A FIRST TEST.
Curran could not study the Endicott problem. His mind had lost edge in
the vain process, getting as confused over details as the experimenter
in perpetual motion after an hundred failures. In favor of Edith he said
to himself that her instincts had always been remarkable, always
helpful; and her theory compared well with the twenty upon which he had
worked years to no purpose. Since he could not think the matter out, he
went straight on in the fashion which fancy had suggested. Taking it for
granted that Dillon and Endicott were the same man, he must establish
the connection; that is, discover the moment when Horace Endicott passed
from his own into the character of Arthur Dillon.
Two persons would know the fact: Anne Dillon and her son. Four others
might have knowledge of it; Judy, the Senator, Louis, and Monsignor. A
fifth might be added, if the real Arthur Dillon were still living in
obscurity, held there by the price paid him for following his own whim.
Others would hardly be in the secret. The theory was charming in itself,
and only a woman like Edith, whose fancy had always been sportive, would
have dreamed it. The detective recalled Arthur's interest in his pursuit
of Endicott; then the little scenes on board the _Arrow_; and grew dizzy
to think of the man pursued comparing his own photograph with his
present likeness, under the eyes of the detective who had grown stale in
the chase of him.
He knew of incidents quite as remarkable, which had a decent explanation
afterwards, however. He went about among the common people of Cherry
Hill, who had known Arthur Dillon from his baptism, had petted him every
week until he disappeared, and now adored him in his success. He renewed
acquaintance with them, and heaped them with favors. Loitering about in
their idling places, he threw out the questions; hints, surmises, which
might bring to the surface their faith in Arthur Dillon. He reported the
result to Edith.
"Not one of them" said he, "but would go to court and swear a bushel of
oaths that Arthur Dillon is the boy who ran away. They have their
reasons too; how he dances, and sings, and plays the fiddle, and teases
the girls, just as he did when a mere strip of a lad; how the devil was
always in him for doing the thing that no one looked for; how he had no
fear of even the priest, or of the wildest horse; and sought out
terrible things to do and to dare, just as now he shakes up your late
backers, bishops, ministers, ambassadors, editors, or plots against
England; all as if he earned a living that way."
She sneered at this bias, and bade him search deeper.
It was necessary to approach the Senator on the matter. He secured from
him a promise that their talk would remain a secret, not only because
the matter touched one very dear to the Senator, but also because
publicity might ruin the detective himself. If the Senator did not care
to give his word, there would be no talk, but his relative might also be
exposed to danger. The Senator was always gracious with Curran.
"Do you know anything about Arthur's history in California?" and his
lazy eyes noted every change in the ruddy, handsome face.
"Never asked him but one question about it. He answered that straight,
and never spoke since about it. Nothing wrong, I hope?" the Senator
answered with alarm.
"Lots, I guess, but I don't know for sure. Here are the circumstances.
Think them out for yourself. A crowd of sharp speculators in California
mines bought a mine from Arthur Dillon when he was settling up his
accounts to come home to his mother. As trouble arose lately about that
mine, they had to hunt up Arthur Dillon. They send their agent to New
York, he comes to Arthur, and has a talk with him. Then he goes back to
his speculators, and declares to them that this Arthur Dillon is not the
man who sold the mine. So the company, full of suspicion, offers me the
job of looking up the character of Arthur, and what he had been doing
these ten years. They say straight out that the real Arthur Dillon has
been put out of the way, and that the man who is holding the name and
the stakes here in New York is a fraud."
This bit of fiction relieved the Senator's mind.
"A regular cock-and-bull story," said he with indignation. "What's their
game? Did you tell them what we think of Artie? Would his own mother
mistake him? Or even his uncle? If they're looking for hurt, tell them
they're on the right road."
"No, no," said Curran, "these are straight men. But if doubt is cast on
a business transaction, they intend to clear it away. It would be just
like them to bring suit to establish the identity of Arthur with the
Arthur Dillon who sold them the mine. Now, Senator, could you go into
court and swear positively that the young man who came back from
California five years ago is the nephew who ran away from home at the
age of fifteen?"
"Swear it till I turned blue; why, it's foolish, simply foolish. And
every man, woman, and child in the district would do the same. Why don't
you go and talk with Artie about it?"
"Because the company doesn't wish to make a fuss until they have some
ground to walk on," replied Curran easily. "When I tell them how sure
the relatives and friends of Arthur are about his identity, they may
drop the affair. But now, Senator, just discussing the thing as friends,
you know, if you were asked in court why you were so sure Arthur is your
nephew, what could you tell the court?"
