Kitabı oku: «The Girl from Sunset Ranch: or, Alone in a Great City», sayfa 14
CHAPTER XXIX
“THE WHIP HAND”
An hour later Helen and the old man hurried out of the lodging house and Helen led him across town to the office where Dudley Stone worked. At first the old man peered all about, on the watch for Fenwick Grimes or his clerk.
“They have been after me every few days to agree to leave New York. I did not know what for, but I knew Fenwick was up to some game. He always was up to some game, even when we were young fellows together.
“Now he is rich, and he might have found me better lodgings and something to do. But after I came back from the South and was unfit to do clerical work because of my eyes, he only threw me a dollar now and then – like throwing a bone to a starving dog.”
That explained how Helen had chanced to see the old man at Fenwick Grimes’s door on the occasion of her visit to her father’s old partner. And later, in the presence of Dudley Stone – who was almost as eager as Helen herself – the old man related the facts that served to explain the whole mystery surrounding the trouble that had darkened Prince Morrell’s life for so long.
Briefly, Allen Chesterton and Fenwick Grimes had grown up together in the same town, as boys had come to New York, and had kept in touch with each other for years. Neither had married and for years they had roomed together.
But Chesterton was a plodding bookkeeper and would never be anything else. Grimes was mad for money, but he was always complaining that he never had a chance.
His chance came through Willets Starkweather, when the latter’s brother-in-law was looking for a working partner – a man right in Grimes’s line, and who was a good salesman. Grimes got into the firm on very limited capital, yet he was a trusted member and Prince Morrell depended on his judgment in most things.
Allen Chesterton had been brought into the firm’s office to keep the books through Grimes’s influence, of course. By and by it seemed to Chesterton that his old comrade was running pretty close to the wind. The bookkeeper feared that he might be involved in some dubious enterprise.
There was flung in Chesterton’s way (perhaps that was by the influence of Grimes, too) a chance to go to New Orleans to be bookkeeper in a shipping firm. He could get passage upon a vessel belonging to the firm.
He had this to decide between the time of leaving the office one afternoon and early the next morning. He took the place and bundled his things aboard, leaving a letter for Fenwick Grimes. That letter, it is needless to say, Grimes never made public. And by the time the slow craft Chesterton was on reached her destination, the firm of Grimes & Morrell had gone to smash, Morrell was a fugitive, and the papers had ceased to talk about the matter.
The true explanation of the mystery was now plain. Chesterton said that it was not himself, but Grimes, who had been successful as an amateur actor. Grimes had often disguised himself so well as different people that he might have made something by the art in a “protean turn” on the vaudeville stage.
Chesterton had known all about the thirty-three thousand dollars belonging to Morrell & Grimes in the banks. Grimes had hinted to his friend how easy it would be to sequestrate this money without Morrell knowing it. At first, evidently, Grimes had wished to use the bookkeeper as a tool.
Then he improved upon his plan. He had gotten rid of Chesterton by getting him the position at a distance. His going out of town himself had been merely a blind. He had imitated Prince Morrell so perfectly – after forging the checks in his partner’s handwriting – that the tellers of the two banks had thought Morrell really guilty as charged.
“So Fenwick Grimes got thirty-three thousand dollars with which to begin business on, after the bankruptcy proceedings had freed him of all debts,” said Dud Stone, reflectively. “Yet there must have been one other person who knew, or suspected, his crime.”
“Who could that be?” cried Helen. “Surely Mr. Chesterton is guiltless.”
“Personally I would have taken the old man’s statement without his swearing to it. That is the confidence I have in him. I only wished it to be put into affidavit form that it might be presented to the courts – if necessary.”
“If necessary?” repeated Helen, faintly.
“You see, my dear girl, you now have the whip hand,” said Dud. “You can make the man – or men – who ill-used your father suffer for the crime – ”
“But, is there more than Grimes? Are you sure?”
“I believe that there is another who knew. Either legally, or morally, he is guilty. In either case he was and is a despicable man!” exclaimed Dud, hotly.
“You mean my uncle,” observed Helen, quietly. “I know you do. How do you think he benefited by this crime?”
“I believe he had a share of the money. He held Grimes up, undoubtedly. Grimes is the bigger criminal in a legal sense. But Starkweather benefited, I believe, after the fact. And he let your father remain in ignorance – ”
“And let poor dad pay him back the money he was supposed to have lost in the smashing of the firm?” murmured Helen. “Do – do you think he was paid twice – that he got money from both Grimes and father?”
“We’ll prove that by Grimes,” said the fledgling lawyer who, in time, was likely to prove himself a successful one indeed.
