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Page 56
"Because there was nothing in them of value, sir," replied the
lad.
"What is in them?" said my father.
"Only old letters, sir, written to my father, when I was in Paris
- nothing else."
"And who would know that?" said my father.
The boy went suddenly white.
"Precisely!" said my father. "You alone knew it, and when you
undertook to give this library the appearance of a pillaged room,
you unconsciously endowed your imaginary robber with the thing
you knew yourself. Why search for loot in drawers that contained
only old letters? So your imaginary robber reasoned, knowing
what you knew. But a real robber, having no such knowledge,
would have ransacked them lest he miss the things of value that
he searched for."
He paused, his eyes on the lad, his voice deep and gentle.
"Where is the will?" he said.
The white in the boy's face changed to scarlet. He looked a
moment about him in a sort of terror; then he lifted his head and
put back his shoulders. He crossed the room to a bookcase, took
down a volume, opened it and brought out a sheet of folded
foolscap. He stood up and faced my father and the men about the
room.
"This man," he said, indicating Gosford, "has no right to take
all my father had. He persuaded my father and was trusted by
him. But I did not trust him. My father saw this plan in a
light that I did not see it, but I did not oppose him. If he
wished to use his fortune to help our country in the thing which
he thought he foresaw, I was willing for him to do it.
"But," he cried, "somebody deceived me, and I will not believe
that it was my father. He told me all about this thing. I had
not the health to fight for our country, when the time came, he
said, and as he had no other son, our fortune must go to that
purpose in our stead. But my father was just. He said that a
portion would be set aside for me, and the remainder turned over
to Mr. Gosford. But this will gives all to Mr. Gosford and
leaves me nothing!"
Then he came forward and put the paper in my father's hand.
There was silence except for the sharp voice of Mr. Gosford.
"I think there will be a criminal proceeding here!"
My father handed the paper to Lewis, who unfolded it and read it
aloud. It directed the estate of Peyton Marshall to be sold, the
sum of fifty thousand dollars paid to Anthony Gosford and the
remainder to the son.
"But there will be no remainder," cried young Marshall. "My
father's estate is worth precisely that sum. He valued it very
carefully, item by item, and that is exactly the amount it came
to."
"Nevertheless," said Lewis, "the will reads that way. It is in
legal form, written in Marshall's hand, and signed with his
signature, and sealed. Will you examine it, gentlemen? There
can be no question of the writing or the signature."
My father took the paper and read it slowly, and old Gaeki nosed
it over my father's arm, his eyes searching the structure of each
word, while Mr. Gosford sat back comfortably in his chair like
one elevated to a victory.
"It is in Marshall's hand and signature," said my father, and old
Gaeki, nodded, wrinkling his face under his shaggy eyebrows. He
went away still wagging his grizzled head, wrote a memorandum on
an envelope from his pocket, and sat down in, his chair.
My father turned now to young Marshall.
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