"If the court asked me how I knew my mother was my mother----"
"That's well enough, I know. But in this case Arthur was absent ten
years, in which time you never saw him, heard of him, or from him."
"Good point," said the Senator musingly. "When Artie came home from
California, he was sick, and I went to see him. He was in bed. Say, I'll
never forget it, Curran. I saw Pat sick once at the same age ... Pat was
his father, d'ye see?... and here was Pat lying before me in the bed. I
tell you it shook me. I never thought he'd grow so much like his father,
though he has the family features. Know him to be Pat's son? Why, if he
told me himself he was any one else, I wouldn't believe him."
Evidently the Senator knew nothing of Horace Endicott and recognised
Arthur Dillon as his brother's son. The detective was not surprised;
neither was Edith at the daily report.
"There isn't another like him on earth," she said with the pride of a
discoverer. "Keep on until you find his tracks, here or in California."
Curran had an interesting chat with Judy Haskell on a similar theme, but
with a different excuse from that which roused the Senator. The old lady
knew the detective only as Arthur's friend. He approached her
mysteriously, with a story of a gold mine awaiting Arthur in California,
as soon as he could prove to the courts that he was really Arthur
Dillon. Judy began to laugh. "Prove that he's Arthur Dillon! Faith, an'
long I'd wait for a gold mine if I had to prove I was Judy Haskell. How
can any one prove themselves to be themselves, Misther Curran? Are the
courts goin' crazy?"
The detective explained what evidence a court would accept as proof of
personality.
"Well, Arthur can give that aisy enough," said she.
"But he won't touch the thing at all, Mrs. Haskell. He was absent ten
years, and maybe he doesn't want that period ripped up in a court. It
might appear that he had a wife, you know, or some other disagreeable
thing might leak out. When the lawyers get one on the witness stand,
they make hares of him."
"Sure enough," said Judy thoughtfully. Had she not suggested this very
suspicion to Anne? The young are wild, and even Arthur could have
slipped from grace in that interval of his life. Curran hoped that
Arthur could prove his identity without exposing the secrets of the
past.
"For example," said he smoothly, with an eye for Judy's expression,
"could you go to court to-morrow and swear that Arthur is the same lad
that ran away from his mother fifteen years ago?"
"I cud swear as manny oaths on that point as there are hairs in yer
head," said Judy.
"And what would you say, Mrs. Haskell, if the judge said to you: Now,
madam, it's very easy for you to say you know the young man to be the
same person as the runaway boy; but how do you know it? what makes you
think you know it?"
"I'd say he was purty sassy, indade. Of coorse I'd say that to meself,
for ye can't talk to a judge as aisy an' free as to a lawyer. Well, I'd
say manny pleasant things. Arthur was gone tin years, but I knew him an'
he knew me the minute we set eyes on aich other. Then, agin, I knew him
out of his father. He doesn't favor the mother at all, for she's light
an' he's dark. There's a dale o' the Dillon in him. Then, agin, how
manny things he tould me of the times we had together, an' he even asked
me if Teresa Flynn, his sweetheart afore he wint off, was livin' still.
Oh, as thrue as ye're sittin' there! Poor thing, she was married. An' he
remembered how fond he was o' rice puddin' ice cold. An' he knew Louis
Everard the minute he shtud forninst him in the door. But what's the use
o' talkin'? I cud tell ye for hours all the things he said an' did to
show he was Arthur Dillon."
"Has he any marks on his body that would help to identify him, if he
undertook to get the gold mine that belongs to him?"
"Artie had only wan mark on him as a boy ... he was the most spotless
child I ever saw ... an' that was a mole on his right shoulder. He tuk
it wid him to California, an' he brought it back, for I saw it meself in
the same spot while he was sick, an' I called his attintion to it, an'
he was much surprised, for he had never thought of it wanst."
"It's my opinion," said Curran solemnly, "that he can prove his identity
without exposing his life in the west. I hope to persuade him to it.
Maybe the photographs of himself and his father would help. Have you any
copies of them?"
"There's jist two. I wudn't dare to take thim out of his room, but if ye
care to walk up-stairs, Mr. Curran, an' luk at thim there, ye're
welcome. He an' his mother are away the night to a gran' ball."
They entered Arthur's apartments together, and Judy showed the pictures
of Arthur Dillon as a boy of fourteen, and of his youthful father; old
daguerreotypes, but faithful and clear as a likeness. Judy rattled on
for an hour, but the detective had achieved his object. She had no share
in the secret.
