XXI
THE FAIRY FORTUNE
MR. WATSON GRIDER was not alone when they found him. He was sharing asofa in the public parlor with an elderly little gentleman whosewinter-apple face was decorated with mutton-chop whiskers and wreathedin smiles--the smiles of a listener who has just heard a story worthretailing at the dinner-table.
The two stood up when Prime led his companion into the room, and Griderdid the honors.
"Miss Millington, let me introduce Mr. Shellaby, an old friend of myfather's and the senior member of the firm of Shellaby, Grice, andShellaby, solicitors. Mr. Shellaby--Miss Millington and Mr. DonaldPrime."
The little gentleman adjusted his eyeglasses and looked the pair overcarefully. Then the twinkling smile hovered again at the corners of thenear-sighted eyes.
"Are you--ah--are you aware of your relationship to this young lady,Mr. Prime?" he asked.
Prime made a sign of assent. "We figured it out one evening over ourcamp-fire. We are third cousins, I believe."
"Exactly," said Mr. Shellaby, matching his slender fingers and making alittle bow. "Now another question, if you please: Mr. Grider tells methat you have just returned from a most singular and adventurousexperience in the wilds of the northern woods. This experience, Iunderstand, was entirely involuntary on your part. Haveyou--ah--formulated any theory to account for your--ah--abduction?"
Prime glanced at Grider and frowned.
"We know all we need to know about that part of it," he rejoined curtly."Mr. Grider is probably still calling it a practical joke; but we callit an outrage."
The little man smiled again. "Exactly," he agreed; and then: "Do youhappen to know what day of the month this is?"
Prime shook his head.
"We have lost count of the days. I kept a notched stick for a while, butI lost it along toward the last."
Mr. Shellaby waved them to chairs, saying: "Be seated, if you please; wemay as well be comfortable as we talk. This is the last day of July.Does that mean anything in particular to either of you?"
Lucetta gave a little cry of surprise.
"It does to me," she said quickly. "Did you--did you put anadvertisement in a Cleveland newspaper addressed to me, Mr. Shellaby?"
"We did; and we also advertised for the heirs of Roger Prime, ofBatavia, New York. We believed at the time that it was a mere matter ofform; in fact, when we drew his will our client informed us that therewould most probably be no results. He was of the opinion that neitherRoger Prime nor Clarissa Millington had left any living children."
"Your client?" Prime interrupted. "May we ask who he is?"
"_Was_," corrected the small man gravely. "Mr. Jasper Bankhead died lastJanuary. You didn't know him, I'm sure; quite possibly you have neverheard of him until this moment."
"We both know of him," Prime amended. "He was my great-uncle, and acousin of Miss Millington's grandmother. He was scarcely more than afamily tradition to either of us, however. We had both been told that hewent west as a young man and was never heard of afterward."
Mr. Shellaby nodded soberly.
"Mr. Bankhead was a rather peculiar character in some respects; quiteeccentric, in fact. He accumulated a great deal of property in BritishColumbia--in mining enterprises--and it was only in his latter yearsthat he came here to live. We drew his will, as I have said. He waswithout family, and he left the bulk of his estate--something over twomillions--to various charities and hospitals. There were other legacies,to be sure, and among them one which was to be divided equally between,or among, the direct heirs, if any could be discovered, of ClarissaMillington and Roger Prime."
"And if no such heirs could be found?" Prime inquired.
"Our client was quite sure that they wouldn't be found. It seems that hehad previously had some inquiries made on his own account. For thatreason he placed a comparatively short time limit upon our efforts andprescribed their form. We were to advertise in certain newspapers, andif there should be no answer within six months of the date of his deaththe legacy in question was to revert to his private secretary, a youngman who had served him in many capacities, and who was, by the by,already generously provided for in a separate bequest."
Lucetta's gray eyes lighted suddenly and she spoke with a littlecatching of her breath.
"The name of that young man, Mr. Shellaby, is Horace Bandish, isn't it?"she suggested.
"Quite so," nodded the little man; and then, with the amused twinklereturning to point the bit of dry humor: "I am sorry to have to spoilyour estimate of Mr. Grider's capabilities as a practical joker; yes,very sorry, indeed; but I'm afraid I must. Bandish was your kidnapper,you know, and it is owing entirely to Mr. Grider's energetic effortsthat the fellow is at present safely lodged in the Ottawa jail awaitingindictment and trial. In order that he might be certain of adding yourlegacy to his own, he meant to deprive you both of any possibleopportunity of communicating with us before July thirty-first. The youngwoman who calls herself his wife was his accomplice, but she hasdisappeared. Mr. Grider can give you the details of the plot better thanI can."
