HANKS, Plyden; you did that very nicely,” Stormont said with a complimentary smile as he and his clerk stepped from the stuffy telephone-box. “In fact, you read your part excellently.”
Mr. Plyden, a tall, thin, very fair man of thirty or so, laughed with some complacency. “I happen to have had a little experience in reading parts and playing them—amateur, of course,” he said. “Naturally I was handicapped just now by being in the dark as to the purport—”
“And you will kindly remain in the dark, Plyden,' Stormont interrupted with the utmost suavity. “You are not of a curious disposition, I trust?”
The clerk became grave.
“You may rely on me, Mr. Stormont, to repeat nothing—”
“And you, Plyden, so long-as you satisfy me, may rely on me to overlook the testimonials which you gave me last week, and which are now in my safe. Meanwhile,” Stormont continued pleasantly, ignoring the other's semicollapse, “here is your fee for that excellent but immediately-to-be-forgotten performance.”
Mechanically the younger man took the folded yellow-back. With a nod and a smile which a passer-by would have deemed most amiable, Stormont made for a taxi-stand.
A little later he stepped briskly into the private room at the office.
“Anything doing?” he called gayly to his partner.
“No,” replied Lismore, who was again poring over the distracting document.
“Give it up,” said Stormont, dropping into the easy-chair. “You'll never discover anything.”
“Don't say that!” Lismore sat up stiffly. “There's another ghastly drop in copper this morning. Haven't you had prices?”
“Yes—pretty rotten, aren't they? I think I'll become a dramatist. This morning I wrote out a part, and this afternoon I witnessed it played with most gratifying effect.”
“What nonsense are you talking now, Stormont?”
“Read that!” Stormont unfolded a sheet of paper and passed it to his partner. Upon it was neatly typed every word Joan had heard on the telephone twenty minutes earlier.
As he read, Lismore's scowl gave place to an expression of puzzled interest. “But what are you going to do with it?” he asked at last.
“The deed is already done. The invaluable Plyden repeated the lines to the phone—and very well he did it!—and yours truly stood beside him, caught his whispered reports of the lady's replies, her hesitations and pauses, instructed him when to go slow, and so on.”
Lismore half rose and fell back. “Stormont, don't keep me in suspense! Did you discover anything?”
“My dear chap, I'm altogether convinced that the girl has handled a letter from the old man to his nephew, and all but certain that it is still in her possession. I should be prepared to bet three to one on its being in the library safe. Further, I would bet a hundred to one that she is ignorant of its contents, or their importance.”
“Why are you so cocksure of that?”
“Partly because Rufus Cran was not such a fool as to risk making his trustee a nervous wreck; partly because the telephone-stunt did not upset her sufficiently. No, she certainly hadn't forty thousand ounces of platinum on her mind!”
“Then, since she does not know the letter's value,” said Lismore, pale and perspiring, “she might perhaps be induced to part with it.”
“Don't be idiotic, my dear man! One blunder in that direction, and it's failure for good. Supposing she believes the letter to contain nothing but the old man's blessing, she would defend it at all costs to herself. And did it never occur to you that she might still be in love with young Grant?”
Lismore shrugged impatiently. “She must have been aware that young Grant was in love with Lottie,” he said.
“Nothing of the kind!”
“What? Then why—”
“Lismore, you are hopelessly lacking in an understanding of your fellow-creatures. Your daughter may have imagined young Grant was in love with her, but I can assure you it was only chivalrous pity on his part, for which he has dearly paid. I rather admired Grant, you know.”
“Pity! What the deuce—”
“Look here, Lismore, you are always asking for it—and this time I'm going to give you it! Grant pitied your daughter as he pitied your wife—and no wonder! And Grant, in a moment of greatness, which I've no doubt he has regretted long ago, took upon himself a theft of fifteen hundred dollars, not for your sake, but for theirs!”
“Damn you!” snarled Lismore. “You promised you'd never refer to that. Besides, he need not have run away. His uncle would have come round and—”
“Don't make yourself out a meaner hound than you can help, Lismore. The boy saved you. Don't grudge him his nobility. I don't, though I'm about to do my best to annex his fortune.”