The Fifth Ace Part 42

"How do you know that?" Willa asked, amazed.

"He told me the truth himself, just a little while before he died,"

Thode responded. "I gave him my word to keep his confidence, but now in your interest I know that he would have me speak. He was Geoffrey Rendell, of a fine old family, university bred and with a brilliant future before him, if he had so chosen. I have traced as much of his career as anyone can ever know now and I will never betray the reason for his ultimate choice, but you may rest a.s.sured that his nickname was no label of chance or whim. He was a gentleman always in the truest, finest sense of the word."

"Nothing could ever make me doubt that for an instant," Willa said with glowing eyes. "There could have been nothing discreditable in his past and he was a clean sportsman in the life he chose, square and philosophical; a game loser, a generous winner! Poor Dad! Mr. Thode, tell me how you succeeded in learning the truth."

"When I was convinced that trickery was at work I persuaded Winthrop to let me see and photograph the adoption agreement. With that as a basis I went straight to Pima, in Graham County, Arizona, where Frank Hillery, the trapper, had died and Wiley professed to have run across his papers. Hillery died only seven or eight months ago, you know, and it wasn't difficult to find out all about him.

"He landed there in the spring of nineteen four, and opened a little store with general merchandise. He was still keeping it when he was stricken with typhoid last year and died. I readily found the widow who had kept house for him all those years and interviewed his friends.

His long sojourn in the wilds evidently had their reaction when he settled down in civilization once more, for he became exceedingly garrulous, and his friends were familiar with every detail of his past life. His favorite narrative was of the coming of Gentleman Geoff with you to his cabin; of the death of his own little daughter and of Gentleman Geoff's long illness and subsequent grat.i.tude and generosity to him. Your foster father, in recognition of his hospitality and care, had given him sufficient money to start in business, and Hillery never forgot it. When he died he left no papers except a brief will, and his old trunks and boxes remained undisturbed in the attic, until about three months ago when a strange young man appeared in Pima."

Thode paused and Willa caught her breath. She had momentarily forgotten the narrator himself in her interest in his story, and the quick color came and went in her cheeks. It seemed to the young engineer that she bloomed like a splendid rose in the homely, bare little room and the wistfulness deepened in his eyes, but he went on in a sternly impersonal voice:

"The man was Wiley, under an a.s.sumed name, of course. He posed as a nephew of the dead man, and when the beneficiaries found he had no intention of attempting to dispute the will, being wealthy himself, they gladly made friends with him and told him all they knew of his late uncle.

"Wiley went to board with the widow, and it seemed only natural that he should want to go through his uncle's effects. The widow gave him free access to the attic, and it was there, in one of those boxes, that he professed to find the packet of papers which he afterward produced.

Undoubtedly the marriage-certificate and the maps were genuine; only the article of adoption had been added. He left soon after, and nothing further was known of him there.

"When I learned that much, I, too, went to board with the widow and learned every detail of Wiley's stay. One of Hillery's oldest friends had a son who had gone to the bad and was serving a term for highway robbery in a prison near Phoenix. I found that Wiley had taken a great interest in the lad and paid him more than one visit, promising to use his influence to have him pardoned. I went to Phoenix, talked with this prisoner and a few others, and incidentally looked over the records.

"I discovered that Wiley had interested himself particularly in an ex-forger whose term had expired at about that period, and it was understood that Wiley had provided him with a new start in life. I hunted up this man--it wasn't hard for he had bought a ranch and was trying to go straight--and under threat of arrest obtained his written confession.

"The money for the fresh start was the price Wiley had paid for the execution of the false doc.u.ment. I have the confession here in my bag, and I will show it to you later. It is absolutely conclusive proof.

Miss Murdaugh, I may be an accessory after the fact, but I felt sure you would not want the forger punished, and I gave him time to sell out his ranch and disappear. I am under the impression that he has gone to Canada to enlist, and if so----"

Willa shook her head.

"No. I don't believe he had any idea of the purpose to which the doc.u.ment would be put, or its far-reaching effects, and if he has gone to war, his punishment is on the knees of the G.o.ds."

