T. Tembarom Part 13

"They do it every night, dang 'em! Right under my bed," growled Hutchinson. "You're an Englishman, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"So am I, thank G.o.d! " Hutchinson devoutly gave forth.

Little Ann rose from her chair, sewing in hand.

"Father'll come and sit with me in my room," she said.

Hutchinson looked grumpy. He did not intend to leave the field clear and the stew to its fate if he could help it. He gave Ann a protesting frown.

"I dare say Mr. Palford doesn't mind us," he said. "We're not strangers."

"Not in the least," Palford protested. "Certainly not. If you are old friends, you may be able to a.s.sist us."

"Well, I don't know about that," Hutchinson answered, "We've not known him long, but we know him pretty well. You come from London, don't you? "

"Yes. From Lincoln's Inn Fields."

"Law?" grunted Hutchinson.

"Yes. Of the firm of Palford & Grimby."

Hutchinson moved in his chair involuntarily. There was stimulation to curiosity in this. This chap was a regular top sawyer--clothes, way of p.r.o.nouncing his words, manners, everything. No mistaking him--old family solicitor sort of chap. What on earth could he have to say to Tembarom? Tembarom himself had sat down and could not be said to look at his ease.

"I do not intrude without the excuse of serious business," Palford explained to him. "A great deal of careful research and inquiry has finally led me here. I am compelled to believe I have followed the right clue, but I must ask you a few questions. Your name is not really Tembarom, is it?"

Hutchinson looked at Tembarom sharply.

"Not Tembarom? What does he mean, lad?"

Tembarom's grin was at once boyish and ashamed.

"Well, it is in one way," he answered, "and it isn't in another. The fellows at school got into the way of calling me that way,--to save time, I guess,--and I got to like it. They'd have guyed my real name.

Most of them never knew it. I can't see why any one ever called a child by such a fool name, anyhow."

"What was it exactly?"

Tembarom looked almost sheepish.

"It sounds like a thing in a novel. It was Temple Temple Barholm. Two Temples, by gee! As if one wasn't enough!"

Joseph Hutchinson dropped his paper and almost started from his chair.

His red face suddenly became so much redder that he looked a trifle apoplectic.

"Temple Barholm does tha say?" he cried out.

Mr. Palford raised his hand and checked him, but with a suggestion of stiff apology.

"If you will kindly allow me. Did you ever hear your father refer to a place called Temple Barholm?" he inquired.

Tembarom reflected as though sending his thoughts backward into a pretty thoroughly forgotten and ignored past. There had been no reason connected with filial affection which should have caused him to recall memories of his father. They had not liked each other. He had known that he had been resented and looked down upon as a characteristically American product. His father had more than once said he was a "common American lad," and he had known he was.

"Seems to me," he said at last, "that once when he was pretty mad at his luck I heard him grumbling about English laws, and he said some of his distant relations were swell people who would never think of speaking to him,--perhaps didn't know he was alive,--and they lived in a big way in a place that was named after the family. He never saw it or them, and he said that was the way in England--one fellow got everything and the rest were paupers like himself. He'd always been poor."

"Yes, the relation was a distant one. Until this investigation began the family knew nothing of him. The inquiry has been a tiresome one. I trust I am reaching the end of it. We have given nearly two years to following this clue."

"What for?" burst forth Tembarom, sitting upright.

"Because it was necessary to find either George Temple Barholm or his son, if he had one."

"I'm his son, all right, but he died when I was eight years old,"

Tembarom volunteered. "I don't remember much about him."

"You remember that he was not an American?"

"He was English. Hated it; but he wasn't fond of America."

"Have you any papers belonging to him?"

Tembarom hesitated again.

"There's a few old letters--oh, and one of those gla.s.s photographs in a case. I believe it's my grandfather and grandmother, taken when they were married. Him on a chair, you know, and her standing with her hand on his shoulder."

"Can you show them to me?" Palford suggested.

"Sure," Tembarom answered, getting up from his seat "They're in my room. I turned them up yesterday among some other things."

When he left them, Mr. Palford sat gently rubbing his chin. Hutchinson wanted to burst forth with questions, but he looked so remote and acidly dignified that there was a suggestion of boldness in the idea of intruding on his reflections. Hutchinson stared at him and breathed hard and short in his suspense. The stiff old chap was thinking things over and putting things together in his lawyer's way. He was entirely oblivious to his surroundings. Little Ann went on with her mending, but she wore her absorbed look, and it was not a result of her work.

Tembarom came back with some papers in his hand. They were yellowed old letters, and on the top of the package there was a worn daguerreotype-case with broken clasp.

"Here they are," he said, giving them to Palford. "I guess they'd just been married," opening the case. "Get on to her embroidered collar and big breast-pin with his picture in it. That's English enough, isn't it? He'd given it to her for a wedding-present. There's something in one of the letters about it."

It was the letters to which Mr. Palford gave the most attention. He read them and examined post-marks and dates. When he had finished, he rose from his chair with a slightly portentous touch of professional ceremony.

"Yes, those are sufficiently convincing. You are a very fortunate young man. Allow me to congratulate you."

He did not look particularly pleased, though he extended his hand and shook Tembarom's politely. He was rigorously endeavoring to conceal that he found himself called upon to make the best of an extremely bad job. Hutchinson started forward, resting his hands on his knees and glaring with ill-suppressed excitement.

"What's that for?" Tembarom said. He felt rather like a fool. He laughed half nervously. It seemed to be up to him to understand, and he didn't understand in the least.

"You have, through your father's distant relations.h.i.+p, inherited a very magnificent property--the estate of Temple Barholm in Lancas.h.i.+re," Palford began to explain, but Mr. Hutchinson sprang from his chair outright, crus.h.i.+ng his paper in his hand.

"Temple Barholm!" he almost shouted, "I dunnot believe thee! Why, it's one of th' oldest places in England and one of th' biggest. Th' Temple Barholms as didn't come over with th' Conqueror was there before him.

Some of them was Saxon kings! And him--" pointing a stumpy, red finger disparagingly at Tembarom, aghast and incredulous--"that New York lad that's sold newspapers in the streets--you say he's come into it?"

"Precisely." Mr. Palford spoke with some crispness of diction. Noise and bl.u.s.ter annoyed him. "That is my business here. Mr. Tembarom is, in fact, Mr. Temple Temple Barholm of Temple Barholm, which you seem to have heard of."