“Therein lies the mystery. I had it in my hands this morning and within a few minutes it had vanished.”
“Seemed to have vanished, I presume you mean.”
“There was no seeming about it. It was a single bank note and I placed it on this table. Five minutes later it had disappeared.”
“Disappeared is a better word by long odds. That it passed out of your sight I can believe. The question is, how was this disappearance managed, for I do not believe that it was accidental. From what you say I deduce that two or more persons besides yourself were present at the time of said disappearance of said bank note. Am I correct?”
“There were three, but really I can’t see how you guessed there was more than one person with me.”
“It cannot be otherwise. Had there been only one person in the room with you, you would know absolutely that he took the note. That you have a doubt as to the identity of the culprit shows that you suspect one of two or more persons.”
“Mitchel, I am delighted that I sent for you. You are exactly the man who will recover this money.”
“What about Barnes? You mentioned his name.”
“Yes, naturally my first thought was to send for a detective, and I remembered him in connection with that ruby robbery of yours which occurred at my house. He is now following a clue which he considers a good one, and will report during the evening.”
“Good! Nothing would please me better than to succeed where Barnes fails. Every time I outwit him it is a feather in my cap, and another argument in favor of my theory that the professional detective is a much overrated genius — but to your story, and be sure that you relate the exact circumstances of the affair.”
As he finished speaking and leaned back in the padded library chair, the man’s dark, clear-cut profile looked that of a scholar, an artist, anything but that of a detective. And indeed Mr. Robert Leroy Mitchel was both scholar and artist, — none the less so because of late years he had turned his trained powers of analysis to the study of crime and its motives, and to unraveling, as an amateur, certain mysterious offenses against the law, which had baffled the professional detective.
From cases involving life, death, millions of money or the jewels of a kingdom to the disappearance of a thousand-pound note might, indeed, have seemed a descent to the ordinary detective. Not so, however, to Mr. Mitchel, who valued mystery not in proportion to the sum involved, but to the opportunity it gave for the exercise of subtle analysis. And certainly such opportunities seemed abundantly promised by the narrative whose details Mr. Van Rawlston now unfolded for the first time.
“Some thirty years or more ago,” began Mr. Van Rawlston, “there came into my office a young Englishman, who introduced himself as Thomas Eggleston. The object of his visit was curious. He wished to borrow four thousand dollars upon collateral, which proved to be an English bank note for one thousand pounds; an odd request considering that he could have changed his note for American currency, but he explained that for sentimental reasons he did not wish to part with the note permanently. His expectation was to redeem it in the future, and to keep it as a memento, — the foundation of the fortune which he hoped to earn in this land.”
“A singular wish,” interrupted Mr. Mitchel.
“I should say so. Naturally my interest was keenly aroused. I agreed to advance the sum demanded, without charge. Moreover, I put him in the way of some speculations that turned out so well that it was not long before the thousand-pound note was back in his possession. Since then we have been close friends. I have visited him almost daily in this house, and when he died a few days ago, I was not surprised to find that he had named me as executor of his large estate.”
“And the heirs?”
“I am coming to them presently. My friend died very unexpectedly,” continued Mr. Van Rawlston. “Last Saturday he was well, and on Monday, dead. Wednesday morning, the day of the funeral, his man of business brought me his client’s will, and as the executor I appointed this morning for reading it, here in the library, to the family. This consisted of but two members. One was Alice Hetheridge, the daughter of a sister of Eggleston’s who had accompanied him to this country and married here. As both Mrs. Hetheridge and her husband had died while their daughter was still a little girl, Alice had been brought up as her uncle’s child, and it was expected would inherit his fortune. The only other relative present was Robert Eggleston, the nephew of the deceased, but practically a stranger to him, as he had never been in this country nor even seen his uncle until he took up his abode in this house about three months ago.”
“But you have mentioned only two relatives, and I understood you to say there was a third person present.”
“And so there was. When I came I was surprised to find here Arthur Lumley, a young New Yorker, of whom I know nothing except that he is in love with Alice. But as Alice took me aside and explained that she had invited him, I was silenced.
“Now I come to the events of the day.”
“Kindly be as explicit as possible,” said Mr. Mitchel. “Omit no detail, however trifling.”
“When we four had taken our places at this table I asked Alice, as being familiar with the house, to bring me a certain box named in the will. This she did. It was locked, the key having been brought to me with the will. Unlocking it, I took out a packet containing a bank note for a thousand pounds; the same upon which I had once loaned money. There were also some government bonds and railway securities. Having compared them with the list attached to the will, I then read aloud the testament of my dead friend. A part of this I will read to you as possibly shedding some light on the situation.”
“One moment,” interposed Mr. Mitchel; “you said that the packet taken from the box contained the bank note as well as the bonds and other securities. Are you sure the note was there?”
“Oh, yes! I found it first and placed it on the table in front of me, while I went through the papers and read the will. By this document, Robert Eggleston was made the heir of practically all his property, — a division that would have seemed decidedly unfair had it not been for the following paragraph.”
Mr. Van Rawlston then proceeded to read an extract from the will, in which Eggleston explained why his beloved niece Alice was not made his heiress. In detail the writer related how, when he was a very young man, he had been left dependent on his half brother William, a man of wealth, ten years his senior; how this brother had paid his passage to this country and presented him with a thousand-pound note, on which the young fortune seeker had borrowed the money that became the nest egg of his present large estate; how William would never consent to a return of the money, though his brother had preserved the original note with that end in view; and how, finally, the older brother had died suddenly, killed by the sweeping away of his entire fortune by unlucky speculation. The writer further stated that before his death William had given his son Robert a letter to his American uncle, claiming for that son a share of the fortune resulting from his father’s gift.
In concluding, the writer said —
“I took Robert into my home, and I am bound to say that I have not learned to love him. This, however, may be a prejudice, due to the fact that he had come between me and my wish to make Alice my heiress. In recognition of the possibility of this prejudice I feel compelled to ease my conscience by bequeathing to William’s son the fortune which grew out of William’s bounty. The original bank note, however, was a free gift to me, and I certainly may dispose of it as I please. I ask my niece Alice to accept it from me, as all that my conscience permits me to call my own.”