UNCLE ABNER, MASTER OF MYSTERIES: 18 Detective Tales in One Volume. Melville Davisson Post

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails!"

      He got on his feet and looked at Abner. "What my brother has written in his will I will obey," he said. "Have you seen that paper, Abner?"

      "I have not," said Abner, "but I have read the copy in the county clerk's book. It bequeathed these lands to you."

      The hunchback went over to an old secretary standing against the wall. He pulled it open, got out the will and a pack of letters and brought them to the fire. He laid the letters on the table beside Abner's deed and held out the will.

      Abner took the testament and read it.

      "Do you know my brother's writing?" said Gaul.

      "I do," said Abner.

      'Then you know he wrote that will."

      "He did," said Abner. "It is in Enoch's hand." Then he added: "But the date is a month before your brother came here."

      "Yes," said Gaul; "it was not written in this house. My brother sent it to me. See-here is the envelope that it came in, postmarked on that date."

      Abner took the envelope and compared the date. "It is the very day," he said, "and the address is in Enoch's hand."

      "It is," said Gaul; "when my brother had set his signature to this will he addressed that cover. He told me of it." The hunchback sucked in his cheeks and drew down his eyelids. "Ah, yes," he said, "my brother loved me!"

      "He must have loved you greatly," replied Abner, "to thus disinherit his own flesh and blood."

      "And am not I of his own flesh and blood too?" cried the hunchback. "The strain of blood in my brother runs pure in me; in these children it is diluted. Shall not one love his own blood first?"

      "Love!" echoed Abner. "You speak the word, Gaul-but do you understand it?"

      "I do," said Gaul; "for it bound my brother to me."

      "And did it bind you to him?" said Abner.

      I could see the hunchback's great white eyelids drooping and his lengthened face.

      "We were like David and Jonathan," he said. "I would have given my right arm for Enoch and he would have died for me."

      "He did!" said Abner.

      I saw the hunchback start, and, to conceal the gesture, he stooped and thrust the trunk of the apple tree a little farther into the fireplace. A cloud of sparks sprang up. A gust of wind caught the loose sash in the casement behind us and shook it as one, barred out and angry, shakes a door. When the hunchback rose Abner had gone on.

      "If you loved your brother like that," he said, "you will do him this service-you will sign this deed."

      "But, Abner," replied Gaul, "such was not my brother's will. By the law, these children will inherit at my death. Can they not wait?"

      "Did you wait?" said Abner.

      The hunchback flung up his head.

      "Abner," he cried, "what do you mean by that?" And he searched my uncle's face for some indicatory sign; but there was no sign there-the face was stern and quiet.

      "I mean," said Abner, "that one ought not to have an interest in another's death."

      "Why not?" said Gaul.

      "Because," replied Abner, "one may be tempted to step in before the providence of God and do its work for it."

      Gaul turned the innuendo with a cunning twist.

      "You mean," he said, "that these children may come to seek my death?"

      I was astonished at Abner's answer.

      "Yes," he said; "that is what I mean."

      "Man," cried the hunchback, "you make me laugh!"

      "Laugh as you like," replied Abner; "but I am sure that these children will not look at this thing as we have looked at it."

      "As who have looked at it?" said Gaul.

      "As my brother Rufus and Elnathan Stone and I," said Abner.

      "And so," said the hunchback, "you gentlemen have considered how to save my life. I am much obliged to you." He made a grotesque, mocking bow. "And how have you meant to save it?"

      "By the signing of that deed," said Abner.

      "I thank you!" cried the hunchback. "But I am not pleased to save my life that way."

      I thought Abner would give some biting answer; but, instead, he spoke slowly and with a certain hesitation.

      "There is no other way," he said. "We have believed that the stigma of your death and the odium on the name and all the scandal would in the end wrong these children more than the loss of this estate during the term of your natural life; but it is clear to me that they will not so regard it. And we are bound to lay it before them if you do not sign this deed. It is not for my brother Rufus and Elnathan Stone and me to decide this question."

      "To decide what question?" said Gaul. "Whether you are to live or die!" said Abner. The hunchback's face grew stern and resolute. He sat down in his chair, put his stick between his knees and looked my uncle in the eyes.

      "Abner," he said, "you are talking in some riddle...Say the thing out plain. Do you think I forged that will?"

      "I do not," said Abner.

      "Nor could any man!" cried the hunchback. "It is in my brother's hand-every word of it; and, besides, there is neither ink nor paper in this house. I figure on a slate; and when I have a thing to say I go and tell it."

      "And yet," said Abner, "the day before your brother's death you bought some sheets of foolscap of the postmaster."

      "I did," said Gaul-"and for my brother. Enoch wished to make some calculations with his pencil. I have the paper with his figures on it."

      He went to his desk and brought back some sheets.

      "And yet," said Abner, "this will is written on a page of foolscap."

      "And why not?" said Gaul. "Is it not sold in every store to Mexico?"

      It was the truth-and Abner drummed on the table.

      "And now," said Gaul, "we have laid one suspicion by looking it squarely in the face; let us lay the other. What did you find about my brother's death to moon over?"

      "Why," said Abner, "should he take his own life in this house?"

      "I do not know that," said Gaul.

      "I will tell you," said Abner; "we found a bloody handprint on your brother!"

      "Is that all that you found on him?"

      "That is all," said Abner.

      "Well," cried Gaul, "does that prove that I killed him? Let me look your ugly suspicion in СКАЧАТЬ