Part 26 (2/2)

”Not yet. He's been too busy on the Zariba field books.”

”You've seen his own plans for the bridge?”

”No. They were lost.”

”The originals, I mean--his preliminary copy. He must have kept something.”

”Yes. But I guess they're pretty wet by now,” replied Griffith, his face crackling with dry humor. ”They're aboard that steamer, down on the African coast. If you want to see them, you might finance a wrecking expedition. But Tom says she went down mast-under, and there are plenty of sharks nosing along the coral reef.”

Mr. Leslie winced at the word _sharks_, and reluctantly admitted: ”I've had a long talk with my daughter. He played the part of a man. I acknowledge that I've held a strong prejudice against him. It seems, however, that in part I've been mistaken.”

”Now you're talking, Mr. Leslie!”

”Only in part, I say--about his lost bridge plans. I had thought he was trying to blackmail me.”

”More apt to be a black eye, if you let him know you thought that,” was Griffith's dry comment.

”He came near to resorting to violence. As I look at it now, I can't say I blame him. Those bridge plans, though--Knowing this about his inventiveness, has it not occurred to you that his plans may not have been lost, after all?”

”Look here, Mr. Leslie,” said Griffith, rising with the angularity of a jumping-jack, ”we've rubbed along pretty smooth since we got together last year; but Tom Blake is my friend.”

”Sit down! _sit_ down!” insisted Mr. Leslie. ”You ought to see by this time that I'm trying to prove myself anything but an enemy to him.”

Griffith sat down and began mechanically to load his pipe with the formidable Durham. Mr. Leslie put the tips of his fingers together, coughed, and went on in a lowered tone. ”Those plans disappeared. His charge was preposterous, ridiculous--_as against me_. Yet if the plans were not lost, what became of them? He told me yesterday that he himself handed them to the person who was at that time acting as my secretary. You catch the point?”

”Um-m,” grunted Griffith, his face as emotionless as a piece of crackled wood.

”Young Ashton was my secretary. He resigned the next day. Said he had been secretly working on plans for the Michamac cantilever; thought he had solved the problem of the central span; might go ahead and put in his plans if none of the compet.i.tors were awarded the bridge. Within a month he did put in plans.”

”Well?” queried Griffith.

”Don't you make the connection?” demanded Mr. Leslie. ”Blake handed his plans to Ashton, and took no receipt. The plans disappeared. Ashton leaves; comes back in a month with plans that he hasn't the skill to apply in the construction of the bridge--plans include an entirely new modification of bridge trusses--stroke of inventive genius, you called it.”

Griffith's lean jaw dropped. ”You--you don't mean to say he--the son of George Ashton--that he could--G.o.d A'mighty, he's heir to twenty millions!”

”You don't believe it? Suppose you knew he was about to be cut off without a cent? George had stood about all he could from the young fool. Those bridge plans came in just in time to prevent the drawing of a new will.”

The hand in which Griffith held his pipe shook as if he had been seized with a fever chill, but his voice was dry and emotionless. ”That accounts for those queer slips and errors in the plans. He couldn't even make an accurate copy, and was too much afraid of being found out to take time to check Tom's drawings. Jammed them into his fireplace soon's he'd finished. The thief!--the infernal thief!--the--!” Griffith spat out a curse that made even Mr. Leslie start.

”Good Lord, Griffith,” he remonstrated. ”That's the first time I ever heard you swear.”

”I keep it for _dirt_! ... Well, what you going to do about it?”

”I am going to have you show Ashton's plans to Blake. If he recognizes them as a copy of his own--”

”Better get ready to s.h.i.+p Laffie out of the country. Once saw Tom manhandle a brute who was beating his wife--one of those husky saloon bouncers. The wife had a month's nursing to do. Tom will pound that--that sneak to pulp.”

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