The Lock and Key Library Part 39

"This man, this Jenkinson's claim is perfectly preposterous," he began, "but I won't go into that. The matter is before the courts.

What I want to give you is a true statement of that unfortunate affair at the ranch, with which, I beg you to believe, I had nothing whatever to do."

Senor Vincenza's tale might have had the merit of truth; it certainly lacked that of brevity. He talked on, rolling a fresh cigarette at every second sentence, and Gerald made notes of such points as he considered important, but at the conclusion of the Spaniard's statement the journalist could not see that it had differed much from the published accounts, and he told the other as much.

"Well, you see," said Vincenza, "I am in a delicate position. It is not as if I were acting for myself. I am only my sister's agent--my half-sister's, I should say--poor little Catalina;" and the speaker broke off with a sigh and rolled a fresh cigarette before he resumed.

"It's her property, all of it, and I cannot bear to have her misrepresented in any way."

"I understand," said Gerald, making a note of the fact. "The property, I suppose, pa.s.sed to your sister from--"

"From her father. I was in the land of the living some years before he met and wooed and won my widowed mother. They are both dead now, and Catalina has none but myself to look out for her, except distant relatives on the father's side, who will inherit the property if she dies unmarried, and whom she cordially detests."

Gerald was not particularly romantic, but the idea of this fair young Spaniard, owner of one of the finest ranches in Yuba County, unmarried, and handsome too, if she were anything like her mother, inflamed his imagination a little. He shook hands cordially with the young man as he rose to go, and could not help wis.h.i.+ng they were better acquainted.

"You may be sure I will publish your statement exactly as you have given it to me, and as fully as possible," said Gerald. Before the young heiress had been mentioned, the journalist had scarcely seen material enough in the interview for a paragraph.

It is fair to presume that Senor Vincenza was satisfied with the treatment he received in the Evening Mail, for a polite note conveyed to Ffrench the expression of his thanks. So that incident pa.s.sed into the limbo of forgetfulness, though Gerald afterwards took more interest in the newspaper paragraphs, often scant enough, which told of the progress of the great land case in the Marysville courts.

A curt despatch, worded with that exasperating brevity which is a peculiarity of all but the most important telegrams, wound up the matter with an announcement that a decision had been reached in favor of the defendant, and that Mr. Isaac Hall, of the law firm of Hall and McGowan, had returned to San Francisco, having conducted the case to a successful issue. Gerald was pleased to hear that the young lady had been sustained in her rights, and determined to interview Mr. Hall, with whom he was well acquainted. Accordingly, after two or three unsuccessful attempts, he managed to catch the busy lawyer with half an hour's spare time on his hands, and well enough disposed to welcome his young friend.

"Mr. Hall," said Gerald, dropping into the spare chair in the attorney's private room, "I want to ask you a few questions about that Marysville land case."

"Fire ahead, my boy; I can give you twenty minutes," answered the lawyer, who was disposed to make a great deal more of the victory he had won than the newspapers had hitherto done, and who was consequently by no means averse from an interview. "What do you want to know?"

"Hard fight, wasn't it?" asked the journalist.

"Yes," replied Mr. Hall, "tough in a way; but we had right on our side as well as possession. A good lawyer ought always to win when he has those; to beat law and facts and everything else is harder scratching; though I've done that too," and the old gentleman chuckled as if well satisfied with himself.

"That's what your opponents had to do here, I suppose?" remarked Gerald, echoing the other's laugh.

"Pretty much, only they didn't do it," said the lawyer.

"I met Vincenza when he was down last month," pursued Gerald. "He seems a decentish sort of a fellow for a greaser."

"He's no greaser; he's a pure-blooded Castilian, and very much of the gentleman," answered Hall.

"So I found him," said Gerald. "I only used the 'greaser' as a generic term. He talks English as well as I do."

"That's a great compliment from an Irishman," remarked Mr. Hall with another chuckle.

"I suppose the sister's just as nice in her own way," went on Gerald, seeing an opportunity to satisfy a certain curiosity he had felt about the heiress since he first heard of her existence. "Did she make a good witness?"

"Who? What sister? What the deuce are you talking about?" asked the lawyer.

"Why, Vincenza's sister, half-sister, whatever she is. I understood from him that she was the real owner of the property."

