FAMILY HISTORY
I was watching Mr. Lindsey pretty closely, being desirous of seeing how
he took to Mr. Gavin Smeaton, and what he made of him, and I saw him
prick his ears at this announcement; clearly, it seemed to suggest
something of interest to him.
"Aye?" he exclaimed. "Your father hailed from Berwick, or thereabouts?
You don't know exactly from where, Mr. Smeaton?"
"No, I don't," replied Smeaton, promptly. "The truth is, strange as it
may seem, Mr. Lindsey, I know precious little about my father, and what I
do know is mostly from hearsay. I've no recollection of having ever seen
him. And--more wondrous still, you'll say--I don't know whether he's
alive or dead!"
Here, indeed, was something that bordered on the mysterious; and Mr.
Lindsey and myself, who had been dealing in that commodity to some
considerable degree of late, exchanged glances. And Smeaton saw us look
at each other, and he smiled and went on.
"I was thinking all this out last night," he said, "and it came to me--I
wonder if that man, John Phillips, who had, as I hear, my name and
address in his pocket, could have been some man who was coming to see
me on my father's behalf, or--it's an odd thing to fancy, and,
considering what's happened him, not a pleasant one!--could have been my
father himself?"
There was silence amongst us for a moment. This was a new vista down
which we were looking, and it was full of thick shadow. As for me, I
began to recollect things. According to the evidence which Chisholm had
got from the British Linen Bank at Peebles, John Phillips had certainly
come from Panama. Just as certainly he had made for Tweedside. And--with
equal certainty--nobody at all had come forward to claim him, to assert
kinship with him, though there had been the widest publicity given to the
circumstances of his murder. In Gilverthwaite's instance, his sister had
quickly turned up--to see what there was for her. Phillips had been just
as freely mentioned in the newspapers as Gilverthwaite; but no one had
made inquiries after him, though there was a tidy sum of money of his in
the Peebles bank for his next-of-kin to claim. Who was he, then?
Mr. Lindsey was evidently deep in thought, or, I should perhaps say, in
surmise. And he seemed to arrive where I did--at a question; which was,
of course, just that which Smeaton had suggested.
"I might answer that better if I knew what you could tell me about your
father, Mr. Smeaton," he said. "And--about yourself."
"I'll tell you all I can, with pleasure," answered Smeaton. "To tell you
the truth, I never attached much importance to this matter, in spite of
my name and address being found on Phillips, until Mr. Moneylaws there
came in last night--and then, after what he told me, I did begin to think
pretty deeply over it, and I'm coming to the opinion that there's a lot
more in all this than appears on the surface."
"You can affirm that with confidence!" remarked Mr. Lindsey, drily.
"There is!"
"Well--about my father," continued Smeaton. "All I know is this--and I
got it from hearsay: His name--the name given to me, anyway--was Martin
Smeaton. He hailed from somewhere about Berwick. Whether it was on the
English side or the Scottish side of the Tweed I don't know. But he
went to America as a young man, with a young wife, and they were in New
Orleans when I was born. And when I was born, my mother died. So I
never saw her."
"Do you know her maiden name?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
"No more than that her Christian name was Mary," replied Smeaton.
"You'll find out as I go on that it's very little I do know of
anything--definitely. Well, when my mother died, my father evidently left
New Orleans and went off travelling. I've made out that he must have been
a regular rolling stone at all times--a man that couldn't rest long in
one place. But he didn't take me with him. There was a Scotsman and his
wife in New Orleans that my father had forgathered with--some people of
the name of Watson,--and he left me with them, and in their care in New
Orleans I remained till I was ten years old. From my recollection he
evidently paid them well for looking after me--there was never, at any
time, any need of money on my account. And of course, never having known
any other, I came to look on the Watsons as father and mother. When I was
ten years old they returned to Scotland--here to Dundee, and I came with
them. I have a letter or two that my father wrote at that time giving
instructions as to what was to be done with me. I was to have the best
education--as much as I liked and was capable of--and, though I didn't
then, and don't now, know all the details, it's evident he furnished
Watson with plenty of funds on my behalf. We came here to Dundee, and I
was put to the High School, and there I stopped till I was eighteen, and
then I had two years at University College. Now, the odd thing was that
all that time, though I knew that regular and handsome remittances came
to the Watsons on my behalf from my father, he never expressed any
wishes, or made any suggestions, as to what I should do with myself. But
I was all for commercial life; and when I left college, I went into an
office here in the town and began to study the ins and outs of foreign
trade. Then, when I was just twenty-one, my father sent me a considerable
sum--two thousand pounds, as a matter of fact--saying it was for me to
start business with. And, do you know, Mr. Lindsey, from that day--now
ten years ago--to this, I've never heard a word of him."
Mr. Lindsey was always an attentive man in a business interview, but I
had never seen him listen to anybody so closely as he listened to Mr.
Smeaton. And after his usual fashion, he at once began to ask questions.
"Those Watsons, now," he said. "They're living?"
"No," replied Smeaton. "Both dead--a few years ago."
"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, he 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!"
Both Smeaton and myself started at that--it was a new idea. And I saw
that it struck Smeaton with great force.
"True!" he replied, after a pause. "I don't! It might have been. And in
that case--how could one find out what it was?"
Mr. Lindsey got up, shaking his head.
"A big job!" he answered. "A stiff job! You'd have to work back a long
way. But--it could be done. What time can I look in this afternoon, Mr.
Smeaton, to get a glance at those letters?"
"Three o'clock," replied Smeaton. He walked to the door of his office
with us, and he gave me a smile. "You're none the worse for your
adventure, I see," he remarked. "Well, what about this man
Carstairs--what news of him?"
"We'll maybe be able to tell you some later in the day," replied Mr.
Lindsey. "There'll be lots of news about him, one way or another, before
we're through with all this."
We went out into the street then, and at his request I took Mr. Lindsey
to the docks, to see the friendly skipper, who was greatly delighted to
tell the story of my rescue. We stopped on his ship talking with him
for a good part of the morning, and it was well past noon when we went
back to the hotel for lunch. And the first thing we saw there was a
telegram for Mr. Lindsey. He tore the envelope open as we stood in the
hall, and I made no apology for looking over his shoulder and reading
the message with him.
"Just heard by wire from Largo police that small yacht answering
description of Carstairs' has been brought in there by fishermen who
found it early this morning in Largo Bay, empty."
We looked at each other. And Mr. Lindsey suddenly laughed.
"Empty!" he exclaimed. "Aye!--but that doesn't prove that the
man's dead!"