Mr. Hale was in his office, when Ben reached there; but the latter concluded that he would hear the result of the lawyer’s investigation first, reserving his bit of information until afterwards.
“Well, my boy,” said Mr. Hale, whirling around in his chair, “I’m sorry not to have better news for you.” A kind light shone in his eyes. “We’ve got a hard old customer to deal with, I’m afraid. I’ve had the records searched and the entries of the lease were found to have been duly and properly made.” He tilted back in his revolving chair and put the tips of his fingers together. “I don’t see what we’re going to do about it. We’ve run up against a stone wall, without, apparently, a cranny in it. I say apparently, because one never knows what developments may turn up. It’s a case of manifest injustice, but such cases are of daily occurrence.”
“Something has turned up,” Ben said, when Mr. Hale had finished.
“Ah, so you’ve got some news. Let’s have it.”
Ben related his conversation with the Chinese.
Mr. Hale was astonished. “I can scarcely believe that that old miser would meddle with the records,” he exclaimed. “It looks very like it. Yes—if what Ng Quong says is true, Fish is a grasping old shark; but—what object could he have?” he mused.
“I’ll tell you!” exclaimed Ben. “The lease is just as he says it is. But there must have been some mistake in placing the dates on the record, and that mistake was in our favor.”
“It may be so. And the old fellow was so angered in being baffled after he’d made sure that the law was on his side,—he was so angered that he went to the length of changing the figures.”
“That sounds like the truth, Mr. Hale.”
“I think you’ve struck it, Ben; but it’s such an amazing thing that it seems incredible. He’s shrewd, but he’s overreached this time. Yes. For a man of his means to tamper with the records for the sake of the money you expect to make! To what length will not money-grasping take a man!”