The Art of Disappearing Part 39

It was necessary to approach the Senator on the matter. He secured from him a promise that their talk would remain a secret, not only because the matter touched one very dear to the Senator, but also because publicity might ruin the detective himself. If the Senator did not care to give his word, there would be no talk, but his relative might also be exposed to danger. The Senator was always gracious with Curran.

"Do you know anything about Arthur's history in California?" and his lazy eyes noted every change in the ruddy, handsome face.

"Never asked him but one question about it. He answered that straight, and never spoke since about it. Nothing wrong, I hope?" the Senator answered with alarm.

"Lots, I guess, but I don't know for sure. Here are the circ.u.mstances.

Think them out for yourself. A crowd of sharp speculators in California mines bought a mine from Arthur Dillon when he was settling up his accounts to come home to his mother. As trouble arose lately about that mine, they had to hunt up Arthur Dillon. They send their agent to New York, he comes to Arthur, and has a talk with him. Then he goes back to his speculators, and declares to them that this Arthur Dillon is not the man who sold the mine. So the company, full of suspicion, offers me the job of looking up the character of Arthur, and what he had been doing these ten years. They say straight out that the real Arthur Dillon has been put out of the way, and that the man who is holding the name and the stakes here in New York is a fraud."

This bit of fiction relieved the Senator's mind.

"A regular c.o.c.k-and-bull story," said he with indignation. "What's their game? Did you tell them what we think of Artie? Would his own mother mistake him? Or even his uncle? If they're looking for hurt, tell them they're on the right road."

"No, no," said Curran, "these are straight men. But if doubt is cast on a business transaction, they intend to clear it away. It would be just like them to bring suit to establish the ident.i.ty of Arthur with the Arthur Dillon who sold them the mine. Now, Senator, could you go into court and swear positively that the young man who came back from California five years ago is the nephew who ran away from home at the age of fifteen?"

"Swear it till I turned blue; why, it's foolish, simply foolish. And every man, woman, and child in the district would do the same. Why don't you go and talk with Artie about it?"

"Because the company doesn't wish to make a fuss until they have some ground to walk on," replied Curran easily. "When I tell them how sure the relatives and friends of Arthur are about his ident.i.ty, they may drop the affair. But now, Senator, just discussing the thing as friends, you know, if you were asked in court why you were so sure Arthur is your nephew, what could you tell the court?"

"If the court asked me how I knew my mother was my mother----"

"That's well enough, I know. But in this case Arthur was absent ten years, in which time you never saw him, heard of him, or from him."

"Good point," said the Senator musingly. "When Artie came home from California, he was sick, and I went to see him. He was in bed. Say, I'll never forget it, Curran. I saw Pat sick once at the same age ... Pat was his father, d'ye see?... and here was Pat lying before me in the bed. I tell you it shook me. I never thought he'd grow so much like his father, though he has the family features. Know him to be Pat's son? Why, if he told me himself he was any one else, I wouldn't believe him."

Evidently the Senator knew nothing of Horace Endicott and recognised Arthur Dillon as his brother's son. The detective was not surprised; neither was Edith at the daily report.

"There isn't another like him on earth," she said with the pride of a discoverer. "Keep on until you find his tracks, here or in California."

Curran had an interesting chat with Judy Haskell on a similar theme, but with a different excuse from that which roused the Senator. The old lady knew the detective only as Arthur's friend. He approached her mysteriously, with a story of a gold mine awaiting Arthur in California, as soon as he could prove to the courts that he was really Arthur Dillon. Judy began to laugh. "Prove that he's Arthur Dillon! Faith, an'

long I'd wait for a gold mine if I had to prove I was Judy Haskell. How can any one prove themselves to be themselves, Misther Curran? Are the courts goin' crazy?"

The detective explained what evidence a court would accept as proof of personality.

"Well, Arthur can give that aisy enough," said she.

"But he won't touch the thing at all, Mrs. Haskell. He was absent ten years, and maybe he doesn't want that period ripped up in a court. It might appear that he had a wife, you know, or some other disagreeable thing might leak out. When the lawyers get one on the witness stand, they make hares of him."

"Sure enough," said Judy thoughtfully. Had she not suggested this very suspicion to Anne? The young are wild, and even Arthur could have slipped from grace in that interval of his life. Curran hoped that Arthur could prove his ident.i.ty without exposing the secrets of the past.

"For example," said he smoothly, with an eye for Judy's expression, "could you go to court to-morrow and swear that Arthur is the same lad that ran away from his mother fifteen years ago?"

"I cud swear as manny oaths on that point as there are hairs in yer head," said Judy.

"And what would you say, Mrs. Haskell, if the judge said to you: Now, madam, it's very easy for you to say you know the young man to be the same person as the runaway boy; but how do you know it? what makes you think you know it?"

"I'd say he was purty sa.s.sy, indade. Of coorse I'd say that to meself, for ye can't talk to a judge as aisy an' free as to a lawyer. Well, I'd say manny pleasant things. Arthur was gone tin years, but I knew him an'

he knew me the minute we set eyes on aich other. Then, agin, I knew him out of his father. He doesn't favor the mother at all, for she's light an' he's dark. There's a dale o' the Dillon in him. Then, agin, how manny things he tould me of the times we had together, an' he even asked me if Teresa Flynn, his sweetheart afore he wint off, was livin' still.

Oh, as thrue as ye're sittin' there! Poor thing, she was married. An' he remembered how fond he was o' rice puddin' ice cold. An' he knew Louis Everard the minute he shtud forninst him in the door. But what's the use o' talkin'? I cud tell ye for hours all the things he said an' did to show he was Arthur Dillon."

