Dead Men's Money eBook

J. S. Fletcher
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 301 pages of information about Dead Men's Money.

Dead Men's Money eBook

J. S. Fletcher
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 301 pages of information about Dead Men's Money.

“That’s a pity,” remarked Mr. Lindsey.  “But you’ll have recollections of what they told you about your father from their own remembrance of him?”

“They’d little to tell,” said Smeaton.  “I made out they knew very little indeed of him, except that he was a tall, fine-looking fellow, evidently of a superior class and education.  Of my mother they knew less.”

“You’ll have letters of your father’s?” suggested Mr. Lindsey.

“Just a few mere scraps—­he was never a man who did more than write down what he wanted doing, and as briefly as possible,” replied Smeaton.  “In fact,” he added, with a laugh, “his letters to me were what you might call odd.  When the money came that I mentioned just now, be wrote me the shortest note—­I can repeat every word of it:  ’I’ve sent Watson two thousand pounds for you,’ he wrote.  ’You can start yourself in business with it, as I hear you’re inclined that way, and some day I’ll come over and see how you’re getting along.’  That was all!”

“And you’ve never heard of or from him since?” exclaimed Mr. Lindsey.  “That’s a strange thing, now.  But—­where was he then?  Where did he send the money from?”

“New York,” replied Smeaton.  “The other letters I have from him are from places in both North and South America.  It always seemed to me and the Watsons that he was never in any place for long—­always going about.”

“I should like to see those letters, Mr. Smeaton,” said Mr. Lindsey.  “Especially the last one.”

“They’re at my house,” answered Smeaton.  “I’ll bring them down here this afternoon, and show them to you if you’ll call in.  But now—­do you think this man Phillips may have been my father?”

“Well,” replied Mr. Lindsey, reflectively, “it’s an odd thing that Phillips, whoever he was, drew five hundred pounds in cash out of the British Linen Bank at Peebles, and carried it straight away to Tweedside—­where you believe your father came from.  It looks as if Phillips had meant to do something with that cash—­to give it to somebody, you know.”

“I read the description of Phillips in the newspapers,” remarked Smeaton.  “But, of course, it conveyed nothing to me.”

“You’ve no photograph of your father?” asked Mr. Lindsey.

“No—­none—­never had,” answered Smeaton.  “Nor any papers of his—­except those bits of letters.”

Mr. Lindsey sat in silence for a time, tapping the point of his stick on the floor and staring at the carpet.

“I wish we knew what that man Gilverthwaite was wanting at Berwick and in the district!” he said at last.

“But isn’t that evident?” suggested Smeaton.  “He was looking in the parish registers.  I’ve a good mind to have a search made in those quarters for particulars of my father.”

Mr. Lindsey gave him a sharp look.

“Aye!” he said, in a rather sly fashion.  “But—­you don’t know if your father’s real name was Smeaton!”

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Project Gutenberg
Dead Men's Money from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.