The Saint and the Happy Highwayman (11 page)

Mr Tombs, of Tombs, Tombs, and Tombs, as the card introduced him, was a tall lean man with neatly brushed white hair, bushy white eyebrows, a pair of gold-rimmed and drooping pince-nez on the end of a broad black ribbon and an engagingly avuncular manner which rapidly completed the task of restoring Harry Westler’s momentarily shaken confidence. He came to the point with professional efficiency combined with professional pomposity.

“I have come to see you in connection with the estate of the—ah—late Mrs Laine. I understand that you are her heir.”

“That’s right,” said Mr Westler.

He was a dark, flashily dressed man with small greedy eyes and a face rather reminiscent of that of a sick horse.

“Splendid.” The lawyer placed his finger tips on his knees and leant forward peering benevolently over the rims of his glasses. “Now I for my part am representing the Sesame Mining Development Corporation.”

He said this more or less as if he were announcing himself as the personal herald of Jehovah, but Mr Westler’s mind ran in practical channels.

“Did my grandmother have shares in the company?” he asked quickly.

“Ah—ah—no. That is—ah—no. Not exactly. But I understand that she was in possession of a letter or document which my clients regard as extremely valuable.”

“A letter?”

“Exactly. But perhaps I had better give you an outline of the situation. Your grandmother was in her youth greatly—ah—enamoured of a certain Sidney Farlance. Perhaps at some time or other you have heard her speak of him.”

“Yes.”

“For various reasons her parents refused to give their consent to the alliance; but the young people for their part refused to take no for an answer, and Farlance went abroad with the intention of making his fortune in foreign parts and returning in due course to claim his bride. In this ambition he was unhappily frustrated by his—ah—premature decease in Brazil. But it appears that during his travels in British Guiana he did become the owner of a mining concession in a certain very inaccessible area of territory. British Guiana, as you are doubtless aware,” continued Mr Tombs in his dry pedagogic voice, “is traditionally reputed to be the source of the legend of El Dorado; the Gilded King, who was said to cover himself with pure gold and to wash it from him in the waters of a sacred lake called Manoa–-“

“Never mind all that baloney,” said Harry Westler,

who was not interested in history or mythology. “Tell me about this concession.”

Mr Tombs pressed his lips with a pained expression but he went on.

“At the time it did not appear that gold could be profitably obtained from this district and the claim was abandoned and forgotten. Modern engineering methods, however, have recently revealed deposits of almost fabulous value in the district, and my clients have obtained a concession to work it over a very large area of ground. Subsequent investigations into their title, meanwhile, have brought out the existence of this small —ah—prior concession granted to Sidney Farlance, which is situated almost in the centre of my client’s territory and in a position which—ah—exploratory drillings have shown to be one of the richest areas in the district.”

Mr Westler digested the information, and in place of the first sinking vacuum which had afflicted his stomach when he saw the word Law on his visitor’s card, a sudden and ecstatic awe localized itself in the same place and began to cramp his lungs as if he had accidentally swallowed a rubber balloon with his breakfast and it was being rapidly inflated by some supernatural agency.

“You mean my grandmother owned this concession?”

“That is what—ah—my clients are endeavouring to discover. Farlance himself, of course, left no heirs, and we have been unable to trace any surviving members of his family. In the course of our inquiries, however, we did learn of his—ah—romantic interest in your grandmother, and we have every reason to believe that in the circumstances he would naturally have made her the beneficiary of any such asset, however problematical its value may have seemed at the time.”

“And you want to buy it out—is that it?”

“Ah—yes. That is—ah—provided that our deductions are correct and the title can be established. I may say that my clients would be prepared to pay very liberally–-“

“They’d have to,” said Mr Westler briskly. “How much are they good for?”

The lawyer raised his hands deprecatingly.

