The Girl from Sunset Ranch Part 21

"Why, that don't matter so much," remarked Helen, calmly. "I can earn my keep, I reckon. If there's nothing to do in the house I'll go and find me a job and pay my board. But, you see, dad thought I ought to have the refining influences of city life. Good idea; eh?"

"A very ridiculous idea! A very ridiculous idea, indeed!" cried Mr.

Starkweather. "I never heard the like."

"Well, you see, there's another reason why I came, too, Uncle," Helen said, blandly.

"What's that?" demanded the gentleman, startled again.

"Why, dad told me everything when he died. He--he told me how he got into trouble before he left New York--'way back there before I was born," spoke Helen, softly. "It troubled dad all his life, Uncle Starkweather.

Especially after mother died. He feared he had not done right by her and me, after all, in running away when he was not guilty----"

"Not guilty!"

"Not guilty," repeated Helen, sternly. "Of course, we all know _that_.

Somebody got all that money the firm had in bank; but it was not my father, sir."

She gazed straight into the face of Mr. Starkweather. He did not seem to be willing to look at her in return; nor could he pluck up the courage to deny her statement.

"I see," he finally murmured.

"That is the second reason that has brought me to New York," said Helen, more softly. "And it is the more important reason. If you don't care to have me here, Uncle, I will find work that will support me, and live elsewhere. But I _must_ learn the truth about that old story against father. I sha'n't leave New York until I have cleared his name."

CHAPTER XIII

SADIE AGAIN

Mr. Starkweather appeared to recover his equanimity. He looked askance at his niece, however, as she announced her intention.

"You are very young and very foolish, Helen--ahem! A mystery of sixteen or seventeen years' standing, which the best detectives could not unravel, is scarcely a task to be attempted by a mere girl."

"Who else is there to do it?" Helen demanded, quickly. "I mean to find out the truth, if I can. I want you to tell me all you know, and I want you to tell me how to find Fenwick Grimes----"

"Nonsense, nonsense, girl!" exclaimed her uncle, testily. "What good would it do you to find Grimes?"

"He was the other partner in the concern. He had just as good a chance to steal the money as father."

"Ridiculous! Mr. Grimes was away from the city at the time."

"Then you _do_ remember all about it, sir?" asked Helen, quickly.

"Ahem! _That_ fact had not slipped my mind," replied her uncle, weakly.

"And then, there was Allen Chesterton, the bookkeeper. Was a search ever made for him?"

"High and low," returned her uncle, promptly. "But n.o.body ever heard of him thereafter."

"And why did the shadow of suspicion not fall upon him as strongly as it did upon my father?" cried the girl, dropping, in her earnestness, her a.s.sumed uncouthness of speech.

"Perhaps it did--perhaps it did," muttered Mr. Starkweather. "Yes, of course it did! They both ran away, you see----"

"Didn't you advise dad to go away--until the matter could be cleared up?"

demanded Helen.

"Why--I--ahem!"

"Both you and Mr. Grimes advised it," went on the girl, quite firmly. "And father did so because of the effect his arrest might have upon mother in her delicate health. Wasn't that the way it was?"

"I--I presume that is so," agreed Mr. Starkweather.

"And it was wrong," declared the girl, with all the confidence of youth.

"Poor dad realized it before he died. It made all the firm's creditors believe that he was guilty. No matter what he did thereafter----"

"Stop, girl!" exclaimed Mr. Starkweather. "Don't you know that if you stir up this old business the scandal will all come to light? Why--why, even _my_ name might be attached to it."

"But poor dad suffered under the blight of it all for more than sixteen years."

"Ahem! It is a fact. It was a great misfortune. Perhaps he _was_ advised wrongly," said Mr. Starkweather, with trembling lips. "But I want you to understand, Helen, that if he had not left the city he would undoubtedly have been in a cell when you were born."

"I don't know that that would have killed me--especially, if by staying here, he might have come to trial and been freed of suspicion."

"But he could not be freed of suspicion."

"Why not? I don't see that the evidence was conclusive," declared the girl, hotly. "At least, _he_ knew of none such. And I want to know now every bit of evidence that could be brought against him."

"Useless! Useless!" muttered her uncle, wiping his brow.

"It is not useless. My father was accused of a crime of which he wasn't guilty. Why, his friends here--those who knew him in the old days--will think me the daughter of a criminal!"

"But you are not likely to meet any of them----"

"Why not?" demanded Helen, quickly.

"Surely you do not expect to remain here in New York long enough for that?" said Uncle Starkweather, exasperated. "I tell you, I cannot permit it."

"I must learn what I can about that old trouble before I go back--if I go back to Montana at all," declared his niece, doggedly.

Mr. Starkweather was silent for a few moments. He had begun the discussion with the settled intention of telling Helen that she must return at once to the West. But he knew he had no real right of control over the girl, and to claim one would put him at the disadvantage, perhaps, of being made to support her.

He saw she was a very determined creature, young as she was. If he antagonized her too much, she might, indeed, go out and get a position to support herself and remain a continual thorn in the side of the family.

So he took another tack. He was not a successful merchant and real estate operator for nothing. He said:

"I do not blame you, Helen, for _wis.h.i.+ng_ that that old cloud over your father's name might be dissipated. I wish so, too. But, remember, long ago your--ahem!--your aunt and I, as well as Fenwick Grimes, endeavored to get to the bottom of the mystery. Detectives were hired. Everything possible was done. And to no avail."