"Oh, ay, to be sure," said Mr. Hall slowly; "these details escape one. Vincenza was my client; he acts for the girl under power of attorney, and really her name has hardly come up since the very beginning of the case."

"You didn't see her, then?" said Gerald, conscious of a vague sense of disappointment.

"See her?" repeated the lawyer. "No; how could I? She's in Europe for educational advantages--at a convent somewhere, I believe."

"Oh," said Gerald, "a child, is she? I had fancied, I don't know why, that she was a grown-up young lady."

"I couldn't tell you what her age is, but it must be over twenty- one or she couldn't have executed the power of attorney, and that was looked into at the start and found quite regular."

"I see," replied Gerald slowly; but the topic had started Mr. Hall on a fresh trail, and he broke in--

"And it was the only thing in order in the whole business. Do you know we came within an ace of losing, all through their confounded careless way of keeping their papers?"

"How did they keep them?" inquired Gerald listlessly. The suit appeared to be a commonplace one, and the young man's interest began to wane.

"They didn't keep them at all," exclaimed Mr. Hall indignantly.

"Fancy, the original deed--the old Spanish grant--the very keystone of our case, was not to be found till the last moment, and then only by the merest accident, and where do you suppose it was?"

"I haven't an idea," answered Gerald, stifling a yawn.

"At the back of an old print of the Madonna. It had been framed and hung up as an ornament, I suppose, Heaven knows when; and by- and-by some smart Aleck came along and thought the mother and child superior as a work of art and slapped it into the frame over the deed, and there it has hung for ten years anyhow."

"That's really very curious," said Gerald, whose attention began to revive as he saw a possible column to be compiled on the details of the case that had seemed so uninteresting to his contemporaries.

"Curious! I call it sinful--positively wicked," said the old gentleman wrathfully. "Just fancy two hundred thousand dollars hanging on the accident of finding a parchment in such a place as that."

"How did you happen to find it?" asked Gerald. "I should never have thought of looking for it there."

"No; nor any other sane man," sputtered the lawyer, irritated, as he recalled the anxiety the missing deed had caused him. "It was found by accident, I tell you. Some blundering, awkward, heaven- guided servant knocked the picture down and broke the frame. The Madonna was removed, and the missing paper came to light."

"And that was the turning-point of the case. Very interesting indeed," said Gerald, who saw in the working out of this legal romance a bit of detective writing such as his soul loved. "I suppose they'll have sense enough to put it in a safer place next time?"

"I will, you may bet your life. I've taken charge of all the family doc.u.ments; and if they get away from me, they'll do something that nothing's ever done before;" and the old lawyer chuckled with renewed satisfaction as he pointed to the ma.s.sive safe in a corner of the office.

"So the deed is there, is it?" asked Gerald, following Mr. Hall's eyes.

"Yes, it's there. A curious old doc.u.ment too; one of the oldest grants I have ever come across. Would you like to see it?" and the lawyer rose and opened the safe.

It was a curious old doc.u.ment drawn up in curious old Spanish, on an old discolored piece of parchment. The body of the instrument was unintelligible to Ffrench, but down in one corner was something that riveted his attention in a moment and seemed to make his heart stand still.

There was a signature in old-fas.h.i.+oned angular handwriting, Rodriguez Costello y Ugarte, and opposite to it a large, spreading seal. The impression showed a knight's head and shoulders in full armor, below it the motto, Nemo me impune lacessit, and a s.h.i.+eld of arms, party per fess, azure below, argent above, counter-vair on the argent. Point for point the identical blazonry which Ffrench had received from the Heralds' College in England--the s.h.i.+eld that he had first seen embroidered on the dead girl's handkerchief at Drim.

"What's the matter with you? Didn't you ever see an old Spanish deed before, or has it any of the properties of Medusa's head?"

inquired Mr. Hall, noticing Gerald's start of amazement and intent scrutiny of the seal.

"I've seen these arms before," said the young man slowly. "But the name--" He placed his finger on the signature. "Of course, I knew Vincenza's name must be different from his half-sister's; but is that hers?"

"Ugarte? Yes," said the lawyer, glancing at the parchment.

"I mean the whole name," and Gerald pointed again.

"Costello!" Mr. Hall gave the word its Spanish p.r.o.nunciation, "Costelyo," and it sounded strange and foreign in the young man's ears. "Costello, yes, I suppose so; but I don't try to keep track of more of these Spaniards' t.i.tles than is absolutely necessary."