"The one thing in the world he thought he despised. The Congressional
Medal of Honor for valor in saving the life of a British colonel, who,
by the way, happens to be an Orangeman. When he discovered it he
wanted to bayonet the colonel and I won the Croix de Guerre for
stopping him."
"Oh, cease your nonsense, Donald," his wife urged, "and tell your
father and mother something. I think they are entitled to the news
now."
"Yes, Nan, I think they are. Listen, folks. Now that you've all been
nice enough to be human beings and accept my wife at her face value, I
have a surprise for you. On the day when Nan married the father of my
adopted son, he waited until the officiating minister had signed the
marriage license and attested that he had performed the ceremony; then
while the minister's attention was on something else, he took
possession of the license and put it in his overcoat pocket. Later he
and Nan drove to a restaurant for luncheon and the overcoat with the
license in the pocket was stolen, from the automobile. The thief
pawned the coat later and the pawnbroker discovered the license in the
pocket after the thief had departed. The following day the fellow was
arrested in the act of stealing another overcoat; the pawnbroker read
of the arrest and remembered he had loaned five dollars on an overcoat
to a man who gave the same name this thief gave to the police. So the
pawnbroker--"
"I am not interested, my son. I require no proofs."
"Thank you for that, father. But you're entitled to them and you're
going to get them. The pawnbroker found on the inside lining of the
inner breast pocket of the overcoat the tag which all tailors sew
there when, they make the garment. This tag bore the name of the owner
of the overcoat, his address and the date of delivery of the
overcoat."
"Now, the pawnbroker noticed that the man who owned the overcoat was
not the person named in the marriage license. Also he noticed that the
marriage license was attested by a minister but that it had not been
recorded by the state board of health, as required by law--and the
pawnbroker was aware that marriage licenses are not permitted, by law,
to come into the possession of the contracting parties until the fact
that they have been legally married has been duly recorded on the
evidence of the marriage--which is, of course, the marriage license."
"Why didn't the idiot send the license back to the minister who had
performed the ceremony?" The Laird demanded. "Then this tangle would
never have occurred."
"He says he thought of that, but he was suspicious. It was barely
possible that the officiating clergyman had connived at the theft of
the license from his desk, so the pawnbroker, who doubtless possesses
the instincts of an amateur detective, resolved to get the license
into the hands of Nan Brent direct. Before doing so, however, he wrote
to the man named in the license and sent his letter to the address
therein given. In the course of time that letter was returned by the
post-office department with the notation that the location of the
addressee was unknown. The pawnbroker then wrote to the man whose name
appeared on the tailor's tag in the overcoat, and promptly received a
reply. Yes, an overcoat had been stolen from his automobile on a
certain date. He described the overcoat and stated that the marriage
license of a friend of his might be found in the breast pocket,
provided the thief had not removed it. If the license was there he
would thank the pawnbroker to forward it to him. He enclosed a check
to redeem the overcoat and pay the cost of forwarding it to him by
parcel post, insured. The pawnbroker had that check photographed
before cashing it and he forwarded the overcoat but retained the
marriage license, for he was more than ever convinced that things were
not as they should have been.
"His next move was to write Miss Nan Brent, at Port Agnew, Washington,
informing her of the circumstances and advising her that he had her
marriage certificate. This letter reached Port Agnew at the time Nan
was living in San Francisco, and her father received it. He merely
scratched out Port Agnew, Washington, and substituted for that
address: 'Care of---- using Nan's married name, Altamont Apartments,
San Francisco.'
"By the time that letter reached San Francisco Nan had left that
address, but since she planned a brief absence only, she left no
forwarding address for her mail. That was the time she came north to
visit her father and in Seattle she discovered that her supposed
husband was already married. I have told you, father, and you have
doubtless told mother, Nan's reasons for refusing to disclose this
man's identity at that time.
