The perfectly correct New York lawyers to whom Brainard told his tale
later that morning evinced no surprise. There was nothing in the heart
or brain of man, they seemed to say, that could flutter a New York
lawyer. “It would be advisable to find Miss Melody straightway,” they
felt, and inquired what sort of title Brainard held to the Arizona mine.
When he confessed that it was only a tax title, they remarked that under
the Arizona laws any heirs of the dead German had a year more in which to
redeem the property. That did not trouble Brainard. The lawyers very
strongly urged their client not to make advances to Miss Walters or to
her friend and manager on her behalf. That would be suicidal, they
averred, opening the way at once to endless blackmail and even criminal
prosecution. “Let the matter rest until the interested parties make some
move,” they advised, in a perfectly cautious and obvious way.
“I’ve done my best to find the heirs, as you people very well know. I’m
convinced there’s only one, and I’m not sure that she has any legal
claim. But hers was the only name the old man mentioned the one time I
saw him.”
“You certainly made a mistake in not getting hold of that trunk!”
“After my settlement in Paris with the bankers,” Brainard explained, “I
felt that it was of the first importance to go to Monument as soon as
possible; and by the time I turned up at the Chicago railroad station,
the trunk had disappeared.”
“If no heir can be found, there is not much danger of trouble; but if
they should happen to get hold of this girl you call Melody, it might be
awkward.”
“I should be only too glad if she could be found, by them or any one
else!” Brainard exclaimed with sincerity. “I could then wash my hands of
the whole matter.”
The lawyer looked at him uncomprehendingly, then resumed:
“Assuming that no heir of the old man is forthcoming, the only harm that
these persons could do you would be to stir up the attorney-general to
take action to recover the lands for the Territory. They would have to
move quickly to get their action before the courts, and the proper
representations at Washington would discourage any such litigation.”
“That doesn’t worry me. But that woman! She’s perfectly capable of
becoming Krutzmacht’s widow and providing a whole brood of children.”
“You mean fraudulent?”
“Or left-handed,” Brainard suggested. “I believe she’s training them
now!”
“We shall have to wait until she produces them in court, then,” his
counsel remarked with a grin.
* * * * *
As the weeks and then the months slipped by without any sign from
Krutzmacht’s former stenographer Brainard almost forgot the midnight
visit that she and the fight-trust magnate had made and the disturbing
conversation which had taken place. During this summer the People’s
Company played a short season in Chicago, and were so cordially received
in that city, which seemed to be more open-minded in theatrical matters
than New York, that Brainard felt he had made a mistake in not starting
his dramatic enterprise in this thoroughly American community. An
opportunity offering of securing the lease of a new theater in Chicago,
Brainard decided to take it and support a second company in the West to
interchange with the parent company. He placed MacNaughton in charge of
the new company, having found a younger and more adaptable man to work
with him in New York. All these arrangements took much time and thought
and involved many trips between the two cities to complete the
negotiations. Brainard had the satisfaction of knowing that if they had
failed in their first season to make the impression he had hoped, at
least they had shown courage and determination. The Idea was far from
dead,—was growing slowly and adapting itself, as all large Ideas must, to
the environment and the conditions. . . .
One morning, the day after his return from one of these hurried journeys
to Chicago, Brainard found Farson immersed as usual in the folds of a
newspaper over his coffee. Instead of the customary greeting, the
secretary handed over the paper with the simple remark:
“She’s struck!”
A front page story of the usual type, emanating from the Pacific Coast,
related that a woman claiming to be Krutzmacht’s lawful widow, married to
him several years before in a small southern California town, was about
to institute legal proceedings to recover the remnants of the dead
promoter’s scattered fortune. At the time of Krutzmacht’s death, so the
story ran, it was supposed that his large fortune had been completely
swallowed up in his unsuccessful enterprises, but recently through a
series of extraordinary events a very considerable amount of unsuspected
assets had been discovered, to which the widow now laid claim. Eminent
counsel had been retained in the case, and sensational developments were
promised, involving a capitalist well known in New York and Arizona.
As Brainard having finished the story laid the newspaper down with a
slight smile, Farson observed:
“So it’s on!”
“Apparently. . . . It took her some time to get into action. I suppose
she was collecting her properties.”
“She’ll produce a son in court lisping ‘Pap Krutz,’” the secretary
growled. He could not forgive Brainard for what he called his “weak”
manner of handling the affair.
“Now we shall have an opportunity of seeing what sort of story she can
put up,” Brainard remarked, proceeding unconcernedly with his breakfast.
“Perhaps this action, through the notoriety it will give to Krutzmacht’s
affairs, will serve to produce the real heir,” he added hopefully.
But after a visit to his lawyers Brainard was less optimistic. They
pointed out to him that undoubtedly the first legal move would be to tie
up the great Melody mine by an injunction. Whether the so-called widow
could prove her marriage to the satisfaction of the court or not, the
mine must remain idle. And the case might drag on for a couple of years
or more, depending upon the resources the widow could command. During
all this time there would be no income from the property; instead it
would greatly deteriorate. The lawyers’ prediction was quickly
fulfilled. Brainard found himself without the large monthly income from
the flow of the sulfur wells, with an expensive law suit on his hands,
and two greedy theatrical companies to be provided for.
