CHAPTER XXIX
In Which Mr. Chester Downes and I Again “Lock Horns”
This had not been the home-coming I had looked forward to. I had not desired to take up the old fight with my uncle, Mr. Chester Downes. But it seemed as though circumstances were forever opposing us in some wrangle or other!
We three, with the old Colonel leading, went quietly into the room where Judge Fetter held his court. Nobody noticed us and Colonel Playfair motioned Ham and I to seats well back in the room. There were maybe a score of people on the benches. The lawyers and those individuals who were pertinently interested in the matters to be arranged, were allowed inside the rail before the Judge’s desk. Colonel Playfair went up there and the justice nodded to him. Nobody knew whom he represented, or in what matter he was interested.
I saw Mr. Chester Downes at once; but my uncle did not see me. He sat with his back to me, in fact, and beside him was a slim and sleek looking man with a green bag before him on the table.
“That’s Jim Maxwell,” whispered Ham. “And he’s the kind of a lawyer that Chester Downes would cotton to, all right. I ain’t got no manner o’ use for Jim Maxwell. He’s one o’ them landsharks, he is.”
The proceedings droned along for a time. Two matters of probate were settled before our case came up. Then his clerk handed Judge Fetter some papers, he put on his nose glasses, glanced at them, and said:
“In the matter of the appointment of Mr. Chester Downed as co-trustee with Mrs. Mary Webb, Widow—the Darrington Estate. There is a minor child, I believe? You speak in this matter, Mr. Maxwell?”
“I have the honor to do so,” said the sleek man.
“There is no objection to the appointment, I understand?” pursued the Judge. “The widow is satisfied?”
“Very much so,” declared the lawyer.
“She is not here present?”
“Ill health, your honor,” said Maxwell, briskly! “But Mr. Downes, who is her brother-in-law, has been her man of business for years. Mr. Hounsditch, lately deceased, although appointed under the will, was merely a figure-head in the affairs of the estate.”
“And this minor child—how old is he?”
“Seventeen.”
“Ah. He has no choice, then? He does not object to his uncle as a trustee?”
“The boy has run away from home, your honor. He is a little wild——” began Mr. Maxwell.
I was so enraged that I could not keep my seat; but Ham pulled me back. “Take it easy, Clint,” he whispered.
“In that case,” the judge mooned along, rustling the papers, “there being no objection, and Mr. Chester Downes’ bond being entirely satisfactory——”
Colonel Playfair arose. The Judge looked at him in surprise.
“I beg pardon, Brother Playfair,” he said, politely. “You surely do not appear in this matter?”
“Yes, your honor, I do,” said the Colonel.
“You represent anybody interested?”
“I most certainly do,” said the Colonel. “I represent the minor child, Clinton Webb.”
Mr. Chester Downes leaned forward and whispered to his lawyer. The latter sprang up again.
“I beg Colonel Playfair’s pardon,” Maxwell said. “Does he state that he has been engaged directly by the boy mentioned to represent him before this court?”
Colonel Playfair was silent for a moment, and the other lawyer went on:
“For if not, I object. No engagement of an attorney by outside parties will stand, your honor. We expected some interference by officious friends of the misguided boy. His mother is his legal guardian, Mr. Hounsditch being dead——”
“Wait,” said the Judge, patiently. “Colonel Playfair knows the law as well as any man here,” and he smiled and bowed. “State your position, sir,” he said to the Colonel.
“I represent the minor, your honor,” he said, quietly. “If it becomes necessary application will be made for the appointment of both a guardian as well as co-trustee of the estate, on behalf of Clinton Webb.”
“But the boy has run away! He is incorrigible,” cried Lawyer Maxwell.
“Brother Maxwell is misinformed,” said the Colonel, suavely, “If he does not know the truth, his client does. Clinton Webb did not run away from home. He was blown out to sea in a little sloop from Bolderhead. It is a matter of record—newspaper record, your honor. He was picked up by a vessel bound for the South Seas. From that distance he has only lately been able to get a ship homeward bound.”
Chester Downes was whispering again to his lawyer. The eyes of the sleek Mr. Maxwell snapped.