"Has he any marks on his body that would help to identify him, if he undertook to get the gold mine that belongs to him?"

"Artie had only wan mark on him as a boy ... he was the most spotless child I ever saw ... an' that was a mole on his right shoulder. He tuk it wid him to California, an' he brought it back, for I saw it meself in the same spot while he was sick, an' I called his attintion to it, an'

he was much surprised, for he had never thought of it wanst."

"It's my opinion," said Curran solemnly, "that he can prove his ident.i.ty without exposing his life in the west. I hope to persuade him to it.

Maybe the photographs of himself and his father would help. Have you any copies of them?"

"There's jist two. I wudn't dare to take thim out of his room, but if ye care to walk up-stairs, Mr. Curran, an' luk at thim there, ye're welcome. He an' his mother are away the night to a gran' ball."

They entered Arthur's apartments together, and Judy showed the pictures of Arthur Dillon as a boy of fourteen, and of his youthful father; old daguerreotypes, but faithful and clear as a likeness. Judy rattled on for an hour, but the detective had achieved his object. She had no share in the secret.

Arthur Dillon was his father's son, for her. He studied the pictures, and carefully examined the rooms, his admiration provoking Judy into a display of their beauties. With the skill and satisfaction of an artist in man-hunting, he observed how thoroughly the character of the young man displayed itself in the trifles of decoration and furnishing.

The wooden crucifix with the pathetic figure in bronze on the wall over the desk, the holy water stoup at the door, carved figures of the Holy Family, a charming group, on the desk, exquisite etchings of the Christ and the Madonna after the masters, a _prie-dieu_ in the inner room with a group of works of devotion: and Edith had declared him no Catholic.

Here was the refutation.

"He is a pious man," Curran said.

"And no wan sees it but G.o.d and himself. So much the betther, I say,"

Judy remarked. "Only thim that had sorra knows how to pray, an' he prays like wan that had his fill of it."

The tears came into the man's eyes at the indications of Arthur's love for poor Erin. Hardness was the mark of Curran, and sin had been his lifelong delight; but for his country he had kept a tenderness and devotion that softened and elevated his nature at times. Of little use and less honor to his native land, he felt humbled in this room, whose books, pictures, and ornaments revealed thought and study in behalf of a harried and wretched people, yet the student was not a native of Ireland. It seemed profane to set foot here, to spy upon its holy privacy. He felt glad that its details gave the lie so emphatically to Edith's instincts.

The astonishing thing was the absence of Californian relics and mementoes. Some photographs and water colors, whose names Curran mentally copied for future use, pictured popular scenes on the Pacific slope; but they could be bought at any art store. Surely his life in the mines, with all the luck that had come to him, must have held some great bitterness, that he never spoke of it casually, and banished all remembrances.

That would come up later, but Curran had made up his mind that no secret of Arthur's life should ever see the light because he found it. Not even vengeful Edith, and she had the right to hate her enemy, should wring from him any disagreeable facts in the lad's career. So deeply the detective respected him!

In the place of honor, at the foot of his bed, where his eyes rested on them earliest and latest, hung a group of portraits in oil, in the same frame, of Louis the beloved, from his babyhood to the present time: on the side wall hung a painting of Anne in her first glory as mistress of the new home in Washington Square; opposite, Monsignor smiled down in purple splendor; two miniatures contained the grave, sweet, motherly face of Mary Everard and the auburn hair and lovely face of Mona.

"There are the people he loves," said Curran with emotion.

"Ay, indade," Judy said tenderly, "an' did ever a wild boy like him love his own more? Night an' day his wan thought is of them. The sun rises an' sets for him behind that picther there," pointing to Louis'

portraits. "If annythin' had happened to that lovely child last Spring he'd a-choked the life out o' wan woman wid his own two hands. He's aisy enough, G.o.d knows, but I'd rather jump into the say than face him when the anger is in him."

"He's a terrible man," said Curran, repeating Edith's phrase.

He examined some ma.n.u.script in Arthur's handwriting. How different from the careless scrawl of Horace Endicott this clear, bold, dashing script, which ran full speed across the page, yet turned with ease and leisurely from the margin. What a pity Edith could not see with her own eyes these silent witnesses to the truth. Beyond the study was a music-room, where hung his violin over some scattered music. Horace Endicott hated the practising of the art, much as he loved the opera. It was all very sweet, just what the detective would have looked for, beautiful to see.

He could have lingered in the rooms and speculated on that secret and manly life, whose currents were so feebly but shiningly indicated in little things. It occurred to him that copies of the daguerreotypes, Arthur at fourteen and his father at twenty-five, would be of service in the search through California. He spoke of it to Judy.

"Sure that was done years ago," said Judy cautiously. "Anne Dillon wouldn't have it known for the world, ye see, but I know that she sint a thousand o' thim to the polis in California; an' that's the way she kem across the lad. Whin he found his mother shtill mournin' him, he wrote to her that he had made his pile an' was comin' home. Anne has the pride in her, an' she wants all the world to believe he kem home of himself, d'ye see? Now kape that a secret, mind."

"And do you never let on what I've been telling you," said Curran gravely. "It may come to nothing, and it may come to much, but we must be silent."

She had given her word, and Judy's word was like the laws of the Medes and Persians. Curran rejoiced at the incident of the daguerreotypes, which antic.i.p.ated his proposed search in California. Vainly however did he describe the result of his inquiry for Edith. She would have none of his inferences. He must try to entrap Anne Dillon and the priest, and afterwards he might sc.r.a.pe the surface of California.