"Exactly. He did not know. The name of Murdaugh wasn't mentioned in it if you remember, only those of Hillery and the supposed Abercrombie."

"'Abercrombie!'" repeated Willa meditatively. "I wonder how Wiley came to add that?"

"I finally solved that. Wiley wanted to add clinching verisimilitude to the doc.u.ment and took a long shot. Like many another amateur criminal, he overreached himself, and that one fact, you see, led to the whole discovery. He must have followed Gentleman Geoff's trail through his wanderings from Topaz Gulch, seeking a loop-hole to prove you were not the baby originally adopted, and when he came upon the story which was told to him in Missoula, Montana, of Gentleman Geoff's illness in the trapper's cabin on Flathead Lake, one can easily see how the whole scheme popped into his head. There were the two men and two little girls of the same age, isolated far from civilization for a long winter. One child dies, the other departs with Gentleman Geoff. What more simple than to arrange for a plausible subst.i.tution of the children? Gentleman Geoff being dead, the only possible obstacle could be in the person of the other member of that lonely quartette, Frank Hillery, the trapper. We know now how Wiley traced him and overcame that difficulty.

"Wiley's efforts culminated in Arizona, but mine only began there. I traced him back step by step on the trail he had come, following Hillery, and in Missoula I learned more of Gentleman Geoff. Wiley must have learned there what I did, that Gentleman Geoff's last name was known to be Abercrombie, but Wiley didn't investigate deeply enough.

"I did. I found that Gentleman Geoff Abercrombie had a most unsavory name there as a crooked gambler and card-sharp---- No, Miss Murdaugh, please don't protest!"

Willa had turned upon him with flashing eyes.

"He had operated several gambling-casinos for brief, abruptly terminated periods in Idaho and Montana, keeping about two jumps ahead of a lynching posse most of the time and was last heard of in New Mexico five years ago, when the Blue Chip was in full blast in Limasito. In other words, there were two Gentleman Geoffs! The second must have been a cheap swindler and card-sharp, who learned of your foster father's fame as a square gambler throughout the West and sought to profit by it. His operations were on such a small, petty scale, however, that it is no wonder the story of his exploits never reached the ears of the real Gentleman Geoff. Your t.i.tle to your name is a.s.sured now, Miss Murdaugh."

"And you have done all this for me!" Willa mused, then turned her level direct gaze upon him. "Why, Mr. Thode?"

"Because I promised the man who brought you up and cared for you always that I would do what I could to further the duty he had a.s.sumed and so splendidly carried on," Thode responded simply. "When he lay dying, he told me that, although you yourself did not know it, you were of different blood and caste from your a.s.sociates in Limasito. His own words were that you were born a lady and must go back to your own."

"Dad said that?" Willa's lips quivered. "I learned to-day that he was in love with my mother always, and she had told him her whole story. I have found a friend here, too, Mr. Thode, a poor woman who is frightfully maimed from saving my life in the fire which killed my mother. I--I have a scar from it which she recognized and so there is another witness to my ident.i.ty, but without the valuable proof you have brought me I would still have found it almost impossible to offset the evidence of that false doc.u.ment. I cannot thank you for all that you have done and I still cannot quite understand----"

"It was for Gentleman Geoff," he reminded her courteously but coldly.

"I had given him my word and I meant to keep it to the utmost of my ability. My task, I think, is almost completed."

Willa drew back, in wretched indecision. If only it had not been for that hideously betraying letter which Angie had put in her hands how clear the way would be before her! If the testimony offered of his mercenary motives in making love to her had been verbal she would have scorned it, no matter who swore to its truth, but his intent was made plain in his own writing and could not be gainsaid.

"You will not let me offer you my thanks," she murmured. "But I am indeed grateful. Can we not at least be friends, Mr. Thode? I--I regret that bitter, angry letter I sent to you, but I had learned something which hurt me deeply. Won't you be magnanimous enough to forget it and let us go on as if nothing had occurred?"