“Your honor!” cried he, interrupting Colonel Playfair.
The colonel politely gave way to him. The Judge looked puzzled.
“Your honor! The fact of his having left home in the first place involuntarily is admitted. But he has refused to return. His mother sent money for his passage to Buenos Ayres. He supposedly wasted the money and remained wilfully out of her jurisdiction.”
“Colonel Playfair?” queried the Judge.
“If Brother Maxwell is quite finished,” said the colonel, “I would like to state our side of the argument.”
“Continue,” said the Judge.
“I am sorry to wash dirty linen in court,” Colonel Playfair said, quietly. “These family troubles would better be settled outside of the courtroom. But it seems necessary to place the full facts before your honor. It is not only a proven fact that Clinton Webb left home involuntarily; but there was a crime attached to his adventure. He was nailed into the cabin of his boat and the boat was cut adrift at the beginning of the September gale, two years ago this coming fall.”
The spectators began to sit up and take notice. The affair was assuming a serious hue.
“The person who committed this dastardly crime is known—known to Brother Maxwell’s client. This person, afraid of being arrested for his deed, actually did run away from home, went to Buenos Ayres, there represented himself as Clinton Webb and obtained the money sent there by Mrs. Webb for her son, and is now, I understand, a member of the crew of the whaling bark, Scarboro, in the South Pacific.
“These final facts are proven by a letter from the American consul at Buenos Ayres, sent to Mr. Hounsditch, deceased, together with the amount of money which had been given to the false claimant by a clerk in the consul’s office. Does Mr. Maxwell wish me to state the name of the person who committed these criminal acts?”
My uncle’s lawyer was evidently in a fine flurry. He jumped up to say:
“We let the point pass for the present. But we claim that the minor child, Clinton Webb, has no standing in this court. He is on the high seas——”
“Wrong, Brother Maxwell,” said the colonel, very sweetly. “He is here.”
I saw Mr. Chester Downes start from his seat. He cried out something, but the Judge rapped his desk for order.
“You say your client is present in court, Colonel?” he asked.
“Clinton Webb! Come forward!” commanded my lawyer, and that time Ham did not try to keep me in my seat.
I marched down the aisle. Mr. Chester Downes saw me coming. His dark face never paled; the blood flooded into it, darkening it until his cheeks and brow were almost black.
We looked at each other. There was no need for either to threaten the other. As of old, we were sworn enemies. And I believed that I had again crossed him in his most precious project.
The colonel let me into the enclosure through the gate.
“You recognize your nephew, do you, Mr. Downes?” asked the Judge.
Chester Downes nodded. He could not speak.
“And I understand that Clinton Webb, here before us, objects to the appointment of his uncle as co-trustee of the estate?” he asked the colonel.
“He does,” was the brief reply.
“What is your wish, then, Colonel?” asked Judge Fetter. “This matter, evidently, is not ready for closing to-day?”
“No, your honor. We ask for a postponement—that is all.”
“Do you agree, Brother Maxwell?” asked the judge.
Maxwell looked at his client. There was nothing else to do but to agree and Downes knew it as well as the lawyer.
“Oh, yes!” snarled Chester Downes. “We will have to fight, I see.”
He and I had locked horns again; but he would not admit then that he was worsted.
Colonel Playfair had a few moments’ whispered conversation with Judge Fetter, and then we went back to the lawyer’s office. Chester Downes and Maxwell had hastened away from the courthouse. My uncle did not try to speak to me—and I was glad. I am afraid I could not have controlled myself just then.
There were some papers to sign and more discussion in Colonel Playfair’s office. He called in a brother practitioner, Mr. Charles Ahorn, and the matters were turned over to him. Colonel Playfair agreed to step into poor Mr. Hounsditch’s shoes, and be my guardian and co-trustee with my mother, if the other side could come to an agreement. I believed, when I had talked with my mother, that she would make no objection.
Crafty as I knew my uncle to be, I could not believe that he had so succeeded in warping my mother’s judgment that she would believe everything ill he had said of me. And I counted on her love as a surety.
Much as she might disregard my personal opinion of Chester Downes, I was sure she would welcome me with open arms!