Ocean Tramps

by H. De Vere Stacpoole

I had no difficulty in finding Alexander Abbott’s residence; the Waterings was the name it went by, an old Georgian house set in a small park; one of those small, rook-haunted, sleepy, sunlit pleasaunces found only in England and best in Sussex or Kent.

I was shown into the drawing-room by an old manservant, who took my card, on which I had pencilled: “From Captain Richard Abbott.”

A few moments passed and the door opened and a girl came in, a girl of sixteen or so, pretty as a picture and charming as a rose; one of those sweet, whole, fresh, candid creatures, almost sexless as yet, but made to love and be loved.

I stood before her. I was Tragedy, but she only saw a man. She told me her father was unwell but would see me. Would I follow her?

She led me to a library, and there, seated by the window which gave upon the sunlit park, sat the criminal, a man of forty or so, a man with seemingly a good and kindly face, a man I would have trusted on sight. He was evidently far gone in consumption, this forger of documents, and it was pretty evident that anxiety had helped in the business; a weight on the conscience is a big handicap if one is trying to fight disease.

I sat down near him and started right in; the quicker you get a surgical operation over the better, and so he seemed to think, for when I told him of the finding of the notice and went on to say that it might be necessary to inquire into the will and that I had reason to believe there was something wrong about it, he saw I knew nearly everything and stopped me right off.

“Everything is wrong about it,” said he, “and thank God that this matter has fallen into the hands of a straight and honest man like you—you will understand. This thing has tormented me for years, but when you have heard what I have to say you will know I did wrong only to do right. There is no greater scoundrel in this world than my brother John Abbott; a terrible thing to say but the truth. My father had made a will leaving him everything. He placed that will in the hands of James Anderson of Sydney, our lawyer. Anderson knew John’s character better than my father and was averse from the business, but he could do nothing. My father was a very headstrong man and blind to John’s doings, which the scamp somehow managed to partly conceal from him. He thought John was sowing his wild oats and that he would be all the better for it. John could do no wrong in his eyes, but a few days before his death he had a terrible awakening with a forged bill of exchange—forgery seems to run in the family. It cost him five thousand pounds to stifle the matter, and the day after the business was settled my father died; slipped coming downstairs, fell, and broke his back.

“I was there and he died in my arms, and his last words were: ‘Get that will from Anderson and destroy it.’ He had no power to write a new will, no strength even to write his signature, and when he was dead there was I with those words ringing in my ears.

“I knew my father intended to revoke his first will, would have done it that day; maybe, ought to have done it days ago, but his mind was in a turmoil and he was a strong, hearty man with never a thought of death. Well, there I was, not only with that knowledge but the knowledge that if the property fell to John it would be the end of the family’s good name; that beast was only possible when he was kept short of money—then there was the lower consideration of my own position, penniless and at John’s mercy.

“I made a will and put my father’s name to it, sure that Anderson would make no trouble, sure that John would not inquire into it, for the forgery of the bill of exchange had drawn his teeth, and the fact of that forgery would account to him for the change in the disposition of the property.