Part 35 (2/2)
”'Ever gratefully yours,
”'BILLIE ABERCROMBIE.'”
”----Poor little girl! I say, where did she get that 'Abercrombie' from?”
”Don't you see?” Ripley Halstead bent forward.
”That's the name on that doc.u.ment; the name of the man who adopted her, 'Gentleman Geoff.' She won't claim 'Murdaugh' and doesn't accept 'Hillery,' so she's chosen the one name she's sure of. Do you suppose that means she is going to contest the validity of this new claim?”
”Possibly.” North shook his head. ”It would be a losing fight for her, though, Ripley. There isn't a chance in the world that Wiley's discovery could be anything but authentic. No one profits by the affair except your own family and no one could have any possible incentive for faking the story. It's too bad the truth didn't come out before, and I'll always blame myself for my negligence, but as long as a mistake was made, it is lucky for us that Wiley stumbled on those records now instead of later, when the fortune was in her hands.”
His mission accomplished, Dan was returning to the garage to put the car up and proceed on foot to his daily round of the hospitals and bureaus of inquiry, when half-way down the block a shrill voice piped at him.
”Hot tomales! Very fine hot tomales. Try one, Mister!”
Idly he glanced toward the curb. A diminutive, ragged vender crouched there beside a bright, new hand-cart which contained a huge pot simmering above a charcoal fire, and bore a sign with the legend ”Hot Tomales, 5 cents,” in obviously home-made lettering.
His mind intent on his errand of the morning, Dan gave it but pa.s.sing heed and drove on into the garage, yet as he busied himself about the car, the incident kept recurring to his mind. Hot tomales were a queer commodity for a street-seller to deal in; Dan didn't know exactly what they were, but he believed them to be some sort of Spanish or Mexican concoction----
At this point in his cogitations he stopped work abruptly and stood staring into vacancy.
There had been something appealingly familiar even in that fleeting glimpse of the tattered crouched figure, and could it be that it had been hunchbacked?
With an excited cry he dropped the wrench from his hand and sprang out into the street. Cart and vender were gone, but in the gutter lay a crushed, greasy mess which had been a tomale. It was still smoking and as Dan stirred it with his foot, he saw that a wisp of sodden paper clung to it.
Seizing it, he smoothed it out and read the two jerkily penciled words:
”Manana. Jose.”
CHAPTER XX
WINNIE MASON STANDS BY
”I say, h.e.l.lo there! Wait a minute, Kearn!” Winnie Mason called as he brought his roadster to a halt with a sudden grinding of brakes. It was two days later and a cutting east wind skirled about the driveway of the Park, rattling the naked branches of the trees like the fleshless arms of a legion of skeletons.
The tall figure on the path waited, but his face was averted and there was a listless, dispirited droop to his whole form which was not lost upon the quick, sympathetic gaze of his friend.
”I'll back her up. . . Now get in, old man, and we'll take a little spin. Jolly glad I ran across you, but what brings you out on a bl.u.s.tering rotten afternoon like this? You're not very fit yet, you know, after that bout of fever you had in Mexico, in spite of the lacing you managed to give Starr Wiley.”
”I came to try and walk off a brace of blue devils that have been camping on my trail,” Thode explained, climbing into the car with manifest reluctance. ”You won't find me very good company, Win, but you've brought it on yourself.”
”What's the matter, anyhow?” the other demanded. ”It's not like you to load up with a grouch. Has one of those blasted oil wells sprung a leak?”
Thode shrugged.
”I wouldn't care if every gusher in Mexico went up in smoke!” he affirmed, drearily. ”I've had a nasty stab in the back, the kind of thing a man doesn't get over in a hurry, that's all. Don't let's talk about it.”
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