Arthur Dillon was his father's son, for her. He studied the pictures,
and carefully examined the rooms, his admiration provoking Judy into a
display of their beauties. With the skill and satisfaction of an artist
in man-hunting, he observed how thoroughly the character of the young
man displayed itself in the trifles of decoration and furnishing.
The wooden crucifix with the pathetic figure in bronze on the wall over
the desk, the holy water stoup at the door, carved figures of the Holy
Family, a charming group, on the desk, exquisite etchings of the Christ
and the Madonna after the masters, a _prie-dieu_ in the inner room with
a group of works of devotion: and Edith had declared him no Catholic.
Here was the refutation.
"He is a pious man," Curran said.
"And no wan sees it but God and himself. So much the betther, I say,"
Judy remarked. "Only thim that had sorra knows how to pray, an' he prays
like wan that had his fill of it."
The tears came into the man's eyes at the indications of Arthur's love
for poor Erin. Hardness was the mark of Curran, and sin had been his
lifelong delight; but for his country he had kept a tenderness and
devotion that softened and elevated his nature at times. Of little use
and less honor to his native land, he felt humbled in this room, whose
books, pictures, and ornaments revealed thought and study in behalf of a
harried and wretched people, yet the student was not a native of
Ireland. It seemed profane to set foot here, to spy upon its holy
privacy. He felt glad that its details gave the lie so emphatically to
Edith's instincts.
The astonishing thing was the absence of Californian relics and
mementoes. Some photographs and water colors, whose names Curran
mentally copied for future use, pictured popular scenes on the Pacific
slope; but they could be bought at any art store. Surely his life in the
mines, with all the luck that had come to him, must have held some great
bitterness, that he never spoke of it casually, and banished all
remembrances.
That would come up later, but Curran had made up his mind that no secret
of Arthur's life should ever see the light because he found it. Not even
vengeful Edith, and she had the right to hate her enemy, should wring
from him any disagreeable facts in the lad's career. So deeply the
detective respected him!
In the place of honor, at the foot of his bed, where his eyes rested on
them earliest and latest, hung a group of portraits in oil, in the same
frame, of Louis the beloved, from his babyhood to the present time: on
the side wall hung a painting of Anne in her first glory as mistress of
the new home in Washington Square; opposite, Monsignor smiled down in
purple splendor; two miniatures contained the grave, sweet, motherly
face of Mary Everard and the auburn hair and lovely face of Mona.
"There are the people he loves," said Curran with emotion.
"Ay, indade," Judy said tenderly, "an' did ever a wild boy like him love
his own more? Night an' day his wan thought is of them. The sun rises
an' sets for him behind that picther there," pointing to Louis'
portraits. "If annythin' had happened to that lovely child last Spring
he'd a-choked the life out o' wan woman wid his own two hands. He's aisy
enough, God knows, but I'd rather jump into the say than face him when
the anger is in him."
"He's a terrible man," said Curran, repeating Edith's phrase.
He examined some manuscript in Arthur's handwriting. How different from
the careless scrawl of Horace Endicott this clear, bold, dashing script,
which ran full speed across the page, yet turned with ease and leisurely
from the margin. What a pity Edith could not see with her own eyes these
silent witnesses to the truth. Beyond the study was a music-room, where
hung his violin over some scattered music. Horace Endicott hated the
practising of the art, much as he loved the opera. It was all very
sweet, just what the detective would have looked for, beautiful to see.
He could have lingered in the rooms and speculated on that secret and
manly life, whose currents were so feebly but shiningly indicated in
little things. It occurred to him that copies of the daguerreotypes,
Arthur at fourteen and his father at twenty-five, would be of service in
the search through California. He spoke of it to Judy.
"Sure that was done years ago," said Judy cautiously. "Anne Dillon
wouldn't have it known for the world, ye see, but I know that she sint a
thousand o' thim to the polis in California; an' that's the way she kem
across the lad. Whin he found his mother shtill mournin' him, he wrote
to her that he had made his pile an' was comin' home. Anne has the pride
in her, an' she wants all the world to believe he kem home of himself,
d'ye see? Now kape that a secret, mind."
"And do you never let on what I've been telling you," said Curran
gravely. "It may come to nothing, and it may come to much, but we must
be silent."
She had given her word, and Judy's word was like the laws of the Medes
and Persians. Curran rejoiced at the incident of the daguerreotypes,
which anticipated his proposed search in California. Vainly however did
he describe the result of his inquiry for Edith. She would have none of
his inferences. He must try to entrap Anne Dillon and the priest, and
afterwards he might scrape the surface of California.