Captain Pott's Minister Part 39

"If he is one of your clients, why don't you make him pay that interest?"

"Lawyers may advise, but they can't drive unless they hold the reins of litigation."

"You are just as exasperating as all lawyers," she said with a show of impatience. "Do you know that your client has fallen heir to a very large fortune? And do you know that he could pay the princ.i.p.al as well as the interest?"

"Good Lord, Sis! You're a wonder! How on earth did you ferret all this mess out?"

"That doesn't matter. The thing that matters is what Father and that Phillips person are trying to do to Uncle Josiah. We must stop them. If you know the truth about the transaction between Father and Mr. Phillips you have no right to allow this thing to go on."

Harold's eyes narrowed. "Trying to trap me again, Bets?"

"Of course I'm not. I'm just trying to get you to look at things from Uncle Josiah's position."

"How many of the facts do you know about this case?" asked Harold in deep seriousness.

"I know enough to form pretty good conclusions of the injustice of the whole thing."

"Do you think you know everything?"

"No-o, not when you look at me like that," she said, surprised by the earnestness of his voice and manner.

"Has any one beside Father talked with you?"

She hesitated, then slowly shook her head. "You must not ask me that."

"Have you talked with Mr. McGowan?"

"I can't tell you," she answered, quickly checking the look of surprise that leaped into her eyes at the unexpected question.

"I don't know just how far Mr. McGowan's information may have led him into this matter, but I have feared all along that he is not half so ignorant as he appears. Come in here, Bets," he requested, pus.h.i.+ng open a door to an inner office. "I have some things I want to show you."

"Mercy, Bud! How mysterious you can be!"

"An ounce of precaution is worth a pound of lawsuits, and I don't want the slightest possibility of a leak," he said as he locked the door.

"My sakes! I had no idea you could be so serious. Is this the way you act with all your clients? I'd think you'd frighten them all away. You almost do me. It reminds me of the way you would lock me up in the hall closet to scare me when we were children."

"For once in my life I am serious, Sis. We are no longer children, and this is far from play. I wish to G.o.d it were nothing more than that!"

"Why, Harold!"

"Bets, you've got a close tongue and loads of good sense. I've carried this thing just about as long as I can without breaking under it. I've got to let off steam. You know I've tried to be on the square since my little fling, and even then I was straight, but Dad has never believed it. I'm tempted now to go wrong, and----"

"Why on earth are you talking like this? Has some one been accusing you of doing wrong? Oh, Harold! You didn't fall into trouble after all over in Australia, did you?"

"No, nor in love either," he replied, trying to smile.

Elizabeth blushed.

"I see that doesn't apply to all our family."

"I don't think you're nice to say that. And I don't care----"

"Why, Bets, are you really in love with him?"

"You have no right to jest about such things."

"I'm not jesting, honestly. I've never been so far from it in my whole life. I don't blame you for liking that minister."

"Then, you were not making fun?"

"No! I've had all the fun-making knocked out of me."

"Harold," she said, coming nearer, "I've made him hate me."

"Hate you? There isn't a man living who could do that. No one was ever blessed with a more wonderful sister than I've been."

Elizabeth stared at her brother. Never had she heard him make such a sentimental statement. He had turned from her, and was looking into the street below. With a sharp swing he faced about.

"Come, tell me all you know about Phillips and the estate."

"I guess I really don't know very much more than I've told you. I know the man is a half-brother of Uncle Josiah, and that he mortgaged the old homestead to Father, and that he married some trader's daughter in Australia, and that the trader died, leaving a large fortune. That's all."

"Read those," said Harold, handing her some papers which he had brought with him from his own desk. "And keep your nerve. There are more."

Elizabeth read the papers through. One was the original doc.u.ment of the trader's will; the other was an Australian Government paper, exonerating Mr. Adoniah Phillips. A postscript to the will stated that Mr. Phillips had left Australia for America.

"I knew all that," said the girl as she returned the papers. "But they do help to make matters clearer. I wasn't really certain he had come over here. Have you found him?"

"No. I've never seen the man. What is more, not one penny of that vast estate has yet come into the possession of Adoniah Phillips."

"Why, Harold! Do you mean to tell me that you know where this man is, and that you have not looked him up? You say he has not received his inheritance? What are you trying to tell me?"

"I know what I'm saying. Neither he nor his heir has received one cent."

"And yet you know where they are?"

"I didn't say I knew of their whereabouts. But I will say that I know where to find the heir, a son."

"You should go to him at once, then, and give him the opportunity to pay off that mortgage on Uncle Josiah's home."

"Yes, I can do that. But it isn't so simple. Right there is where I've struck the snag that has nearly driven me insane. How to do it----"

"How? A lawyer saying a thing like that? Just go to him and explain how it all came about. If he is half a man he will do what is right without any litigation. That is so very simple that I wonder at you."

"Read that," he said, drawing from an inside pocket another paper, and handing it to her.

In the upper right-hand corner was an Australian stamp.