"I shall be glad to be your friend and serve you in any way that I can, Miss Murdaugh," he responded dryly. "I have something further to tell you which I think concerns you closely. Are you aware that Starr Wiley and his partner, Harrington Chase, have purchased from Tia Juana Reyes the property known as the Lost Souls lease and are already issuing stock and developing the well?"

Willa rose slowly to her feet, staring at him as if she could not believe the evidence of her own ears.

"You--you cannot mean it!" she gasped. "It cannot be true; there is a mistake somewhere! Please, say that again, Mr. Thode!"

He told her all that he had learned in New York, and she listened breathlessly, her varying color concentrated in two vivid burning spots upon her cheeks. A steady light deepened, too, in her eyes, and when he had finished his story he looked at her in unconcealed amazement.

Far from being down-cast and distressed, she seemed to his half-incredulous gaze to be triumphant, but she only remarked quietly:

"This is news indeed, Mr. Thode, but it simplifies everything. The stakes I have played for since I left Limasito are in my hands at last.

I cannot explain now, but you will learn the whole truth very soon.

Starr Wiley and his partner are still in New York?"

"No. They have both gone down to Limasito, to inspect developments on the well. In the society column of a belated newspaper which reached me yesterday, I read that two of the princ.i.p.al stock-holders, Mason North and your cousin, Ripley Halstead, together with their families, had gone also in a private car to Mexico. You will return to New York now, will you not?"

Willa's eyes sparkled dangerously and she clenched her little hands.

"I--I have some arrangements to make here; I must provide for Klondike Kate's future, and obtain her deposition. She was my mother's friend, who recognized me. Then, Mr. Thode, I shall leave, but not for New York. I, too, am going to Mexico! I want to see the Lost Souls well and learn from Tia Juana's own lips the story of its transfer."

"I shall be down there myself," Thode announced, rising. "If you recall our conversation when we met again in New York you will remember that I told you of my own ambition to find Tia Juana and try to obtain possession of the Lost Souls lease. You know how the map was stolen from me in the beginning, but I am not sure yet that I have been beaten?"

"What do you mean?" Willa asked. "And why do you think that your news about the sale of the well concerns me closely?"

"I have only one answer to both questions," rejoined Thode. "Knowing Starr Wiley, I believe that trickery and fraud are at the bottom of his acquisition of the well, and it concerns you because your cousin, Ripley Halstead, has invested a large part of your inheritance in it.

If fraud is connected with the transaction by which Wiley gained possession of it, I mean to expose him on this count as well as his conspiracy against you. I had set my heart on the Lost Souls venture, like an over-confident young fool! I even wrote to my employer after you had gone and I discovered that Tia Juana was Juana Reyes, the owner of the Pool, that I had only to find her to win her consent----"

"You wrote----what?" Willa rose slowly to her feet, her rich color ebbing.

"I wrote that except for Trevino, the Mexican who sold her the lease, no one there knew her real name, and it wouldn't matter to them if they did.--They wouldn't have connected old Tia Juana, of that tumble-down shack in the zapote grove, with the Juana Reyes who could afford to buy the Trevino hacienda, you see. I also said, if I remember, that she was the undoubted owner of almost boundless wealth and when I had gone after her and won her consent to selling a half-interest in the Pool itself----"

"Oh!" Willa cried, wincing as if he had struck her a blow. "You wrote that about Tia Juana! And I--I--oh, how blind I was! How wickedly, cruelly blind!"

"Now it is I who do not understand." He shrugged. "What does it matter, anyway? I never succeeded in finding Tia Juana or in something else which was of even more moment to me. Gentleman Geoff trusted me, however, and I have fulfilled that trust. Now I am free to take up my own fight again."

Willa held out her hand timidly.

"You will allow me to wish you luck, even if I may not thank you?" she asked. "I--I have much to explain and you much to forgive, but we shall meet again in Mexico."

He bowed formally.

"It appears to be inevitable. Fate seems to compel me to ignore your request that I obliterate myself from the scene," he added whimsically.

"I will try not to intrude upon you more than I must, however, Miss Murdaugh."