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Page 63
"I have seen the deeds," said my father.
"Then," said the hunchback, "you know they are valid, and
transfer the title." He paused. "I have no doubt that Mr.
Henderson assembled these outstanding interests at no great cost,
but his conveyances are in form and legal."
"Everything connected with this affair," said my father, "is
strangely legal!"
The hunchback considered my father through his narrow eyelids.
"It is a strange world," he said.
"It is," replied my father. "It is profoundly, inconceivably
strange."
There was a moment of silence. The two men regarded each other
across the half-length of the room. The girl sat in the chair.
She had got back her courage. The big, forceful presence of my
father, like the shadow of a great rock, was there behind her.
She had the fine courage of her blood, and, after the first cruel
shock of this affair, she faced the tragedies that might lie
within it calmly.
Shadows lay along the walls of the great room, along the gilt
frames of the portraits, the empty fireplace, the rosewood
furniture of ancient make and the oak floor. Only the hunchback
was in the light, behind the four candles on the table.
"It was strange," continued my father over the long pause, "that
your father's will discovered at his death left his lands to you,
and no acre to your brother David."
"Not strange," replied the hunchback, "when you consider what my
brother David proved to be. My father knew him. What was hidden
from us, what the world got no hint of, what the man was in the
deep and secret places of his heart, my father knew. Was it
strange, then, that he should leave the lands to me?"
"It was a will drawn by an old man in his senility, and under
your control."
"Under my care," cried the hunchback. "I will plead guilty, if
you like, to that. I honored my father. I was beside his bed
with loving-kindness, while my brother went about the pleasures
of his life."
"But the testament," said my father, "was in strange terms. It
bequeathed the lands to you, with no mention of the personal
property, as though these lands were all the estate your father
had."
"And so they were," replied the hunchback calmly. "The lands had
been stripped of horse and steer, and every personal item, and
every dollar in hand or debt owing to my father before his
death." The, man paused and put the tips of his fingers
together. "My father had given to my brother so much money from
these sources, from time to time, that he justly left me the
lands to make us even."
"Your father was senile and for five years in his bed. It was
you, Dillworth, who cleaned the estate of everything but land."
"I conducted my father's business," said the hunchback, "for him,
since he was ill. But I put the moneys from these sales into his
hand and he gave them to my brother."
"I have never heard that your brother David got a dollar of this
money."
The hunchback was undisturbed.
"It was a family matter and not likely to be known."
"I see it," said my father. "It was managed in your legal manner
and with cunning foresight. You took the lands only in the will,
leaving the impression to go out that your brother had already
received his share in the personal estate by advancement. It was
shrewdly done. But there remained one peril in it: If any
personal property should appear under the law you would be
required to share it equally with your brother David."
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