"Of course Nan did not return to San Francisco, but evidently her
husband did and at their apartment he found this letter addressed to
Nan. He opened it, and immediately set out for San José to call upon
the pawnbroker and gain possession of the marriage license. Unknown to
him, however, his lines were all tangled and the pawnbroker told him
frankly he was a fraud and declined to give him the license. Finally
the pawnbroker tried a bluff and declared that if the man did not get
out of his place of business he would have him arrested as a
bigamist--and the fellow fled.
"A month or two later the pawnbroker was in San Francisco so he called
at the Altamont Apartments to deliver the license in person, only to
discover that the person he sought had departed and that her address
was unknown. So he wrote Nan again, using her married name and
addressed her at Port Agnew, Washington. You will remember, of course,
that at this time Nan's marriage was not known to Port Agnew, she had
kept it secret. Naturally the postmaster here did not know anybody by
that name, and in due course, when the letter remained unclaimed he
did not bother to advertise it but returned it to the sender."
"It doesn't seem possible," Mrs. McKaye declared, quite pop-eyed with
excitement.
"It was possible enough," her son continued drily. "Well, the
bewildered pawnbroker thrust the license away in his desk, and awaited
the next move of the man in the case. But he never moved, and after a
while the pawnbroker forgot he had the license. And the minister was
dead. One day, in cleaning out his desk he came across the accumulated
papers in the case and it occurred to him to write the state board of
health and explain the situation. Promptly he received a letter from
the board informing him that inquiries had been made at the board of
health office for a certified copy of the license, by Miss Nan Brent,
of Port Agnew, Washington, and that the board had been unable to
furnish such a certified copy. Immediately our obliging and
intelligent pawnbroker, whose name, by the way, is Abraham Goldman,
bundled up the marriage license, together with the carbon copy of the
pawn ticket he had given the thief; a press clipping from the San José
_Mercury_ recounting the story of the capture of the thief; carbon
copies of all his correspondence in the case, the original of all
letters received, the photograph of the check--everything, in fact, to
prove a most conclusive case through the medium of a well-ordered and
amazing chain of optical and circumstantial evidence. This evidence he
sent to Miss Brent, Port Agnew, Washington, and she received it about
a week before I married her. Consequently, she was in position to
prove to the most captious critic that she was a woman of undoubted
virtue, the innocent victim of a scoundrel who had inveigled her into
a bigamous marriage. Of course, in view of the fact that the man she
went through a legal marriage ceremony with already had a wife living,
Nan's marriage to him was illegal--how do you express it? Ipso facto
or per se? In the eyes of the law she had never been married; the man
in the case was legally debarred from contracting another marriage.
The worst that could possibly be said of Nan was that she played in
mighty hard luck."
"In the name of heaven, why did you not tell me this the day you
married her?" The Laird demanded wrathfully.
"I didn't know it the day I married her. She was curious enough to
want to see how game I was. She wanted to be certain I truly loved
her, I think--and in view of her former experience I do not blame her
for it. It pleased you a whole lot, didn't it, honey?" he added,
turning to Nan, "when I married you on faith?"
"But why didn't you tell us after you had discovered it, Donald?" Mrs.
McKaye interrupted. "That was not kind of you, my son."
"Well," he answered soberly, "in the case of you and the girls I
didn't think you deserved it. I kept hoping you and the girls would
confess to Dad that you telephoned Nan to come back to Port Agnew that
time I was sick with typhoid--"
"Eh? What's that?" The Laird sat up bristling.
Mrs. McKaye flushed scarlet and seemed on the verge of tears. Donald
went to her and took her in his arms. "Awfully sorry to have to peach
on you, old dear," he continued. "Do not think Nan told on you,
Mother. She didn't. I figured it all out by myself. However, as I
started to remark, I expected you would confess and that your
confession would start a family riot, in the midst of it I knew
father would rise up and declare himself. I give you my word, Dad,
that for two weeks before I went to work up at Darrow I watched and
waited all day long for you to come down here and tell Nan it was a
bet and that we'd play it as it lay."