“As Hollinger warned me, Lorilla _is_ a Rattler,” Brainard said to the
secretary when the two went over the situation. “It looks very much, my
boy, as if this law suit would be the final curtain for the great Idea.
I’m tied up short. The Chicago theater has taken a lump of money. I
don’t believe I could lay my hands on fifty thousand dollars cash, all
told.”
“I wonder where she is getting her money to fight the case,” Farson said.
“Perhaps Hollinger is putting it up—as a promising speculation!”
“You don’t think he would do that?”
“Why not? It goes with his philosophy. He gave me my chance to
compromise—”
“If you’d only taken it!”
“And when he saw that I wouldn’t compromise, he might decide to play on
the other side. It makes little difference, anyway. If Miss Walters has
any sort of claim, she can easily get all the money she needs. There are
always ‘eminent counsel’ ready to take that kind of case on a good
contingent fee.”
“Well, what will you do now?” Farson asked in a depressed tone.
“First I must get rid of the lease of the Chicago theater.”
“It’s too bad—the Chicago theater opened well. Mac thinks it will almost
make expenses.”
“What Mac thinks and what the public thinks we have found to be two
different propositions,” Brainard replied. “I don’t believe Chicago will
miss us much. But I hate to close the New York theater.”
“Will you have to do that?”
“You know the figures—they don’t improve!”
“I suppose that dishes my play.”
Farson had been hard at work during the summer on a play of American
life, based largely on material that Louisiana Delacourt had contributed
in a series of amusing confidences about her own experiences, before her
departure to complete her education in Europe. It was to be called _Her
Great Adventure_, and had been coming on very fast latterly. The plan
between the two friends had been to try it out toward the close of the
present season, and, if the play proved successful, to open with it in
the fall.
“I hadn’t thought about your play,” Brainard exclaimed sympathetically.
“We must keep the house open until we can produce _Her Great Adventure_.
There’s money enough in the bank for that.” He patted his secretary
affectionately on the back. “But finish it, my boy, as soon as you can.
That place eats money, and when the news leaks we shan’t be able to keep
our company together long. Can you be ready by the first of March?”
“It will have to be ready! It’s awfully good of you, Brainard; and the
play might possibly make money, you know.”
“If that happens, it will break all records for the People’s. We will
give it every chance, anyway. How shall we cast it? Will Clara Dudley
do for the girl?”
Forgetting all about Krutzmacht’s new widow and their financial
predicament they began to discuss the cast for _Her Great Adventure_.
The leading character was a young woman who had come fearlessly and
pennilessly out of the great West, to find a career in New York.
Brainard remarked suddenly:
“The woman to play that part is Louisiana herself.” Farson, for some
reason, did not welcome the suggestion strongly. He preferred to take
his chances with a more experienced actress. “Where is Louisiana, by the
way? You haven’t given me any news of her for some time,” Brainard
asked.
Farson blushed slightly as he replied:
“She’s in London just now—having a great time, I judge from the number of
dashes and exclamations scattered over her letters. Characteristic
style, you know. She hasn’t taken down much of the original bunting she
carried.”
“She wouldn’t!” Brainard exclaimed with a laugh. “Louisiana is a genius.
Don’t tell her what’s going to happen over here. Let her have her little
dance out as long as it is possible. Her hard times, poor child, will
begin soon enough!”
“She writes that Cissie Pyce is over there. Remember Cissie—our first
experiment as emotional lady?”
“She wept all over this carpet when I fired her—_do_ I remember?”
“Louisiana says that Cissie has been taken up by Bantam, and is coming
back to the States to play in _The Star of the Seven Seas_.”
“We’ll make somebody’s fortune yet,” Brainard commented, “by discharging
’em, if in no other way. But Louisiana was really our first and only
find—the one personality that we might have developed and produced.”
“And she found us!” the secretary corrected.
“Let’s see what it has cost all told.” He ran over on his fingers the
different large items of expense that the great Idea had involved: “The
theater building eight hundred, the first year in New York two hundred,
Chicago . . . one million six hundred thousand odd for Louisiana!”
Brainard concluded whimsically. “And she’s not yet launched. Our kind
of art comes high, Ned!”
“You’re a tip-top loser,” the young man said admiringly. “Don’t you ever
think what it will mean to you, if Lorilla should win her suit?”
Brainard stretched himself leisurely.
“Except for being licked in this theater business—and I don’t like being
beaten any better than the next man—I should howl for joy when they
produce the fictitious widow and the orphan son in court. It would set
me free for another great adventure. That’s what Herbert Krutzmacht and
Melody have done for one Edgar Brainard!”
In his eyes was the azure glitter of the sky above the stern Arizona
mountains. For it was, indeed, a glorious world of venture for him whose
soul was keyed to the right pitch.