He sent for Mr. Grimes to come to see him on important business. When the money-lender arrived, Dud got him into a corner immediately, showed the affidavit, and hinted that Starkweather had divulged something.
Immediately Grimes accused Helen’s uncle of exactly the part in the crime Dud had suspected him of committing. After the affair blew over and Grimes had set up in business, Starkweather had come to him and threatened to tell certain things which he knew, and others that he suspected, unless he was given the money he had originally invested in the firm of Grimes & Morrell.
“I shut his mouth. That’s all he took – his rightful share; but I’ve got his receipts, and I can make it look bad for him. And I will make it look bad for that old stiff-and-starched hypocrite if he lets me be driven to the wall.”
This defiance of Fenwick Grimes closed the case as far as any legal proceedings were concerned. The matter of recovering the money from Grimes would have to be tried in the civil courts. All the creditors of the firm were satisfied. To get Grimes indicted for his old crime would be a difficult matter in New York County.
“But you have the whip hand,” Dud Stone told the girl from Sunset Ranch again. “If you want satisfaction, you can spread the story broadcast by means of the newspapers, and you will involve Starkweather in it just as much as you will Grimes. And between you and me, Helen, I think Willets Starkweather richly deserves just that punishment.”
CHAPTER XXX
HEADED WEST
Just at this time Helen Morrell wasn’t thinking at all about wreaking vengeance upon those who might have ill-treated her when she was alone in the great city. Instead, her heart was made very tender by the delightful things that were being done for her by those who loved and admired the sturdy little girl from Sunset Ranch.
In the first place, Jess and Dud Stone, and their cousins, gave Helen every chance possible to see the pleasanter side of city life. She had gone shopping with the girls and bought frocks and hats galore. Indeed, she had had to telegraph to Big Hen for more money. She got the money; but likewise she received the following letter:
“Dear Snuggy: —
“We lets colts get inter the alfalfa an’ kick up their heels for a while; but they got to steady down and come home some time. Ain’t you kicked up your heels sufficient in that lonesome city? And it looks like somebody was getting money away from you – or have you learnt to spend it down East there? Come on home, Snuggy! The hull endurin’ ranch is jest a-honin’ for you. Sing’s that despondint I expects to see him cut off his pigtail. Jo-Rab has gone back on his rice-and-curry rations, the Greasers don’t plunk their mandolins no more, and the punchers are as sorry lookin’ as winter-kept steers. Come back, Snuggy, and liven up the old place, is the sincere wish of, yours warmly,
“Henry Billings.”
Helen only waited to see some few matters cleared up before she left for the West. As it happened, Dud Stone obtained a chance to represent a big corporation for some months, in Elberon and Helena. His smattering of legal knowledge was sufficient to enable him to accept the job. It was a good chance for Jess to go out, too, and try the climate and the life, over both of which her brother was so enthusiastic.
But she would go to Sunset Ranch to remain for some time if Helen went West with them and – of course – Helen was only too glad to agree to such a proposition.
Meanwhile the Western girl was taken to museums, and parks, and theaters, and all kinds of show places, and thoroughly enjoyed herself. May Van Ramsden and others of those who had attended Mary Boyle’s tea party in the attic of the Starkweather house hunted Helen out, too, in the home of her friends on Riverside Drive, and the last few weeks of Helen’s stay were as wonderful and exciting as the first few weeks had been lonely and sad.
Dud had insisted upon publishing the facts of the old trouble which had come upon the firm of Grimes & Morrell, in pamphlet form, including Allen Chesterton’s affidavit, and this pamphlet was mailed to the creditors of the old firm and to all of Prince Morrel’s old friends in New York. But nothing was said in the printed matter about Willets Starkweather.
Fenwick Grimes took a long trip out of town, and made no attempt to put in an answer to the case. But Mr. Starkweather was a very much frightened man.
Dud came home one afternoon and advised Helen to go and see her uncle. Since her departure from the Starkweather mansion she had seen neither the girls nor Uncle Starkweather himself.
“He doesn’t know what you are going to do with him. He brought the money he received from your father to my office; but, of course, I would not accept it. You’ve got the whip hand, Helen – ”
“But I do not propose to crack the whip, Dud,” declared the Western girl, quickly.
“You’re a good chap, Snuggy!” exclaimed Dud, warmly, and Helen smiled and forgave him for using the intimate nickname.
But Helen went across town the very next day and called upon her uncle. This time she mounted the broad stone steps, instead of descending to the basement door.
Gregson opened the door and, by his manner, showed that even with the servants the girl from Sunset Ranch was upon a different footing in her uncle’s house. Mr. Starkweather was in his den and Helen was ushered into the room without crossing the path of any other member of the family.
