The Lock and Key Library Part 40

"But Costello is an Irish name," said Gerald.

"Is it? You ought to know. Well Costelyo is Spanish; and now, my dear boy, I must positively turn you out."

Gerald went straight home without returning to the office.

He unlocked his desk, and took from it the two results of his first essay in detective craft. Silently he laid them side by side and scrutinized each closely in turn. The pale, set face of the beautiful dead, as reproduced by the photographer's art, told him nothing. He strove to trace some resemblance, to awaken some memory, by long gazing at the pa.s.sionless features, but it was in vain. Then he turned to the illuminated s.h.i.+eld. Every line was familiar to him, and a glance sufficed. It was identical in all respects with the arms on the seal. Of this he had been already convinced, and his recollection had not betrayed him. Then he placed the two--the piteous photograph and the proud blazonry--in his pocket-book, and left the room. The same evening he took his place on the Sacramento train en route for Marysville.

When Gerald reached San Luis, the postoffice address of the Ugarte ranch, a disappointment awaited him. Evening was falling, and inquiry elicited the fact that Don Vincenza's residence was still twelve miles distant. Ffrench, after his drive of eighteen miles over the dusty road from Marysville, was little inclined to go further, so he put up his horse at a livery stable, resolved to make the best of such accommodations as San Luis afforded.

The face of the man who took the reins when Ffrench alighted seemed familiar. The young fellow looked closer at him, and it was evident the recognition was mutual, for the stableman accosted him by name, and in the broad, familiar dialect of western Leinster.

"May I niver ate another bit if it isn't Masther Gerald Ffrench!"

he said. "Well, well, well, but it's good for sore eyes to see ye.

Come out here, Steve, an' take the team. Jump down, Masther Gerald, an' stretch yer legs a bit. It's kilt ye are entirely."

A swarthy little Mexican appeared, and led the tired horses into the stable. Then the young journalist took a good look at the man who seemed to know him so well, and endeavored, as the phrase goes, to "place him."

"Ye don't mind me, yer honor, an' how wud ye? But I mind yersilf well. Sure it's often I've druv ye and Mr. Edward too. I used to wurruk for Mr. Ross of Mullinger. I was Denny the postboy--Denis Driscoll, yer honor; sure ye must know me?"

"Oh yes, to be sure--I remember," said Gerald, as recollection slowly dawned upon him. "But who'd have thought of finding you in a place like this? I didn't even know you'd left Ross's stables."

"Six or siven months ago, yer honor."

"And have you been here ever since? I hope you are doing well,"

said Gerald.

"Iver since, sor, an' doin' finely, wid the blessin' o' G.o.d. I own that place," pointing to the stable, "an' four as good turnouts as ye'd ax to sit behind."

"I'm glad of it," said Gerald heartily. "I like to hear of the boys from the old neighborhood doing well."

"Won't ye step inside, sor, an' thry a drop of something? Ye must be choked intirely wid the dust."

"I don't care if I do," answered Gerald. "I feel pretty much as if I'd swallowed a limekiln."

A minute later the two were seated in Denny's own particular room, where Gerald washed the dust from his throat with some capital bottled beer, while his host paid attention to a large demijohn which contained, as he informed the journalist in an impressive whisper, "close on to a gallon of the real ould stuff."

Their conversation extended far into the night; but long before they separated Gerald induced Denny to despatch his Mexican helper, on a good mustang, to the Ugarte ranch, bearing to Senor Vincenza Mr. Ffrench's card, on which were penciled the words: "Please come over to San Luis as soon as possible. Most important business."

For the tale told by the ex-postboy, his change of residence and present prosperity, seemed to throw a curious light on the Drim churchyard mystery.

Senor Vincenza appeared the following morning just as Gerald had finished breakfast. The ranchero remembered the representative of the Evening Mail and greeted him cordially, expressing his surprise at Gerald's presence in that part of the country. The Spaniard evidently imagined that this unexpected visit had some bearing on the recently decided lawsuit, but the other's first words dispelled the illusion.

"Senor Vincenza," Ffrench said, "I have heard a very strange story about your sister, and I have come to ask you for an explanation of it."

The young Spaniard changed color and looked uneasily at the journalist.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "I do not understand you. My sister is in Europe."

"Yes," answered Gerald, "she is in Europe--in Ireland. She fills a nameless grave in Drim churchyard."

Vincenza leaped to his feet, and the cigarette he had lighted dropped from his fingers. They were in Gerald's room at the hotel, and the young man had placed his visitor so that the table was between them. He suspected that he might have to deal with a desperate man. Vincenza leaned over the narrow table, and his breath blew hot in Ffrench's face as he hissed, "Carambo! What do you mean? How much do you know?"

