“So ’Bije is dead, hey?” Captain Elisha’s face was very grave, and he spoke slowly. “Dead! Well, well, well!”
He paused and looked into the fire. Graves saw again that vague resemblance he had caught on the train, but had forgotten. He knew now why he noticed it. Unlike as the two brothers were, unlike in almost every way, the trace of family likeness was there. This sunburned, retired captain was the New York financier’s elder brother. And this certainty made Mr. Graves’s errand more difficult, and the cause of it more inexplicable.
Captain Elisha cleared his throat.
“Well, well!” he sighed. “So ’Bije has gone. I s’pose you think it’s odd, maybe,” he went on, “that I ain’t more struck down by the news. In a way, I am, and, in a way, I’m mighty sorry, too. But, to speak truth, he and I have been so apart, and have had nothin’ to do with each other for so long that—that, well, I’ve come to feel as if I didn’t have a brother. And I know he felt that way. Yes, and wanted to feel so—I know that.”
“I wouldn’t say that, if I were you,” observed the lawyer, gently. “I think you’re mistaken there.”
“I ain’t mistaken. Why, look here, Mr. Graves! There was a time when I’d have got down on my knees and crawled from here to New York to help ’Bije Warren. I lent him money to start in business. Later on him and I went into partnership together on a—a fool South American speculation that didn’t pan out for nothin’. I didn’t care for that. I took my chance same as he did, we formed a stock company all amongst ourselves, and I’ve got my share of the stock somewhere yet. It may come in handy if I ever want to paper the barn. But ’twa’n’t business deals of that kind that parted us, ’twas another matter. Somethin’ that he did to other folks who’d trusted us and.... Humph! this don’t interest you, of course.... Well, ’Bije was well off, I know. His wife died way back in the nineties. She was one of them fashionable women, and a hayseed salt-herrin’ of a bachelor brother-in-law stuck down here in the sandheaps didn’t interest her much—except as somethin’ to forget, I s’pose. I used to see her name in the Boston papers occasionally, givin’ parties at Newport and one thing a’nother. I never envied ’em that kind of life. I’m as well fixed as I want to be. Got some money put by for a rainy spell, comf’table house and land, best town on earth to live in and work for; I’m satisfied and always have been. I wouldn’t change for nothin’. But I’m nine year older than ’Bije was—and yet I’m left alive. Hum!”
“Your brother had two children by his marriage,” said Graves, after a moment of silence.
“Hey? Two children? Why, yes, I remember he did. Boy and girl, wa’n’t they? I never saw em. They’ve growed up by this time, of course.”
“Yes, the eldest, Caroline, is nearly twenty. The boy, Stephen, is a year younger. It is concerning those children, Captain Warren, that I have come to you.”
Captain Elisha turned in his chair. “Hey?” he queried. “The children? You’ve come to me about ’Bije’s children?”