“Do you think so, Mr. Walton?” Lassiter's fallen countenance sank even lower.
“Of course I think so, or I wouldn't be sitting here telling you about it. I haven't been idle on this thing, Toby, though I never let anybody know what I was up to. You see, I am an old man now, and in law I never had but one heir to my effects, outside of my present wife, and it struck me as pretty queer for that heir, disinherited on paper or not, to keep absolutely out of sight and sound all these years when as big a plum as I am supposed to be is still aboveground. You see, the scamp has got what some folks would call a 'natural expectancy,' even on the chance of breaking any will I might make, and you can bet there are plenty of men slick enough to speculate on such chances, slim as they might look to me or you. So you see, Toby, knowing all that, I kept a sharp lookout for developments. I decided first of all to keep a watch on the young woman he left high and dry and in such a miserable plight. I used to sort o' saunter by her mammy's house once in a while. Sometimes I'd catch a glimpse of the girl by accident, but she kept as well hid as any mole that ever burrowed in the ground. Sometimes I'd see her--when she was to be seen at all--daubing away at some picture or other on a peaked frame, and I must say that every time I'd see her looking so neat and pretty, with her fine head of hair flowing over her brow in that easy, fluffy sort of way, and them big, deep, babyish eyes of hers--well, to come to the point, I began to think that it wasn't quite natural for _any_ fellow to go clean off and leave such a creature behind for good and all. You see, she's too good-looking, too attractive, for any man to drop once he was favored, and--well, it made me suspicious, to say the least. Then I begun to notice the child, who was always hemmed up in that little pen of a yard, and never allowed to stick his head out or have any playmates. I saw that he was always rigged up as fine as a fiddle, looking as if he'd just come out of a bandbox; and as I knew, from personal knowledge, that the old lady had no income to speak of, except the rent on her barren little farm, I used to wonder where the cash was coming from. Now and then I'd see Watts & Co.'s delivery wagon leaving groceries at the back door, and I found out through them, on the sly, that the grub bills was always paid. Then what do you think I did? I did some bang-up, fine detective work, if I _do_ say it. I nosed around until I found out, through a clerk in the express office here, that packages of money were coming pretty regularly to the sly little lassie from somebody in Atlanta who called himself 'F. B. Jenkins.' Whoever it was, was using the express to hide his tracks, instead of sending bank-checks, which might come to my attention, as Fred well knew.”