"I know everything. I know how she died in the carriage on your way from Mullingar; how you purchased a coffin and bribed the undertaker to silence; how you laid her, in the dead of night, among the weeds in the graveyard; how you cut her name from the chatelaine bag, and did all in your power to hide her ident.i.ty, even carrying off with you the postboy who drove you and aided you to place her where she was found. Do you recognize that photograph? Have you ever seen that coat-of-arms before?" and Ffrench drew the two cards from his pocket and offered them to Vincenza.

The Spaniard brushed them impatiently aside and crouched for a moment as if to spring. Gerald never took his eyes off him, and presently the other straightened up, and, sinking into the chair behind him, attempted to roll a cigarette. But his hand trembled, and half the tobacco was spilled on the floor.

"You know a great deal, Mr. Gerald Ffrench. Do you accuse me of my sister's murder?"

"No," answered Gerald. "She died from natural causes. But I do accuse you of fraudulently withholding this property from its rightful owners, and of acting on a power of attorney which has been cancelled by the death of the giver."

There was a moment's silence, broken only by a muttered oath from Vincenza as he threw the unfinished cigarette to the ground, and began to roll another, this time with better success. It was not till it was fairly alight that he spoke again.

Listen to me, young man," he said, "and then judge me as you hope to be judged hereafter--with mercy. My sister was very dear to me; I loved her, O G.o.d, how I loved her!" His voice broke, and Gerald, recalling certain details of Denny's narrative, felt that the Spaniard was speaking the truth. It was nearly a minute before Vincenza recovered his self-command and resumed.

"Yes, we were very dear to each other; brought up as brother and sister, how could we fail to be? But her father never liked me, and he placed restrictions upon the fortune he left her so that it could never come to me. My mother--our mother--had died some years before. Well, Catalina was wealthy; I was a pauper, but that made no difference while she lived. We were as happy and fond a brother and sister as the sun ever shone upon. When she came of age she executed the power of attorney that gave me the charge of her estate. She was anxious to spend a few years in Europe. I was to take her over, and after we had traveled a little she was to go to a convent in France and spend some time there while I returned home. But she was one of the old Costellos, and she was anxious to visit the ancient home of her race. That was what brought us to Ireland."

"I thought the Costello family was extinct," said Gerald.

"The European branch has been extinct since 1813, when Don Lopez Costello fell at Vittoria; but the younger branch, which settled in Mexico towards the end of the eighteenth century, survived until a few months ago--until Catalina's death, in fact, for she was the last of the Costellos."

"I see," said Gerald; "go on."

"She was very proud of the name, poor Catalina, and she made me promise in case anything happened to her while we were abroad that she should be laid in the ancient grave of her race--in the churchyard of Drim. She had a weak heart, and she knew that she might die suddenly. I promised. And it was on our way to the spot she was so anxious to visit that death claimed her, only a few miles from the place where her ancestors had lived in the old days, and where all that remains of them has long mouldered to dust. So you see, Mr. Ffrench, that I had no choice but to lay her there."

"That is not the point," said Gerald; "why this secrecy? Why this flight? Dr. Lynn, I am sure, would have enabled you to obey your sister's request in the full light of day; you need not have thrown her coffin on the ground and left to strangers the task of doing for the poor girl the last duties of civilization." Gerald spoke with indignant heat, for this looked to him like the cruellest desertion.

"I know how it must seem to you," said Vincenza, "and I have no excuse to offer for my conduct but this. My sister's death would have given all she possessed to people whom she disliked. It would have thrown me, whom she loved, penniless on the world. I acted as if she were still living, and as I am sure she would have wished me to act; no defence, I know, in your eyes, but consider the temptation."

"And did you not realize that all this must come out some day?"

asked Ffrench.

"Yes, but not for several years. Indeed, I cannot imagine how it is that you have stumbled on the truth."

And Gerald, remembering the extraordinary chain of circ.u.mstances which had led him to the root of the mystery, could not but acknowledge that, humanly speaking, Vincenza's confidence was justified.

"And now you have found this out, what use do you intend to make of it?" asked the Spaniard after a pause.

"I shall publish the whole story as soon as I return to San Francisco," answered Gerald promptly.

"So for a few hundred dollars, which is all that you can possibly get out of it, you will make a beggar of me."

"Right is right," said the young Irishman. "This property does not belong to you."

"Will you hold your tongue--or your pen--for fifty thousand dollars?" asked the Spaniard eagerly.

"No, nor for every dollar you have in the world. I don't approve your practice and I won't share your plunder. I am sorry for you personally, but I can't help that. I won't oust you. I will make such use of the story as any newspaper man would make, and so I give you fair warning. You may save yourself if you can."

"Then you do not intend to communicate with the heirs?" began Vincenza eagerly.