Graves struck the table with his open hand.
“He doesn’t understand at all,” he exclaimed, impatiently. “Captain Warren, listen! That note is made payable to the Akrae Company. Against that company some unknown stockholder has an apparent claim for two-fifths of all dividends ever paid and two-fifths of the seven hundred and fifty thousand received for the sale. With accrued interest, that claim amounts to over five hundred thousand dollars.”
“Yes, but—”
“That note binds Rodgers Warren’s estate to pay that claim. His own personal estate! And that estate is not worth over four hundred and sixty thousand dollars! If this stockholder should appear and press his claim, your brother’s children would be, not only penniless, but thirty thousand dollars in debt! There! I think that is plain enough!”
He leaned back, grimly satisfied with the effect of his statement. Captain Elisha stared straight before him, unseeingly, the color fading from his cheeks. Then he put both elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands.
“You see, Captain,” said Sylvester, gently, “how very serious the situation is. Graves has put it bluntly, but what he says is literally true. If your brother had deliberately planned to hand his children over to the mercy of that missing stockholder, he couldn’t have done it more completely.”
Slowly the captain raised his head. His expression was a strange one; agitated and shocked, but with a curious look of relief, almost of triumph.
“At last!” he said, solemnly. “At last! Now it’s all plain!”
“All?” repeated Sylvester. “You mean—?”
“I mean everything, all that’s been puzzlin’ me and troublin’ my head since the very beginnin’. All of it! Now I know why! Oh, ’Bije! ’Bije! ’Bije!”