"Then Grider didn't--then the legacy is ours?" Prime stammered,clutching manfully for handholds in the grapple with this entirely newarray of things incredible.
"Precisely, Mr. Prime; yours and Miss Millington's. There will be somelegal formalities, to be sure, but Mr. Grider assures us that you cancomply with them. Compared with Mr. Bankhead's undivided total, theamount of the legacy is not great; some two hundred thousand dollars,less the costs of administration, to be divided equally between you ifyou prove to be the only surviving heirs direct of the two persons namedin the will."
Prime turned slowly upon his companion castaway.
"You said you wanted enough, but not too much," he reminded hersolemnly. "I hope you're not disappointed, either way. At all events,you'll never have to cook for a man again unless you really wish to, andyou can have your wish about the world travel, too."
"And you can have yours about the writing of the leisurely book," sheflashed back; "about that, and--and----"
Prime's laugh ignored the presence of Grider and the lawyer.
"And the imaginary girl, you were going to say? Yes; I shall certainlymarry her, if she'll have me."
Mr. Shellaby was on his feet and bowing again.
"I think I have said all that needs to be said here and now," heconcluded mildly. "If you will excuse me, I'll go. We are a rather busyoffice. Later, Mr. Grider may bring you to us and we can set the legalmachinery in motion. I congratulate you both very heartily, I'm sure,"and he shook hands all around and backed away.
When they were left alone with the barbarian, Prime wheeled short uponhim.
"Watson, will you raise your right hand and swear that this isn'tanother twist in your infernal joke?" he demanded. "Because, if itis----"
Grider fell back into the nearest chair and chuckled like a fat boy at aplay.
"If it only were!" he gloated. "Wouldn't it be rich? Oh, Great Peter!why didn't I think of it in time and run a sham lawyer in on you? Itwould have been as easy as rolling off a log. Unhappily, Don, it's alltoo true. I didn't invent it--more's the pity!"
Prime stood over the joker, menacing him with a clenched fist. "If youwant to go on living and spending your swollen fortune, you'll tell usall the ins and outs of it," he rasped, in well-assumed ferocity.
"I was only waiting for an invitation," was the laughing rejoinder."When you didn't turn up in Boston to go motoring with me I ran over toNew York and broke into your rooms. On your desk I found a telegrampurporting to have come from me at Quebec. Since I hadn't wired you fromQuebec, or anywhere else, I began to ask questions. Your janitoranswered the first one: you had already gone to Canada. I couldn'timagine what was going on, but it seemed to be worth following up, so Itook the next train for Quebec."
"And you didn't wire ahead?" said Prime.
"No; it didn't occur to me, but it wouldn't have done any good. Yourdisapp
earance was two days old when I reached Quebec. You weren't missedmuch, but Miss Millington was; the school-teachers were milling aroundand raising all sorts of a row. But in another day it quieted down flat.Somebody started the story that you two had run off together to getmarried; that it had been all cut and dried between you beforehand."
"That was probably a part of the plot--to account for us in that way,"Lucetta put in.
"No doubt it was," Grider went on. "But the elopement story didn'tsatisfy me. I knew there wasn't any reason in the wide world why Donshouldn't get married openly, if he could find any girl foolish enoughto say 'yes,' so I simply discounted the gossip and wired fordetectives. A very little sleuth work developed the fact that each ofyou had been seen last in company with one of the Bandishes. That gaveus a sort of a clew, and we began to trail Mr. Horace Bandish and dig uphis record."
"And while you were doing all this for us, we ... honestly, Mr. Grider,I am ashamed to tell you what we were saying of you," said the youngwoman in penitent self-abasement.
"Oh, that was all right. In times past I had given Don plenty ofmaterial of that sort to work on; only I wish I had known how you werelooking at it--that you were charging it all up to me. It would havelightened the gloom immensely. But to get on: we trailed Bandish, as Isay, and found that he had had an aeroplane shipped to him at Quebec afew days before your arrival there. That looked a bit suspicious, and alittle more digging made it look more so. The 'plane had been unloadedand carted away, and a few days later had been brought back and shippedto Ottawa. That left a pretty plain trail, but still there was noevidence of criminality."
"Of course, you didn't know anything about the legacy, at that stage ofit?" Prime threw in.
"Not a thing in the world. More than that, Bandish's record was decentlygood. We found that he had been a sort of general factotum for a richold man, and had been left comfortably well off when his employer died.There was absolutely no motive in sight; no reason on earth why heshould drug a couple of total strangers and blot them out. Just thesame, I was confident that he had done it, and that I should eventuallyfind you by keeping cases on him. So I dropped the detectives, who werebeginning to give me the laugh for being so pig-headed about an ordinaryelopement, gathered up your belongings on the chance that you'd need 'emif I should make good in the search for you, and came here to Ottawa tokeep in touch with Bandish."
