CHAPTER XXIX THE BLACK VALISE IS OPENED

When Mr. Ashbel Norton called on Judge Danvers, according to appointment, that Monday morning, he found the old lawyer alone in his private office, with a small, black leather valise lying on the table before him.

“Good-morning, Mr. Norton,” he said to his visitor. “Do you recognize this at all?”

“Perfectly well,” replied Norton. “I have seen it a hundred times.”

“When and where?”

“In the hands of my brother-in-law, at his house, years ago. I could scarcely say how often. He kept many of his papers in it, often matters of value. It was a handy thing to carry to and from his banking-house, or to put away and lock up anywhere.”

“It is part of the property, then, of which you came in search?”

“Assuredly. I should certainly claim it if it were not already in your own custody.”

[Pg 351]“I shall then proceed to take the responsibility of opening it,” said the Judge, as he touched his little bell; “but I must have witnesses.”

In a moment more, two law-clerks were called in as “lookers-on,” while another sat at a desk and wrote out an inventory of the various papers and matters in the valise, as the Judge called them off.

“No money,” he said, at last.

“Of course not,” replied Mr. Norton; “we could trust Robert for that. Nor anything he could handily turn into money. That is the will, beyond doubt, and it has evidently been opened and read.”

“No harm for us to read it over again, then,” said the Judge. “I’ll excuse you now, gentlemen.”

The moment they were alone, the Judge proceeded with a perusal of the ancient-looking document, while Ashbel Norton listened.

“It is marvelous!” exclaimed the latter, at the close, “how nearly my poor sister seems to have recalled every word of it. It was made originally with her sanction and approval, and she has obeyed it as far as was possible, under[Pg 352] the circumstances. It will now greatly aid us in carrying into effect the terms of her own.”

“The property seems to have been large,” remarked the Judge.

“Quite so,” said Norton, “and almost all of it in available shape—stocks, bonds and the like. Very little real estate. My sister had been well provided for, so that she was never cramped, you know, or anything of that sort. Still, the whole thing was a dreadful blow to her.”

“I should say it would have been,” remarked the Judge. “But did you never, until now, have any idea in what direction your brother had gone?”

“To be sure we did,” replied Norton, “and that was the worst of it. We heard from him, or thought we did, on the Continent, in the Colonies, in India, everywhere. We spent a mint of money in searches. This last hint, you know, came from himself. He thought, perhaps, he might get something out of us.”

“And now what shall we do with him?” asked the Judge.

“The very thing that puzzles me!” exclaimed Norton. “There’ll be nobody to dispute the[Pg 353] will, now it’s found. Indeed there could hardly be any dispute about it. But we don’t want any row made or public notoriety. We’ve suffered enough. All I want of him is to tell us when my nephew died, if he’s dead, or where he is if he’s alive.”

“We will easily make him do that,” replied the Judge, “and then he’s done enough in this country to have him put out of the way for years, if we wanted to, but I’ve no malice against him.”

“Nor I, indeed,” said Norton. “Even my poor sister forgave him, and she’d suffered more than any one else, unless it may be his own wife, poor thing!”

Things looked pretty black for Major Montague, or Major Robert Norton, it must be confessed, for the longer the lawyer talked with his English client the clearer it became that there remained little enough of power, either for good or evil, in the wretched man who had done so much of the latter.

There he sat in his cell that day, nevertheless, scheming and calculating and plotting for all the world as if he really had what he called “a[Pg 354] hold” upon old Judge Danvers. If he expected to be sent for at once, however, he was very much mistaken.

Indeed, just as the Judge was about to start for home that night, a sharp, alert, wiry-looking little gentleman stepped into his office.

“Glad to see you, Mr. District Attorney,” said the lawyer. “What can I do for you?”

“I see you have put that fellow Montague in quod again. Want him for anything?”

“Witness, perhaps, for a few days. Why?”

“Oh! that’s all right. I won’t interfere till you’re through with him. Want him myself after that. Been looking for him this long time, only I didn’t know he was the man till to-day.”

“Bad case?”

“Rather, I should say. Forgery, swindling, pocket-picking, all sorts. I hardly know what’s on the list. Pretty much everything. Spoil him for a witness.”

“Hold on a bit, then,” said the Judge; “I’ll turn him right over to you.”

“All right,” replied the District Attorney. “I’m always glad to oblige a man like you. He’s a bad one. Good-day.”

[Pg 355]“Mr. Ashbel Norton need have no fears about his family name,” muttered the Judge; “but how about all the Montagues? Their name’s going to the penitentiary by a large majority.”

There seemed no help for it, and it was not any fault of Judge Danvers, either.

That evening he had another long talk with Dr. Manning, which was ended with:

“Of course, he’ll come right here. Send him down to my office with as little delay as possible. I must have a talk with him before anybody else knows that I’ve found him.”

Perhaps, after all, there was small need of so many precautions, but the old lawyer could hardly have done his work in any other way if he had tried.

As for Bar Vernon, it had seemed to him that morning as if there never could have been so slow a stage-coach anywhere else in all the world, and he caught himself glancing enviously at the telegraph wires. He had secured a perch beside the driver on the box, and at last he asked him:

“What’s the matter with your horses to-day? They seem to go like snails.”

“Snails, is it?” angrily exclaimed the driver.[Pg 356] “S’pose you ask ’em? I reckon I know how fast hosses ort to be druv.”

“Hullo, you off nag,” suddenly inquired Bar, as the driver had suggested, “is that the best you can do?”

“Best I can do,” returned the off horse, with a toss of his head.

“Golly!” exclaimed the driver.

“What’s the matter?” again demanded Bar.

“Low feed,” replied the animal, or at least so it seemed to the driver, and again he exclaimed:

“Golly!” and added a long whistle of utter astonishment.

“What do they give you?” asked Bar.

“Shingle nails and lager beer,” dolefully returned the now clearly harassed animal. “Don’t bother me!”

“Think of it!” exclaimed Bar. “No wonder he can’t travel fast on such feed as that. I can see ’em sticking through him, now. Poor fellow.”

“Poor fellow, yourself,” stammered the driver. “Look a-here, young man, who be you?”

“Who am I?” replied Bar. “Why, I’m half horse, myself, on my aunt’s side, and her right[Pg 357] hand side at that. You don’t think they’d tell me any lies, do you?”

“They did, though,” replied the driver, who had edged away as far as the seat would let him.

Men of his class are not likely to be lacking in “cuteness,” however, and it was not long before the truth began to dawn on him.

“Sold,” he said, musingly. “Jeff Rogers sold by a runaway schoolboy. Sold on hoss talk, too. Who’d ha’ thought of sech a thing? But then, how well he does it! Beats the perfessionals all holler.”

At all events, it helped a good deal to while away the time till Bar was able to exchange the slow-moving coach for the swiftness and comfort of the railway express train which was to carry him on towards the city.

Little did Bar imagine what was or might be waiting for him on his arrival, although he “imagined” at the liveliest kind of rate.

Trust a boy for that sort of thing.

Even the lightning express train, at last, began to seem as if it must have been kept for awhile on some kind of “low feed.”

Nothing short of a trip by telegraph would[Pg 358] have really answered the requirements of Bar’s very natural impatience.

Small blame to him, therefore, if he mystified a whole car-load of passengers by the questions he asked and the answers he obtained from poor fellows who were stealing rides under the floor and out upon the roof of the car.

He couldn’t help it, you know.