Violet's soft touch, for Violet's encouraging word.

"I will try," she answered her.

Mrs. Quintard grew calmer.

"But, first," the young girl continued, "I must know more about the conditions. Where is this nephew of yours--the man who is ill?""In this house, where he has been for the last eight months.""Was the child his of whom I caught a glimpse in the hall as Icame in?"

"Yes, and--"

"I will fight for that child!" Violet cried out impulsively. "Iam sure his father's cause is good . Where is the other claimant--the one you designate as Carlos?"

"Oh, there's where the trouble is! Carlos is on the Mauretania, and she is due here in a couple of days. He comes from the East where he has been touring with his wife. Miss Strange, the lost will must be found before then, or the other will be opened and read and Carlos made master of this house, which would mean our quick departure and Clement's certain death.""Move a sick man?--a relative as low as you say he is? Oh no, Mrs. Quintard; no one would do that, were the house a cabin and its owners paupers.""You do not know Carlos; you do not know his wife. We should not be given a week in which to pack. They have no children and they envy Clement who has. Our only hope lies in discovering the paper which gives us the right to remain here in face of all opposition. That or penury. Now you know my trouble.""And it is trouble; one from which I shall make every effort to relieve you. But first let me ask if you are not worrying unnecessarily about this missing document? If it was drawn up by Mr. Brooks's lawyer--""But it was not," that lady impetuously interrupted. "His lawyer is Carlos's near relative, and has never been told of the change in my brother's intentions. Clement (I am speaking now of my brother and not of my nephew) was a great money-getter, but when it came to standing up for his rights in domestic matters, he was more timid than a child. He was subject to his wife while she lived, and when she was gone, to her relatives, who are all of a dominating character. When he finally made up his mind to do us justice and eliminate Carlos, he went out of town--I wish I could remember where--and had this will drawn up by a stranger, whose name I cannot recall."Her shaking tones, her nervous manner betrayed a weakness equalling, if not surpassing, that of the brother who dared in secret what he had not strength to acknowledge openly, and it was with some hesitation Violet prepared to ask those definite questions which would elucidate the cause and manner of a loss seemingly so important. She dreaded to hear some commonplace tale of inexcusable carelessness. Something subtler than this--the presence of some unsuspected agency opposed to young Clement's interest; some partisan of Carlos; some secret undermining force in a house full of servants and dependants, seemed necessary for the development of so ordinary a situation into a drama justifying the exercise of her special powers.

"I think I understand now your exact position in the house, as well as the value of the paper which you say you have lost. The next thing for me to hear is how you came to have charge of this paper, and under what circumstances you were led to mislay it. Do you not feel quite ready to tell me?""Is--is that necessary?" Mrs. Quintard faltered.

"Very," replied Violet, watching her curiously.