PROBING FOR FACTS
Helen sat down quickly and stared across the room at the queer old man.
The latter at first seemed to pay her no attention. But finally she saw
that he was skillfully "taking stock" of her from behind the shelter of
the printed sheet.
The Western girl was more direct than that. She got up and walked across
to him. The clerk uttered a very loud "Ahem!" as though to warn her to
drop her intention; but Helen said coolly:
"Don't you remember me, sir?"
"Ha! I believe it _is_ the little girl who came from the coast with me
last week," said the man.
"Not from the coast; from Montana," corrected Helen.
"But you are dressed differently now and I was not sure," he said. "How
have you been?"
"Very well, I thank you. And you, sir?"
"Well. Very. But I did not expect to see you again--er--_here_."
"No, sir. And you are waiting to see Mr. Grimes, too?"
"Er--something like that," admitted the old man.
Helen eyed him thoughtfully. She had already glanced covertly once or
twice at the clerk across the room. She was quite bright enough to see
between the rungs of a ladder.
"_You_ are Mr. Grimes," she said, bluntly, looking again at the old man,
who was adjusting his wig.
He looked up at her slily, his avaricious little eyes twinkling as they
had aboard the train when he had looked over her shoulder and caught her
counting her money.
"You're a very smart little girl," he said, with a short laugh. "What have
you come to see me about? Do you think of investing some of your money in
mining stocks?"
"No," said Helen. "I have no money to invest."
"Humph. Did you find your folks?" he asked, turning the subject quickly.
"Yes, sir."
"What's the matter with you, then? What do you want?"
"You _are_ Mr. Grimes?" she pursued, to make sure.
"Well, I don't deny it."
"I have come to talk to you about--about Prince Morrell," she said, in a
very low voice so that the clerk could not hear.
"_Who_?" gasped the man, falling back in his chair. Evidently Helen had
startled him.
"Prince Morrell," she replied.
"What are you to Prince Morrell?" demanded the man.
"I am his daughter. He is dead. I have come here to talk with you about
the time--the time he left New York," said the girl from Sunset Ranch,
hesitatingly.
Mr. Grimes stared at her, with his wig still awry, for some moments; then
the color began to come back into his face. Helen had not realized before
that he had turned pale.
"You come into my office," he snapped, jumping up briskly. "I'll get to
the bottom of this!"
His movements were so very abrupt and he looked at her so strangely that,
to tell the truth, the girl from Sunset Ranch was a bit frightened. She
trailed along behind him, however, with only a hesitating step, passing
the wondering clerk, and heard the lock of the door of the inner office
snap behind her as Mr. Grimes shut it.
He drew heavy curtains over the door, too. The place was a gloomy
apartment until he turned on the electric light over a desk table. She saw
that there were curtains at all the windows, and at the other door, too.
"Come here," he said, beckoning her to the desk, and to a chair that stood
by it, and still speaking softly. "We will not be overheard here. Now!
Tell me what you mean by coming to me in this way?"
He shot such an ugly look at her that Helen was again startled.
"What do _you_ mean?" she returned, hiding her real emotion. "I have come
to ask some questions. Why shouldn't I?"
"You say Prince Morrell is dead?"
"Yes, sir. Nearly two months, now."
"Who sent you, then?"
"Sent me to you?" queried Helen, in wonder.
"Yes. Somebody must have sent you," said Mr. Grimes, watching her with his
little eyes, in which there seemed to burn a very baleful look.
"You are mistaken. Nobody sent me," said Helen, recovering a measure of
her courage. She believed that this strange man was a coward. But why
should he be afraid of her?
"You came clear across this continent to interview me about--about
something that is gone and forgotten--almost before you were born?"
"It isn't forgotten," returned Helen, meaningly. "Such things are never
forgotten. My father said so."
"But it's no use hauling everything to the surface of the pool again,"
grumbled Mr. Grimes.
