II
JACK, who was not a gay spendthrift and did not like the flashing luxury that usually attends the giddy young man of money, usually dined with me in a quiet restaurant that gave more attention to its cuisine than to potted plants and gilded frescoing. One evening he chanced to dine there alone, and a girl at a near-by table helplessly appealed to him.
She had lost her purse and her check came to one dollars and seventy cents. He did what anybody would have done, and what she intended a young fool would do also. Her explanations were plausible, and her personality seemed fascinating. He went home with her and was introduced to two old men, an uncle and a father, who, against Jack's protests, refunded the one dollar and seventy cents and gave him their thanks,
With the usual impudence he said of them to me:
“The old fellow with the glasses an' the twisted nose is the father. The other dyspeptic's her uncle.”
When he told me that their names were Joseph and Daniel Cornwall, I said nothing, though I had much to say.
I knew it was not by chance that he had been more or less artfully brought into their house. For a month in one way and another those same Cornwall brothers had been trying to get in touch with me. I did know nothing about the one called Joseph and not all that I wished to know about the one called Daniel—not all I would have liked to know in case our affairs were to be further entwined.
They had been “entwined”—if I may use so mild a word—some years before, but he didn't know it. That is, he did not know that Don Richmond, alias Everhard, was the same person that had entered his office, plundered his safe and later disposed very effectively of the person who tried to recover the little box of papers. Daniel Cornwall's suspicions centered on a man named Smithers, who was far from being innocent.
But I must continue with Jack's part for a few words more. He called on Cora again. He liked her, he loved her. I have often wondered why. There must be a benevolent destiny that occasionally takes young fools in hand. But Jack seemed to win the confidence of the two loose-jointed secretive old men by the very remark that any one would have thought most likely to get him thrown out of the house and have the door bolted behind him.
He was blindly led to discuss what relatives he had in the city and, with a little burst of pride, mentioned that I, Don Everhard, was his cousin. At that, he said, they became surprized and eager.
My name is well known. Any time a hack writer, one of these fellows that fill what space is left over from the day's news and are paid by the inch, simply must pay his rent, he rehashes what somebody before him has written of my record, discusses my psychology and speculates on how a man with so many notches on his gun—I never notched a gun in my life—can move unmolested in a civilized community. Those old fellows began to ask interested questions. They wanted to meet me. Jack said that he would have me over the very next afternoon. He did.