The Girl from Sunset Ranch Part 32

"Ha! Starkweather! Of course he's in it. I might have known," muttered the old man. "So _he_ sent you to me?"

"No, sir. He objected to my coming," declared Helen, quite convinced now that she should not deliver her uncle's letter.

"The Starkweathers are the people you came East to visit?"

"Yes, sir."

"And how did _they_ receive you in their fine Madison Avenue mansion?"

queried Mr. Grimes, looking up at her slily again.

"Just as you know they did," returned Helen, briefly.

"Ha! How's that? And you with all that----"

He halted and--for a moment--had the grace to blush. He saw that she read his mind.

"They do not know that I have some money for emergencies," said Helen, coolly.

"Ho, ho!" chuckled Mr. Grimes, suddenly.

"So they consider you a pauper relative from the West?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ho, ho!" he laughed again, and rubbed his hands. "How _did_ Prince leave you fixed?"

"I--I have something beside the money you saw me counting," she told him, bluntly.

"And Willets Starkweather doesn't know it?"

"He has never asked me if I were in funds."

"I bet you!" cackled Grimes, at last giving way to a spasm of mirth which, Helen thought, was not nice to look upon. "And how does he fancy having you in his family?"

"He does not like it. Neither do his daughters. And one of their reasons is because people will ask questions about Prince Morrell's daughter. They are afraid their friends will bring up father's old trouble," continued Helen, her voice quivering. "So that is why, Mr. Grime's, I am determined to know the truth about it."

"The truth? What do you mean?" snarled Grimes, suddenly starting out of his chair.

"Why, sir," said Helen, amazed, "dad told me all about it when he was dying. All he knew. But he said by this time surely the truth of the matter must have come to light. I want to clear his name----"

"How are you going to do _that_?" demanded Mr. Grimes.

"I hope you will help me--if you can, sir," she said, pleadingly.

"How can I help more now than I could at the time he was charged with the crime?"

"I do not know. Perhaps you can't. Perhaps Uncle Starkweather cannot, either. But, it seems to me, if anything had been heard from that bookkeeper----"

"Allen Chesterton?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well! I don't know how you are going to prove it, but I have always believed Allen was guilty," declared Mr. Grimes, nodding his head vigorously, and still watching her face.

"Oh, have you, Mr. Grimes?" cried the girl, eagerly, clasping her hands.

"You have _always_ believed it?"

"Quite so. Evidence was against my old partner--yes. But it wasn't very direct. And then--what became of Allen? Why did he run away?"

"That is what other people said about father," said Helen, doubtfully. "It did not make him guilty, but it made him _look_ guilty. The same can be said of the bookkeeper."

"But how can you go farther than that?" asked Mr. Grimes. "It's too long ago for the facts to be brought out. We can have our suspicions. We might even publish our suspicions. Let us get something in the papers--I can do it," and he nodded, decisively, "stating that facts recently brought to light seemed to prove conclusively that Prince Morrell, once accused of embezzlement of the bank accounts of the firm of Grimes & Morrell, was guiltless of that crime. And we will state that the surviving partner of the firm is convinced that the only person guilty of that embezzlement was one Allen Chesterton, who was the firm's bookkeeper. How about _that_?

Wouldn't that fill the bill?" asked Mr. Grimes, rubbing his hands together.

"If we had such an article published in the papers and circulated among his old friends, wouldn't that satisfy you, my dear? Then you would do no more of this foolish probing for facts that cannot possibly be reached--eh? What do you say, Helen Morrell? Isn't that a famous idea?"

But the girl from Sunset Ranch was, for the moment, speechless. For a second time, it seemed to her, she was being bribed to make no serious investigation of the evidence connected with her father's old trouble.

Both Uncle Starkweather and this old man seemed to desire to head her off!

CHAPTER XIX

"JONES"

"Isn't that a famous idea?" demanded Mr. Grimes, for the second time.

"I--I am not so sure, sir," Helen stammered.

"Why, of course it is!" he cried, smiting the desk before him with the flat of his palm. "Don't you see that your father's name will be cleared of all doubt? And quite right, too! He never _was_ guilty."

"It makes me quite happy to hear you say so," said the girl, wiping her eyes. "But how about the bookkeeper?"

"Who--Allen?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, we couldn't find him now. If he kept hidden then, when there was a hue and cry out for him, what chance would there be of finding him after seventeen years? Oh, no! Allen can't be found. And, even if he could, I doubt but the thing is outlawed. I don't know that the authorities would take it up. And I am pretty sure the creditors of the old firm would not."

"That is not what I mean," said Helen, softly. "But suppose we accuse this bookkeeper--_and he is not guilty, either_?"

"Well! Is that any great odds? n.o.body knows where he is----"

"But suppose he should reappear," persisted Helen. "Suppose somebody who loved him--a daughter, perhaps, as I am the daughter of Prince Morrell--with just as great a desire to clear her father's name as I have to clear mine---- Suppose such a person should appear determined to prove Mr. Chesterton not guilty, too?"

"Ha, but we've beat 'em to it--don't you see?" demanded Mr. Grimes, heartlessly.