“He has consulted with no other?”
“No other,” replied Colonel Braxton.
The man gave a little whistling sigh. There came a certain resolution into his face.
“Then you can settle an important point.”
He paused as though in reflection, and then got up.
“Pardon me a moment, sir,” he said. “I will show you a daguerreotype of my brother and myself taken together, as an evidence of my identity.”
He went out, and in his absence Colonel Braxton moved toward the object on the wall that had caught his eye when he first entered the library. He was back in the middle of the room, however, when Lurty returned.
Paying scant attention to the old picture that Lurty had brought with him, he said, “I have no doubt of your identity. You are Caleb Lurty.”
The man went back to his chair behind the desk. He seemed to gather himself together, as if to launch some pointed question. Then, as though the long habit of indirection prevailed, he turned obliquely.
“My brother doubtless spoke of me in discussing his affairs?”
“He mentioned you,” replied Colonel Braxton.
“As his brother, the only member of his family living?”
“Among other things,” replied the attorney, in a quiet drawl, “he also said that.”
Mr. Caleb Lurty repeated three of those Delphic words softly to himself... “Among other things!... Ah.”
He hesitated, then went on: “You would know then that I am his sole heir at law.”
“At law!” Colonel Braxton’s voice went sharply up.
“Why, yes,” the man repeated, “at law. It is by law that estates descend and are inherited. Does not Mr. Jefferson’s Statute of Descents name the heirs who inherit in their proper order? If a son dies unmarried, his entire estate goes to his father; if the father be not living, then it goes to the mother, brothers, and sisters equally; if the mother be also dead, and but one brother be alive, that brother takes. Do I not state the law correctly?”
“You state it like a judge,” replied Colonel Braxton. “It is Mr. Jefferson’s Statute of Descents, and I fear it gives the world a false idea of Virginia’s value of a mother.”
He turned about, his voice again in its lengthened drawclass="underline" “Upon what theory of justice, Mr. Lurty, could such a law be founded? In what manner is our paternal ancestor of greater value to us, that a child’s estate should go to the father, while the mother who brought him into the world takes nothing?”
“Upon the theory, sir,” said Mr. Caleb Lurty, “that the man made the fortune.”
“Upon the theory, rather,” replied Colonel Braxton, “that the man made the laws!”
He shrugged his shoulders and looked about the room.
“When I consider,” he added, “how our paternal ancestors thus concerned themselves with such little, covert precautions in their own selfish interest, I am obliged to believe that any generous and noble impulses in us are inherited from the other side.
“Observe, sir, if you please, the injustice of these selfish laws that our worthy fathers wrote down in their statutes. If the wife dies, the husband takes her whole estate; but if the husband dies, the wife takes only a third portion of his lands for her life. And it may happen, sir, that the foundation of the husband’s fortune came to him as a marriage portion with his wife. Nevertheless, it passes on to others, and she gets but a third! In caring for himself, Mr. Caleb Lurty, our paternal ancestor, in his laws, neglected no precaution.”
Colonel Braxton went on, his drawling voice sinking to a soft cadence: “And in a further instance: If a child were born out of wedlock, observe how our fathers, in their laws, got themselves clear of that. Such a child could not inherit their estates — they saw to that. It could inherit from its mother — they conceded this generous privilege. But the father’s money and lands were exempt from such a claimant.”
Again Colonel Braxton paused. Then he added a final sentence: “And so, Mr. Caleb Lurty, when you ask me if you are your brother’s sole heir at law, I have repeated those legal words, ‘at law!’ That is to say, sir, if Marshall Lurty’s estate is to pass by operation of law, it goes to you.”
The man behind the long, heavy walnut desk sat back and looked at Colonel Braxton. He did not seem wholly relieved by this conclusive verdict. He reflected as upon a doubtful matter.
Finally he spoke: “You know about this child?”
“I do,” replied Colonel Braxton.
The big pasty-colored creature leaned over and put his elbow on the table.
“It was a youthful indiscretion of my brother’s. But there was no marriage. The eloping parties were too [young; no court would grant them a license. The girl was sent to distant relatives and died at the daughter’s birth. The child took the mother’s name. It was never recognized in any legal manner by my brother. The thing was hushed, forgotten, dropped out of human knowledge.”
Colonel Braxton interrupted.
“Precisely,” he said. “Out of human knowledge.”
Mr. Caleb Lurty looked up sharply. “What do you mean, sir?”
Colonel Braxton made a vague gesture. His voice drawled in an idle monotony.
“I was thinking,” he said, “of a knowledge somewhat larger — I was, in fact, thinking of a verse in the Gospel of St. Luke.”
“The Gospel of St. Luke!” echoed Lurty. “What has the Gospel of St. Luke got to do with this?”
“It might have a good deal to do with it,” replied Colonel Braxton. “A good deal to do with it before this thing is ended. Is not Marshall Lurty’s daughter of more value than many I sparrows?”
The big man behind the desk got up. He took a turn about his chair, replaced it, and sat down. In that instant he decided to face the thing he feared.
“Colonel Braxton,” he said, “I have sent for you to inquire upon a certain point. Did you ever write out a form of will for my brother, Marshall Lurty?”
There was profound concern in the thick voice.
Colonel Braxton replied at once and with no equivocation.
“I did not,” he said.
“Did my brother ever consult you about a will?”
“He did not.”
“Or in any manner about the distribution of his estate at death?”
The questions were volleyed at the lawyer.
And again Colonel Braxton answered with his formula: “He did not.”
Mr. Caleb Lurty relaxed, and for a moment his heavy body seemed to heap up in the chair as though devitalized. He was like one escaped out of a peril, and breathless from it. This was the thing he feared. This was the thing that alone concerned him. This was the reason for his message to the man before him. It was to make certain whether or not his brother’s lawyer had any knowledge of a will! And now that he was certain, the pressure of fear lying on his back was lifted.
He was free!
He had hesitated before an irrevocable act, lest in this attorney’s hands there might be collateral evidence. Counselor to doubtful enterprises, as the dead man had defined him, he was habituated to an excess of caution. He knew that when an irrevocable act was done, it could not be undone. But when one knew, indirections could be given up. One could go forward with a decisive unconcern.
He now spoke sharply and with decision: “Then my brother’s estate descends to me by operation of law, and I take it.”
He got on his feet firmly, like a man ashore out of treacherous waters.
“And Marshall Lurty’s daughter?” replied Colonel Braxton. “Shall she take nothing?”
There came an ugly sneer into the man’s face.
“The law will give her nothing, and I will give her less!”
Colonel Braxton looked vaguely about the room.
“It is not the law that gives,” he said. “The law permits one to take. It is the owner who gives.”