Old Hector gritted his teeth and waged his head sorrowfully. "Nellie,"
he warned his trembling wife, "this is what comes of a lack of
confidence between man and wife."
She flared up at that. "Hush, you hypocrite. At least I haven't
snooped around here trying to poison dogs and kill people when I was
discovered playing Peeping Tom. A pretty figure you've cut throughout
this entire affair. Didn't I beg you not to be hard on our poor boy?"
"Yes, you had better lay low, Father," Donald warned him. "You've been
married long enough to know that if you start anything with a woman
she'll put it all over you. We will, therefore, forget Mother's error
and concentrate on you. Remember the night I dragged you ashore at
Darrow's log boom? Well, permit me to tell you that you're a pretty
heavy tow and long before my feet struck bottom I figured on two
Widows McKaye. If I'd had to swim twenty feet further I would have
lost out. Really, I thought you'd come through after that."
"I would if you'd waited a bit," old Hector protested miserably. "You
ought to know I never do things in a hurry."
"Well, I do, Dad, but all the same I grew weary waiting for you. Then
I made up my mind I'd never tell you about Nan until you and Mother
and the girls had completely reversed yourselves and taken Nan for
the woman she is and not the woman you once thought she was."
"Well, you've won, haven't you?" The Laird's voice was very husky.
"Yes, I have; and it's a sweet victory, I assure you."
"Then shut up. Shut up, I tell you."
"All right! I'm through--forever."
The Laird bent his beetling brows upon Nan. "And you?" he demanded.
"Have you finished?"
She came to him and laid her soft cheek against his. "You funny old
man," she whispered. "Did you ever hear that I had begun?"
"Well, nae, I have not--now that you mention it. And, by the way, my
dear! Referring to my grandson's half-brother?"
"Yes."
"I understand he's a McKaye."
"Yes, Donald has legally adopted him."
"Well, then, I'll accept him as an adopted grandson, my dear. I think
there'll be money enough for everybody. But about this scalawag of a
man that fathered him. I'll have to know who he is. We have a suit of
zebra clothing waiting for him, my dear."
"No, you haven't, Father McKaye. My boy's father is never going to be
a convict. That man has other children, too."
"I'm going to have a glass frame made and in it I'm going to arrange
photographic reproductions of all the documents in Nan's case," Donald
stated. "The history of the case will all be there, then, with the
exception, of course, of the name of the man. In deference to Nan's
desires I will omit that. Then I'll have that case screwed into the
wall of the post-office lobby where all Port Agnew can see and
understand--"
"Nellie," The Laird interrupted, "please stop fiddling with that baby
and dress him. Daughter, get my other grandson ready, and you, Donald,
run over to the mill office. My car is standing there. Bring it here
and we'll all go home to The Dreamerie--yes, and tell Daney to come up
and help me empty a bottle to--to--to my additional family. He'll
bring his wife, of course, but then we must endure the bitter with the
sweet. Good old file, Daney. None better."
Donald put on his cap and departed. As the front gate closed behind
him Hector McKaye sprang up and hurried out of the house after him.
"Hey, there, son," he called into the darkness, "What was that you
said about a glass case?"
Donald returned and repeated the statement of his plan.
"And you're going to the trouble of explaining to this sorry world,"
the old man cried sharply. "Man, the longest day she lives there'll be
brutes that will say 'twas old man McKaye's money that framed an alibi
for her.' Son, no man or woman was ever so pure that some hypocrite
didn't tread 'em under foot like dust and regard them as such. Lad,
your wife will always be dust to some folks, but--we're kindred to
her--so what do we care? We understand. Do not explain to the damned
Pharisees. They wouldn't understand. Hang that thing in the
post-office lobby and some superior person will quote Shakespeare, and
say: 'Methinks the lady doth protest too much.'"
"Then you would advise me to tell the world to go to--"
"Exactly, sonny, exactly."