Part 10 (1/2)
”Who else has she told this to?”
”If you refer to the contents of that letter, it was written and handed to me about three hours ago. It has not been out of my possession since then.”
”Humph! Who's at the casa? There's Buchanan, and Raymond, and Victor Guitierrez, eh?”
”I think I can say almost positively that Mrs. Saltonstall has seen no one but her daughter since the news reached her, if that is what you wish to know,” said Carroll, still following the particular package of letters with his eyes, as Mr. Prince continued his examination. Prince stopped.
”Are you sure?”
”Almost sure.”
Prince rose, this time with a greater ease of manner, and, going to the table, ran his fingers over the k.n.o.bs, as if mechanically. ”One would like to know at once all there is to know about a transaction that changes the front of four millions of capital in about four hours, eh, Captain?” he said, for the first time really regarding his guest.
”Just four hours ago, in this very room, we found out that the widow Saltonstall owed Dr. West about a million, tied up in investments, and we calculated to pull her through with perhaps the loss of half. If she's got this a.s.signment of the Doctor's property that she speaks of in her letter, as collateral security, and it's all regular, and she--so to speak--steps into Dr. West's place, by G-d, sir, we owe HIM about three millions, and we've got to settle with HER--and that's all about it. You've dropped a little bomb-sh.e.l.l in here, Captain, and the splinters are flying around as far as San Francisco, now. I confess it beats me regularly. I always thought the old man was a little keen over there at the casa--but she was a woman, and he was a man for all his sixty years, and THAT combination I never thought of. I only wonder she hadn't gobbled him up before.”
Captain Carroll's face betrayed no trace of the bewilderment and satisfaction at this news of which he had been the unconscious bearer, nor of resentment at the coa.r.s.eness of its translation.
”There does not seem to be any memorandum of this a.s.signment,”
continued Prince, turning over the papers.
”Have you looked here?” said Carroll, taking up the packet of letters.
”No--they seem to me some private letters she refers to in this letter, and that she wants back again.”
”Let us see,” said Carroll, untying the packet. There were three or four closely written notes in Spanish and English.
”Love-letters, I reckon,” said Prince--”that's why the old girl wants 'em back. She don't care to have the wheedling that fetched the Doctor trotted out to the public.”
”Let us look more carefully,” said Carroll, pleasantly, opening each letter before Prince, yet so skillfully as to frustrate any attempt of the latter to read them. ”There does not seem to be any memorandum here. They are evidently only private letters.”
”Quite so,” said Prince.
Captain Carroll retied the packet and put it in his pocket. ”Then I'll return them to her,” he said, quietly.
”Hullo!--here--I say,” said Prince, starting to his feet.
”I said I would return them to her,” repeated Carroll, calmly.
”But I never gave them to you! I never consented to their withdrawal from the papers.”
”I'm sorry you did not,” said Carroll, coldly; ”it would have been more polite.”
”Polite! D--n it, sir! I call this stealing.”
”Stealing, Mr. Prince, is a word that might be used by the person who claims these letters to describe the act of any one who would keep them from HER. It really can not apply to you or me.”
”Once for all, do you refuse to return them to me?” said Prince, pale with anger.
”Decidedly.”