Prime's smile was grim. "You were taking a lot of trouble for two peoplewho were just about that time calling you all the hard names in thecategory," he interposed.
"Wasn't I?" said the barbarian with a grin. "But never mind about that.I came here, as I said, and settled down to keep an eye on Horace. Forquite some time I didn't learn anything new. I found that Bandish was aclub man, well known and rather popular; also that he was an amateuraviator and had made a number of exhibition flights. Everybody knew himand everybody seemed to like him. In the course of time we met at one ofthe clubs, and I watched him carefully when we were introduced. If hehad sent the forged telegram it was proof that he knew me by name, atleast. But he never made a sign.
"It was about a week later than this when I stumbled upon Mr. Shellabyand got my first real clew in the story of the legacy muddle. Of course,that opened all the doors, and after that I laid for Horace like a catwatching a mouse. Before long I could see that he was growing mightynervous about something, and the next thing I knew he turned up missing.Right there I lost my head and wasted two whole days trying to find outwhich railroad he had taken out of town. Late in the evening of thesecond day I learned, by the merest bit of bull-headed luck, that hehad gone up the Riviere du Lievres in a motor-launch. I had a quickhunch that that motor-launch was pointing in your direction and that itwas up to me to chase him and find you and get you back here before thethirty-first. Three hours later I had borrowed the _Sprite_ and wasafter him."
"He found us," said Prime, rather grittingly. "We had stopped to patchour canoe, and he came up in the night and cut another hole in it. Imistook him for you--which was the chief reason why I didn't take apot-shot at him as he was running away."
"I knew I had no chance to overtake him," Grider went on, "but it seemeda safe bet that I'd get him coming out. I did; captured him, took himashore, built a fire, and told him I was going to roast him alive if hedidn't come across with the facts. He held out for a while, but finallytold me the whole of it: how he had figured to get you two together inQuebec after he had learned that you, Miss Millington, were due to bethere with the teachers. You see, he knew all about you--both of you.As Mr. Bankhead's secretary he had made, at Mr. Bankhead's dictation,all the former inquiries, and, of course, had carefully kept the answersfrom reaching the old gentleman. With a little more cooking he told mehow he and the woman had drugged you both, after which he had carriedyou in the 'plane to the shore of some unpronounceable lake in the northwoods."
"What did he mean to do?--let us starve to death?" Prime asked.
"Oh, no; nothing so murderous as that! He had it all doped outbeforehand. There is a Hudson Bay post on one of the streams flowinginto the lake, and he had arranged with a couple of half-breed canoe-mento happen along and pick you up and bring you back, stipulating onlythat they should kill time enough to make the return trip use up theentire month of July. As the fatal date drew near, he grew uneasy andmade the launch trip to see to it personally that you were not gettingalong too fast. He found your camp and cut your canoe merely to add alittle more delay for good measure. He couldn't tell me what had becomeof his half-breeds."
Prime laughed. "I suppose the old Scotch under-sheriff told you, didn'the?"
"He tried to tell me that you and Miss Millington had assassinated thetwo men and stolen their canoe and outfit. You didn't do that?--or didyou?"
"Hardly," Prime denied. Then he told the story of the finding of thedead men, capping it with an account of the chance visit of JeanBa'tiste.
Grider left his chair and took a turn up and down the room.
"It was a great adventure," he declared, coming back to them. "Some dayyou are going to tell me all about it, and the kind of a time you had.I'll bet it was fierce--some parts of it, anyway. I can't answer foryou, Miss Millington; but what Don doesn't know about roughing it is--orused to be--good and plenty."
"You sent Bandish back to town after you were through with him?" Primeinquired.
"Yes. I had taken a pair of handcuffs along, just on generalprinciples, and I lent him my engineer to run the launch. Afterward, Ikept on up-stream in the _Sprite_, hoping to meet you coming down; andhoping against hope that we would be able to beat the calendar back toOttawa."
"We never should have beaten it if the old Scotchman hadn't taken ahand," was Prime's comment. "He saved us at least a full day."
Grider was edging toward the door. "I guess you don't need me any morejust now," he offered. "I'm due to go and thank the good-natured lumberking who lent me the _Sprite_. By and by, after the dust has settled abit, I'll come around and show you where Mr. Shellaby holds forth."
