19000 Pound Part 15

Josh told the real George Depew that he had had a little money left him in Europe, and that his attendance the other side was necessary.

Good-hearted, honest old George congratulated him, and willingly acceded to the request for a month's holiday.

He went into New York, bought two portmanteaus, had the initials "G. D."

painted on them, and to them transferred the contents of the bags with which he had left the farm.

A certificate of his employer's birth, a bundle of letters directed to him, two cables to the lawyer, a pa.s.sage on the next outgoing steamer, and he had all the voyage to think of what he could do next.

A shrewd, keen man, he at once saw through the cheating of lawyer Loide--and handled that limb of the law accordingly.

Fear of detection blinded the lawyer; he failed to make the usual precautionary inquiries. Conscience doth make cowards of us all.

Susan saw her husband off from New York, and she never saw him again.

She had a cable from him saying which boat he was returning by, and that he had sent a letter to her to be called for at the New York post-office.

She went to New York on the day the home coming steamer was to arrive, and called for the letter sent by the preceding mail. It read:

DEAR OLD GIRL:

All's gone right, and I am as happy as a clam at high water.

There's been two hands at the grab game I've been playing, but I've raked in the pool. Nineteen thousand English pounds, old girl. Think of it. Reckon it up, and see what it comes to in almighty dollars.

The property is all sold, and the proceeds will be mine in a day or two. The lawyer here is a cute thief, but he found me cuter. I gave him some chin music he'd never listened to before in his natural. No bunco steerer can come it over Josh, and don't you forget it.

I'll be back by the boat arriving on Wednesday the 13th.

I'll cable you certain, so you can come out to meet me.

No more work, old girl. Enjoyment for the future. There's no chance of anything being found out, but all the same we'll skip from the farm. I'm just as full of joy as I was of Old Rye the day you saw me off.

Only one thing troubling me: that blamed old tooth of mine at the back, that you put the cotton in, is aching like mad.

I'll just get a dentist to yank it out if I can find one to do it without pain.--So long, old girl, your loving husband,

JOSH.

P.S.--Burn this when you've read it.

Susan did not comply with the request contained in the postscript. She had read it when she left the post-office, and thrust it into her pocket as she hurried to the pier.

There, the shock of the discovery that her husband was dead, and the double shock of relief and joy to find that the dead man was not her husband, upset her so, that she lost consciousness, and for a time the subsequent proceedings interested her no more.

She came to herself on deck with the letter still in her pocket.

If she stayed in New York there was going to be trouble. She saw that plainly. She must go home and wait for another cable from Josh.

So she went home. And the letter was still in her pocket.

CHAPTER XI

A LIFE FOR A LIFE

Danvers--the man who had dived from the s.h.i.+p and saved the child--was the bearer of a letter of introduction to George Depew, and the next day he presented himself with it at the farmhouse.

Susan admitted him. Neither had, of course, ever seen the other.

Danvers was a rolling stone--had been a colossal failure as a moss gatherer in the mother country.

He was keen and intelligent, and busy with other people's affairs, but sleepy, indolent, and lazy with his own.

Every one liked him, yet every one shook his or her head when his name was mentioned. It was felt that he would never be a success.

At last it was determined to s.h.i.+p him to a country where he would have to work, from the fact that there there would be no friends to help him.

If he wanted to eat, he must earn his food by his labor. It was felt that it was best for Danvers--and best for the friends he had been living on so long.

The friends felt that strongly.

The exile jumped at the idea. He had long wanted to see America.

One of his friends had done business with Depew over certain consignments, and to Depew he wrote a letter introducing Danvers, and asking him to do what he could for the bearer.

Others of his friends purchased for him clothing and outfit generally, and saw him off--with their pockets lighter perhaps, but a strong feeling of relief.

Depew welcomed Danvers heartily.

Strangers were rarely seen in Oakville. Come from the mother country, he was doubly welcome.

Danvers felt that he had dropped on both feet.

Straightway, too, he fell in love with the farmer's daughter, and it must be admitted that his city ways found favor in the eyes of Tessie.

The farmer promised to find him work, and meanwhile put him into the position the supposed to be holiday making Josh had filled.

This was a thing which disturbed Susan.

Days went by and she was still without news from her husband, and here was a stranger--she knew now that he came over in the boat she had been on--filling the post her husband had so long occupied.

She feared, too, lest any of Josh's petty delinquencies should come to light. She knew that his books must bristle with evidence of them.

So things went on for two or three weeks, Susan working herself up to such a state of excitement that at times the blood rushed so to her head that her eyes were blinded to the work she was engaged in.

The acuteness of her agony nearly drove her mad; it arose from the silence which was imposed on her; she dared not make any inquiries.

And then one day she received such a shock that she became mad in real earnest. For she felt convinced that her husband had been murdered, and that Danvers was his murderer.