“You need have no alarm, my dear Mr Westler. The actual figure would, of course, be a matter for negotiation but it would doubtless run into a number of millions. But first of all, you understand, we must trace the actual concession papers which will be sufficient to establish your right to negotiate. Now it seems, that in view of the relationship between Farlance and your grandmother, she would probably have treasured his letters as women do even though she later married someone else, particularly if there was a document of that sort among them. People don’t usually throw things like that away. In that case you will doubtless have inherited these letters along with her other personal property. Possibly you have not yet had an occasion to peruse them, but if you would do so as soon as. possible–-“

One of Harry Westler’s few Napoleonic qualities was a remarkable capacity for quick and constructive thinking.

“Certainly I have the letters,” he said, “but I haven’t gone through them yet. My lawyer has them at present and he’s in San Francisco today. He’ll be back tomorrow morning, and I’ll get hold of them at once. Come and see me again tomorrow afternoon and I expect I’ll have some news for you.”

“Tomorrow afternoon, Mr Westler? Certainly. I think that will be convenient. Ah—certainly.” The lawyer stood up, took off his pince-nez, polished them and revolved them like a windmill on the end of their ribbon. “This has indeed been a most happy meeting, my dear sir. And may I say that I hope that tomorrow afternoon it will be even happier?”

“You can go on saying that right up till the time we start talking prices,” said Harry.

The door had scarcely closed behind Mr Tombs when he was on the telephone to his cousin. He suppressed a sigh of relief when he heard her voice and announced as casually as he could his intention of coming around to see her.

“I think we ought to have another talk—I was terribly upset by the shock of Granny’s death when I saw you the other day and I’m afraid I wasn’t quite myself, but I’ll make all the apologies you like when I get there,” he said in an unfamiliarly gentle voice which cost him a great effort to achieve, and was grabbing his hat before the telephone was properly back on its bracket.

He made a call at the bank on his way, and sat in the taxi which carried him up into the hills as if its cushions had been upholstered with hot spikes. The exact words of that portion of the will which referred to the letters drummed through his memory with a staggering significance. “My letters from Sidney Far-lance, knowing that she will find them of more value than anything else I could leave her.” The visit of Mr Tombs had made him understand them perfectly. His grandmother had known what was in them; but did Jacqueline know? His heart almost stopped beating with anxiety.

As he leapt out of the taxi and dashed towards the house he cannoned into a small and weirdly apparelled elderly gent who was apparently emerging from the gate at the same time. Mr Westler checked himself involuntarily, and the elderly gent, sent flying by the impact, bounced off a gatepost and tottered back at him. He clutched Harry by the sleeve and peered up at him pathetically.

“Glhwf hngwglgl,” he said pleadingly, “kngnduk glu bwtlhjp mnyihgli?”

“Oh, go climb a tree,” snarled Mr Westler impatiently.

He pushed the little man roughly aside and went on.

Jacqueline opened the door to him, and Mr Westler steeled himself to kiss her on the forehead with cousinly affection.

“I was an awful swine the other day, Jackie. I don’t know what could have been the matter with me. I’ve always been terribly selfish,” he said with an effort, “and at the time I didn’t really see how badly Granny had treated you. She didn’t leave you anything except those letters, did she?”

“She left me a hundred dollars,” said Jacqueline calmly.

“A hundred dollars I” said Harry indignantly. “After you’d given up everything else to take care of her. And she left me more than twenty thousand dollars and the house and everything else in it. It’s—disgusting ! But I don’t have to take advantage of it, do I ? I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately–-“

Jacqueline lighted a cigarette and regarded him stonily.

“Thanks,” she said briefly. “But I haven’t asked you for any charity.”

“It isn’t charity,” protested Mr Westler virtuously. “It’s just a matter of doing the decent thing. The lawyers have done their share—handed everything over to me and seen that the will was carried out. Now we can start again. We could pool everything again and divide it the way we think it ought to be divided.”

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s been done already.”

“But I’m not happy about it. I’ve got all the money, and you know what I’m like. I’ll probably gamble it all away in a few months.”

“That’s your affair.”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Jackie. I’ve apologized, haven’t I? Besides, what Granny left you is worth a lot more than money. I mean those letters of hers. I’d willingly give up five thousand dollars of my share if I could have had those. They’re the one thing of the old lady’s which really means a great deal to me.”