"One minute, Mr. Grider," Lucetta interposed hastily. "We can't let yougo without asking your forgiveness for the way in which we have beenvilifying you for a whole month, and for what we both said to you lastnight. I must speak for myself, at least, and----"
"Don't," said Grider, laughing again. "It's all in the day's work. As ithappened, I wasn't the goat this time, but that isn't saying that Imightn't have done something quite as uncivilized if you had given me achance. You two gave me one of the few perfect moments of a ratheruneventful life last night when you made me understand that you weregiving me credit for the whole thing--as a joke! I only wish I couldinvent one half as good. And that reminds me, Don; can you--er--do youthink you'll be able to put a real woman into the next story?"
For some few minutes after the barbarian had ducked and disappeared astiff little silence fell upon the two he had left behind. In writingabout it Prime would have called it an interregnum of readjustment. Hehad gone to a window to stare aimlessly down
into the busy street, andLucetta was sitting with her chin in her cupped palms and her eyes fixedupon the rather garish pattern of the paper on the opposite wall. Aftera time Prime pulled himself together and went back to her.
"It is all changed, isn't it?" he said, in a rather flat voice."Everything is changed. You are no longer a teacher, working for yourliving. You are an heiress, with a snug little fortune in your ownright."
She looked up at him with the bright little smile which had been broughtover intact from the days of the banished conventions.
"Whatever you say I am, you are," she retorted cheerfully. "Only I can'tquite believe it yet--about the money, you know."
"You'd better," he returned gloomily. "Besides, it is just what you saidyou wanted--neither too little nor too much: one hundred thousand at agood, safe six per cent will give you an income of six thousand a year.You can travel on that for the remainder of your natural life."
"Easily," she rejoined. "And you can write the leisurely book and marrythe girl. Perhaps you will be doing both while I am getting ready to goon my travels. You won't insist upon going back to Ohio with me now,will you? You--you ought to go straight to the girl, don't you think?"
"You are forgetting that I said she was an imaginary girl," he parried.
"You said so at first; but afterward you admitted that she wasn't. Also,you promised me you would show me her picture after we should get out ofthe woods."
"I have never had her picture," he denied. "I said I would show you whatshe looks like. Come to the window where the light is better."
She went with him half-mechanically. Between the two windows there wasan old-fashioned pier-glass set in the wall. Before she realized what hewas doing he had led her before the mirror.
"There she is, Lucetta," he said softly; "the only girl there is--orever will be."
She started back with a little cry, putting out her hands as if to pushhim away.
"No, Donald--a thousand times no!" she flashed out. "Do you think Idon't know that this is only another way of telling me how sorry you arefor me? You know well enough what people will say when they hear how wehave been together for a whole month, alone; and in your splendidchivalry you would----"
He did not let her finish. The hotel parlor was supposed to be a publicroom, but he ignored that and took her in his arms.
"From the first day, Lucetta, dear--from the very first day!" he arguedpassionately. "And it grew and grew with your absolute, your simplyangelic trust in me until I was half-mad with the desire to tell you.But I couldn't tell you then; I couldn't even let you suspect and stillbe what you were believing me to be. Don't you think you could learn, intime, you know, to--to----"
Her face was hidden, but she made her refusal quite positive.
"No, Donald, I can never learn it--again. Because, you see, in spite ofthe other girl I was believing in--that you made me believe in--I--Oh,it was wicked, _wicked_!--but I couldn't help it! And all the time I wassc-scared perfectly frantic for fear you would find it out!"
"You were, were you?" he laughed happily. "Perhaps I did find itout--just a little...."
* * * * *
It was something like an hour later, and an overruling Providence hadgraciously preserved the privacy of the public parlor for them duringthe entire length of the precious interval, when Prime looked at hiswatch and said: "Heavens, Lucetta! it's nearly noon! Let's go quicklyand beard the Shellaby in his den before he goes to luncheon. The fairyfortune may escape us yet if we don't hurry up and nab it."
She had risen with him, and her eyes were shining when she lifted herface and let him see them.
"As if the money, or anything else in this world, could make anydifference to either of us now, Donald, dear!" she protested, with afine scorn of such inconsequent things as fairy fortunes.
And Prime, seeing the unashamed love in the shining eyes, joyouslyagreed with her.
The End
Transcriber's Notes:
The Contents section has been modified so that the chapter titles wouldmatch the titles in the book. Specifically, the titles of chapters VIIand XVI were changed from being in quotes to being in italics.
Passages in italics are indicated by _underscores_.
Small caps have been replaced with the text in ALL CAPS.
The original punctuation was retained in all cases.
Typesetting error on page 47: "appeal" changed to "appear".
On page 63, the [oe] ligature was replaced with "oe".
On page 155, the [oe] ligature was replaced with "oe".
Typesetting error on page 206: "think" changed to "drink".
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