Adelle registered at the Eclair Hotel in B---- with her maid. It was the
only hotel that she knew in the city, although when she first crossed
the ornate lobby she remembered with a sick sensation that other visit
with Archie on their scandalously notorious arrival from Europe to take
possession of her fortune. However, Adelle was not one to allow
sentimental impressions to upset her, and signed the register
carefully--"Mrs. Adelle Clark and maid, Bellevue, California." She had
resolved to signify her new life by renouncing her married name here in
the country where she had begun life as Adelle Clark, although her
divorce was not yet even started.
She expected her cousin Tom Clark in a few days. She had thought it best
to precede him and pave the way for him at the Washington Trust Company
by announcing her news to the officers first. A little reflection and
the memory of certain expressions from the trust officers of complacency
in their success in "quieting" the Clark title had convinced her that
this would be the wiser course to pursue. The trust company might find
some objections to undoing all the fine legal work that they had
accomplished in the settlement of the estate.
Adelle was received by the new president, that same Mr. Solomon Smith
who had delivered the trust company's ultimatum to her after her
marriage. Mr. Smith, it seemed, had recently succeeded to the dignity of
President West, who had retired as chairman of the company's board, fat
with honor and profit. President Solomon Smith received Adelle with all
the consideration due to such an old and rich client, whose business
interests were still presumably considerable, although latterly she had
seen fit to remove them from the cautious guardianship of the trust
company. She was in mourning, he noticed, and looked much older and more
of a person in every way than when it had been his official duty to
deliver his solemn wigging in the Paris studio to the trust company's
erring ward. Mr. Smith probably realized with satisfaction the success
of his prophecies on the consequences of her rash act, which he had so
eloquently pointed out. Adelle made no reference, however, to her own
troubles, nor explained why she had announced herself by her maiden
name. She had come on more important business.
It took her some time to make clear to the banker what the real purpose
of her visit was, and when Mr. Smith realized it he summoned to the
conference two other officers of the institution, who were better
acquainted with the detail of the Clark estate than he was. After the
thing had been put before them, the temperature in the president's
office leaped upwards with astonishing rapidity on this chilly day in
early May. Three more horrified gentlemen it would have been hard to
find in the entire city, whose citizens are easily horrified. For this
woman, whom Fate and the Washington Trust Company had endowed with a
large fortune, to try to raise the ghost of that troublesome Edward S.
Clark, whom they had been at so much pains and expense to lay, seemed
merely mad. When Adelle reiterated her conviction that she herself had
discovered at last the heirs of the lost Edward S., President Smith
demanded with some asperity whether Mrs. Davis--Mrs. Clark--understood
what this meant. Adelle replied very simply that she supposed it meant
the California Clarks getting at last their half of Clark's Field, which
certainly belonged to them more than to her.
"Not at all!" all three gentlemen roared at her exasperatedly.
"They'd have a hard time making good their title now!" one of them
remarked, with a cynical laugh.
"It would mean a lot of expensive litigation for one thing," another
injected.
"Which would fall upon you," the trust president pointed out.
"But why?" Adelle asked quietly. "I shouldn't fight their claims."
The three gentlemen gasped, and then let forth a flood of discordant
protest, which was summed up by the president's flat assertion,--
"You'd have to!"
Patiently, while his colleagues waited, he tried to make clear to Adelle
in words of two syllables that the Clark's Field Associates would be
obliged to defend the titles they had given to the land, and she as
majority partner in this lucrative enterprise would have to stand her
share of the risk and the legal expense involved. Adelle saw that the
affair was more complex than she had thought and said so, with no
indication, however, of giving up her purpose.
"It is not a simple matter at all to consider the claims of these
California Clarks. The land has passed out of our--your control: it has
probably passed through several hands in many instances, each owner
pledging his faith in the validity of his title. You can see that any
action taken now by these heirs of Edward S. Clark against the present
owners of Clark's Field would injure numberless innocent people. It is
not to be thought of for one moment!" Having reached a moral ground for
not upsetting things as they were, the president of the trust company
felt more at ease and expatiated at length on "the good faith of the
Washington Trust Company and all others" who had been parties to the
transaction. Adelle sighed as she listened to the torrent of eloquence
and realized what an upheaval her simple act of restitution would cause.
It seemed to her that the law was a very peculiar institution, indeed,
which prevented people from using their property for many years in order
not to injure some possible heirs, and then just as stoutly prevented
those heirs when they had been discovered from getting their own!
"It is simply preposterous, the whole thing," one of the younger
officers observed, rising to go about more important business.
"It's not likely to come to anything--they are poor people, these other
Clarks, you said?" inquired Mr. Smith.
"I know only one of them," Adelle replied. "He was a stone mason working
on my place in California. It was by accident that I learned of his
relationship to me. He has some brothers and sisters living, four of
them I think he said. They are all poor people. I don't know whether he
has any cousins. I didn't ask him. But I think he said something once
about an uncle or aunt, so it's likely there are other heirs, too."