Part 26 (1/2)

His effort was to seem significant, but those things are apt to fail with me.

”Oh, I see. Well, that's a good idea, Solon, but you and Mrs. Potts are slow. Billy Durgin had the same idea last summer while the furniture was being unloaded. He took a good look at some of those old pieces, and he confided to me in strict secrecy that there were probably missing wills and rolls of banknotes hidden away in them. It seems that they're the kind that have secret drawers. Billy knows a case where a man touched a spring and found thirty thousand dollars in a secret drawer, 'and from there,' as Billy says, 'he fled to Australia.' So you can see it's been thought of. Of course I've never spoken of it, because I promised Billy not to,--but there's nothing in it.”

”Bos.h.!.+” said Solon.

”Of course it's bosh. I could have told Billy that, but some way I always feel tender about his illusions. You may be sure I've learned enough of the Lansdale family to know that no member of it ever hid any real money--money that would _spend_--and there hasn't been a will missing for at least six generations.”

”Bosh again!” said Solon. ”It isn't secret drawers!”

”No? What then?”

”Well,--it's worse--and more of it.”

”Is that all you have to say?” I asked as he stood up.

”Well, that's all I can say now. We must use common sense in these matters. But--Mrs. Potts has written!” With this cryptic utterance he stalked out.

There had been little need to caution me to secrecy. I was not tempted to speak. Had I known any debtor of Miss Caroline's who would have taken ”Mrs. Potts has written” in payment of his account, it might have been otherwise.

CHAPTER XXI

LITTLE ARCADY IS GRIEVOUSLY SHAKEN

Mrs. Potts had written. I had Solon's word for it; but that which followed the writing will not cease within this generation or the next to be an affair of the most baffling mystery to our town folk. Me, also, it amazed; though my emotion was chiefly concerned with those gracious effects which the G.o.ds continued to manage from that apparently meaningless sojourn of J. Rodney Potts among us.

Superficially it was a thing of utter fortuity. Actually it was a masterpiece of cunning calculation, a thing which clear-visioned persons might see to bristle with intention on every side.

Years after that innocent encounter between an adventurous negro and an amiable human derelict in the streets of a far city,--those two atoms shaken into contact while the G.o.ds affected to be engaged with weightier matters,--the cultured widow of that derelict recalled the name of a gentleman in the East who was accustomed to buy tall clocks and fiddle-backed chairs, in her native New England, paying prices therefor to make one, in that conservative locality, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, almost.

Such was the cleverly devised circ.u.mstance that now intervened between my neighbor and an indigence distressing to think about. It was as if, in the game, a red four which one had neglected to ”play up” should actually permit victory after an intricate series of disasters, by providing a temporary resting-place for a black trey, otherwise fatally obstructive, causing the player to marvel afresh at that last fateful but apparently chance shuffle.

A week after Mrs. Potts had written, the gentleman who received her letter registered as ”Hyman Cohen, New York, N.Y.,” at the City Hotel.

From his manner of speech when he inquired for the Lansdale home it was seen that he seemed to be a German.

When Miss Caroline received him a little later, he asked abruptly about furniture, and she, in some astonishment, showed him what she had, even to that crowded into dark rooms and out of use.

He examined it carelessly and remarked that it was the worst lot that he had ever seen.

This did not surprise Miss Caroline in the least, though she thought the gentleman's candor exceptional. Little Arcady's opinion, which she knew to tally with his, had always come to her more circuitously.

The strange gentleman then asked Miss Caroline, not too urbanely, if she had expected him to come all the way from New York to look at such cheap stuff. Miss Caroline a.s.sured him quite honestly that she had expected nothing of the sort, and intimated that her regret for his coming surpa.s.sed his own, even if it must remain more obscurely worded. She indicated that the interview was at an end.

The strange gentleman arose also, but as Clem was about to close the door after him, he offered Miss Caroline one hundred and fifty dollars for ”the lot,” observing again that it was worthless stuff, but that in ”this business” a man had to take chances. Miss Caroline declined to notice this, having found that there was something in the gentleman's manner which she did not like, and he went down the path revealing annoyance in the shrug of his shoulders and the sidewise tilt of his head.

To Mrs. Lansdale's unaffected regret, and amazement as well, the gentleman returned the following morning to say that he was about to leave for New York, but that he would actually pay one hundred and seventy-eight dollars for the stuff. This was at least twenty-two dollars more than it could possibly be worth, but the gentleman had an unfortunate pa.s.sion for such things. Miss Caroline bowed, and called Clem as she left the room.

The gentleman returned the morning of the third day to close the deal.