“Helen!” he ejaculated, when he saw her, and to tell the truth the girl was shocked by his changed appearance. Mr. Starkweather was quite broken down. The cloud of scandal that seemed to be menacing him had worn his pomposity to a thread, and his dignified “Ahem!” had quite disappeared.
Indeed, to see this once proud and selfish man fairly groveling before the daughter of the man he had helped injure in the old times, was not a pleasant sight. Helen cut the interview as short as she could.
She managed to assure Uncle Starkweather that he need have no apprehension. That he had known all the time Grimes was guilty, and that he had benefited from that knowledge, was the sum and substance of Willets Starkweather’s connection with the old crime. At that time he had been, as Dud Stone learned, in serious financial difficulties. He used the money received from Grimes’s ill-gotten gains, to put himself on his feet.
Then had come the death of old Cornelius Starkweather and the legacy. After that, when Prince Morrell sent Starkweather the money he was supposed to have lost in the bankruptcy of Grimes & Morrell, Starkweather did not dare refuse it. He feared always that it would be discovered he had known who was really guilty of the embezzlement.
Flossie met Helen in the hall and hugged her. “Don’t you go away mad at me, Helen,” she cried. “I know we all treated you mean; but – but I guess I wouldn’t act that way again, to any girl, no matter what Belle does.”
“I do not believe you would, Floss,” agreed Helen, kissing her warmly.
“And are you really going back to that lovely ranch?”
“Very soon. And some time, if you care to and your father will let you, I’ll be glad to have you come out there for a visit.”
“Bully for you, Helen! I’ll surely come,” cried Flossie.
Hortense was on hand to speak to her cousin, too. “You are much too nice a girl to bear malice, I am sure, Helen,” she said. “But we do not deserve very good treatment at your hands. I hope you will forgive us and, when you come to New York again, come to visit us.”
“I am sure you would not treat me again as you did this time,” said Helen, rather sternly.
“You can be sure we wouldn’t. Not even Belle. She’s awfully sorry, but she’s too proud to say so. She wants father to bring old Mary Boyle downstairs into the old nursery suite that she used to occupy when Uncle Cornelius was alive; only the old lady doesn’t want to come. She says she’s only a few more years at best to live and she doesn’t like changes.”
Helen saw the nurse before she left the house, and left the dear old creature very happy indeed. Helen was sure Nurse Boyle would never be so lonely again, for her friends had remembered her.
Even Mrs. Olstrom, the housekeeper, came to shake hands with the girl who had been tucked away into an attic bedroom as “a pauper cousin.” And old Mr. Lawdor fairly shed tears when he learned that he was not likely to see Helen again.
There were other people in the great city who were sorry to see Helen Morrell start West. Through Dud Stone, Allen Chesterton had been found light work and a pleasant boarding place. There would always be a watchful eye upon the old man – and that eye belonged to Miss Sadie Goronsky – rather, “S. Goron, Milliner,” as the new sign over the hat shop door read.
“For you see,” said Miss Sadie, with a toss of her head, “there ain’t no use in advertisin’ it that you are a Yid. That don’t do no good, as I tell mommer. Sure, I’m proud I’m a Jew. We’re the greatest people in the world yet. But it ain’t good for business.
“Now, ‘Goron’ sounds Frenchy; don’t it, Helen? And when I get a-going down here good, I’ll be wantin’ some time to look at a place on Fift’ Av’ner, maybe. ‘Madame Goron’ would be dead swell – yes? But you put the ‘sky’ to it and it’s like tying a can to a dog’s tail. There ain’t nowhere to go then but home,” declared this worldly wise young girl.
Helen had dinner again with the Goronskys, and Sadie’s mother could not do enough to show her fondness for her daughter’s benefactor. Sadie promised to write to Helen frequently and the two girls – so much alike in some ways, yet as far apart as the poles in others – bade each other an affectionate farewell.
The next day Helen Morrell and her two friends, Dud and Jess Stone, were headed West. That second trip across the continent was a very different journey for Helen than the first had been.
She and Jess Stone had become the best of friends. And as the months slid by the two girls – Helen, a product of the West, and Jessie, a product of the great Eastern city – became dearer and dearer companions.
As for Dud – of course he was always hanging around. His sister sometimes wondered – and that audibly – how he found time for business, he was so frequently at Sunset Ranch. This was only said, however, in wicked enjoyment of his discomfiture – and of Helen’s blushes.
For by that time it was an understood thing about Sunset Ranch that in time Dud was going to have the right to call its mistress “Snuggy” for all the years of her life – just as her father had. And Helen, contemplating this possibility, did not seem to mind.