"That is about what Uncle Starkweather says; but I do not feel that way,"
said Helen, slowly.
"Ha! Starkweather! Of course he's in it. I might have known," muttered the
old man. "So _he_ sent you to me?"
"No, sir. He objected to my coming," declared Helen, quite convinced now
that she should not deliver her uncle's letter.
"The Starkweathers are the people you came East to visit?"
"Yes, sir."
"And how did _they_ receive you in their fine Madison Avenue mansion?"
queried Mr. Grimes, looking up at her slily again.
"Just as you know they did," returned Helen, briefly.
"Ha! How's that? And you with all that----"
He halted and--for a moment--had the grace to blush. He saw that she read
his mind.
"They do not know that I have some money for emergencies," said Helen,
coolly.
"Ho, ho!" chuckled Mr. Grimes, suddenly.
"So they consider you a pauper relative from the West?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ho, ho!" he laughed again, and rubbed his hands. "How _did_ Prince leave
you fixed?"
"I--I have something beside the money you saw me counting," she told him,
bluntly.
"And Willets Starkweather doesn't know it?"
"He has never asked me if I were in funds."
"I bet you!" cackled Grimes, at last giving way to a spasm of mirth which,
Helen thought, was not nice to look upon. "And how does he fancy having
you in his family?"
"He does not like it. Neither do his daughters. And one of their reasons
is because people will ask questions about Prince Morrell's daughter. They
are afraid their friends will bring up father's old trouble," continued
Helen, her voice quivering. "So that is why, Mr. Grime's, I am determined
to know the truth about it."
"The truth? What do you mean?" snarled Grimes, suddenly starting out of
his chair.
"Why, sir," said Helen, amazed, "dad told me all about it when he was
dying. All he knew. But he said by this time surely the truth of the
matter must have come to light. I want to clear his name----"
"How are you going to do _that_?" demanded Mr. Grimes.
"I hope you will help me--if you can, sir," she said, pleadingly.
"How can I help more now than I could at the time he was charged with the
crime?"
"I do not know. Perhaps you can't. Perhaps Uncle Starkweather cannot,
either. But, it seems to me, if anything had been heard from that
bookkeeper----"
"Allen Chesterton?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well! I don't know how you are going to prove it, but I have always
believed Allen was guilty," declared Mr. Grimes, nodding his head
vigorously, and still watching her face.
"Oh, have you, Mr. Grimes?" cried the girl, eagerly, clasping her hands.
"You have _always_ believed it?"
"Quite so. Evidence was against my old partner--yes. But it wasn't very
direct. And then--what became of Allen? Why did he run away?"
"That is what other people said about father," said Helen, doubtfully. "It
did not make him guilty, but it made him _look_ guilty. The same can be
said of the bookkeeper."
"But how can you go farther than that?" asked Mr. Grimes. "It's too long
ago for the facts to be brought out. We can have our suspicions. We might
even publish our suspicions. Let us get something in the papers--I can do
it," and he nodded, decisively, "stating that facts recently brought to
light seemed to prove conclusively that Prince Morrell, once accused of
embezzlement of the bank accounts of the firm of Grimes & Morrell, was
guiltless of that crime. And we will state that the surviving partner of
the firm is convinced that the only person guilty of that embezzlement was
one Allen Chesterton, who was the firm's bookkeeper. How about _that_?
Wouldn't that fill the bill?" asked Mr. Grimes, rubbing his hands
together.
"If we had such an article published in the papers and circulated among
his old friends, wouldn't that satisfy you, my dear? Then you would do no
more of this foolish probing for facts that cannot possibly be
reached--eh? What do you say, Helen Morrell? Isn't that a famous idea?"
But the girl from Sunset Ranch was, for the moment, speechless. For a
second time, it seemed to her, she was being bribed to make no serious
investigation of the evidence connected with her father's old trouble.
Both Uncle Starkweather and this old man seemed to desire to head her
off!