“You’re becoming very sentimental all of a sudden, aren’t you?” asked the girl curiously.

“Maybe I am. I suppose you can’t really believe that a rotter like me could feel that way about anything, but Granny was the only person in the world who ever really believed any good of me and liked me in spite of everything. If I gave you five thousand dollars for those letters, it wouldn’t be charity—I’d be paying less than I think they’re worth. Let’s put it that way if you’d rather, Jackie. An ordinary business deal. If I had them,” said Mr Westler, with something like a sob in his voice, “they’d always be a reminder to me of the old lady and how good she was. They might help me to go straight …”

His emotion was so touching that even Jacqueline’s cynical incredulity lost some of its assurance. Harry Westler was playing his part with every technical trick that he knew, and he had a mastery of these emotional devices which victims far more hard-boiled than Jacqueline had experienced to their cost.

“I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself and I want to put things right in any way I can. Don’t make me feel any worse than I do already. Look here, I’ll give you ten thousand dollars for the letters and I won’t regret a penny of it. You won’t regret it either, will you, if they help me to keep out of trouble in future?”

Jacqueline smiled in spite of herself. It was not in her nature to bear malice, and it was very hard for her to resist an appeal that was made in those terms. Also, with the practical side of her mind, she was honest enough to realize that her grandmother’s letters had no sentimental value for her whatever, and that ten thousand dollars was a sum of money which she could not afford to refuse unless her pride was compelled to forbid it; her night out with the Saint had helped her to forget her problems for the moment, but she had awakened that morning with a very sober realization of the position in which she was going to find herself within the next forty-eight hours.

“If you put it like that I can’t very well refuse, can I?” she said, and Harry jumped up and clasped her fervently by the hand.

“You’ll really do it, Jackie? You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”

She disengaged herself quietly.

“It doesn’t do me any harm,” she told him truthfully. “Would you like to have the letters now?”

“If they’re anywhere handy. I brought some money along with me, so we can fix it all up right away.”

She went upstairs and fetched the letters from the dressing table in her grandmother’s room. Mr Westler took them and tore off the faded ribbon with which they were tied together with slightly trembling fingers which she attributed to an unexpected depth of emotion. One by one he took them out of their envelopes and read rapidly through them. The last sheet of the third letter was a different kind of paper from the rest. The paper was brown and discoloured and cracked in the folds, and the ink had the rust-brown hue of great age; but he saw the heavy official seal in one corner and strained his eyes to decipher the stiff old-fashioned script.

We, Philip Edmond Wodehouse, Commander of the Most Noble Order of the Bath, Governor in the name of His Britannic Majesty of the Colony of British Guiana, by virtue of the powers conferred upon us by His Majesty’s Privy Council, do hereby proclaim and declare to all whom it may concern that we have this day granted to Sidney Parlance, a subject of His Majesty the King, and to his heirs and assigns being determined by the possession of this authority, the sole right to prospect and mine for minerals of any kind whatsoever in the territory indicated and described in the sketch map at the foot of this authority, for the term of nine hundred and ninety-nine years from the date of these presents.

Given under our hand and seal this third day of January Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-Six.

At the bottom of the sheet below the map and description was scrawled in a different hand: “This is all for you. S.F.”

Harry Westler stuffed the letters into his pocket and took out his wallet. His heart was beating in a delirious rhythm of ecstasy and sending the blood roaring through his ears like the crashing crescendo of a symphony. The Gates of Paradise seemed to have opened up and deluged him with all their reservoirs of bliss. The whole world was his sweetheart. If the elderly gent whose strange nasal garglings he had dismissed so discourteously a short time ago had” cannoned into him again at that moment, it is almost certain that Mr Westler would not have told him to go and climb a tree. He would probably have kissed him on both cheeks and given him a nickel.

For the first time in his life, Harry Westler counted out ten thousand-dollar bills as cheerfully as he would have counted them in.

“There you are, Jackie. And I’m not kidding—it takes a load off my mind. If you think of anything else I can do for you, just let me know.”