Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives

by George S. McWatters

"No," said he; "brother takes after father's family. I'm said to be mother's boy."

"Yes, yes," said old Boyd, "I'd have known that if you hadn't told me."

My "brother" was not long in becoming popular in that village, and old Boyd was quite proud of him; but he did keep him studying, was "faithful" to him, as he promised me he would be. I frequently heard from my "brother," and at last I got a letter, saying, "Come on; I will meet you at No. 1" (which meant Mrs. Margaret's) "at such a time as you may appoint."

I knew by this that my game had worked well, and that there was probably no time to lose; so I hastened on, and sending a letter before me, appointing the time, met my "brother" at Margaret's. There was the document—the lost will! He had it with him. But what was to be done?

In the first place, the witnesses had long been away in California, as was supposed, and nobody knew where. Efforts had been made by Margaret to institute a correspondence with them. If they could not be found, however, we could prove their signatures by others, if we could find the experts; but Margaret had never been able to find anybody who ever saw their writing, except the old man's, with chalk on his barn door, noting number of bushels of wheat, or when his cows would "come in," and that would hardly do.

But I bethought me that they had sold out their farm when they went away, and must have signed the deed, the wife to convey her right of dower, and I felt easy. I instructed my brother to return to the office next morning as usual, and go on with his studies, and I would go to the county seat next day, hunt up the records, and possibly find the deed still on file there, as well as the record, and then, if it was not there, I would go to the grantees, and ask for the deed; but these people were indebted to Floramond largely, Margaret said, and would have to be approached carefully. She was still in ignorance of the will being found, but knew, of course, that I had some good reason for what I was about, and she was equally ignorant that my "brother" was studying with old Boyd.

I took the will and went next day to the county seat, and though I could not find on file there the deed which I expected to, I found the record of it, and the record and the deed, too, of another conveyance made by the same grantors, and, as luck had it, made on the very day after the will was signed; and the signatures to the two instruments were wondrously similar. I was satisfied on this point.

But there was another point to be gotten over; and this troubled my "brother" a good deal. Although he had been but two months with Mr. Boyd, he had fallen in love with a beautiful girl (who was the daughter of the richest man in the town, except Floramond Alvord, and was on intimate terms with Floramond's daughters), and they were already "engaged," and he wanted the matter worked so that he need not be found out in it, for the girl, he feared, would "sack him," as the village phrase was, if he was known as having searched for and delivered up the will. So I managed to stop in disguise at the same hotel where I had been before, and to find my brother in when old Boyd was out, and learned precisely where he found the will, and the character of the documents which were in the same drawer with it; a drawer which had evidently not been opened for many years, save to hide away the will in. Among the other documents were some curious letters to old Boyd, from a man by the name of Andrew Wilcox, who had gone away years before to the west, and died, and who was a waggish fellow, and wrote funny letters, in a very peculiar style of penmanship.

I was put to my wits' end how to work matters; but my brother told me that in two days old Boyd was going to start on a journey, to be gone a week; that the stage would leave the hotel at ten o'clock in the morning, and after that I could come in again, and may be could arrange something. But he had told me enough. I had formed my plan before his words were cold. That night I found myself at one of the adopted brother's, about ten miles off; told him he must ask me no questions why, but that I wanted him to appear in the village at the time the stage was going off, and to ask old Boyd if he didn't use to correspond with old Andrew Wilcox,—to which he would, of course, say "Yes;" and then Mr. Alvord was to say, "I thought so, and I'd like, for a certain reason, to get hold of some of his letters to read. He wrote such a curious hand, didn't he?" that probably old Boyd would say he was going to be back in a week, and then he'd hunt them up; but Mr. Alvord should evince a desire to see them as soon as possible, and ask him if his clerk couldn't hunt them for him; this to be done just as the stage was loading up to start; all of which was done, and resulted better than we expected, for old Boyd was in pretty good spirits that morning, very accommodating; and told Mr. Alvord that his clerk might hunt up the papers; though he didn't call him his clerk but said, "Tell the handsome rascal in my office to hunt and get you all of Wilcox's letters to read he can find; and I don't mind if you take one or two along with you, so that you leave me some. Good morning!" and away the stage rolled.

I told Mr. Alvord that I would go over to the office, and he might drop in and ask the clerk for the letters, in the course of ten minutes. I went and arranged things, and he came and told my brother what Boyd had said. My brother made unsuccessful search in three or four places, and at last came upon the letters; hauled out a few of them, which Mr. Alvord run over, laughing here and there at the odd, eccentric expressions, which he said were just like the stories he had heard about the old man, when my brother asked if he would like to see more. As he wished to, they were produced, and among them was reposing the will where I had placed it.