The letter from the lawyer had come first. It was written in New York, was addressed to “Captain Lotus Snow,” and began by taking for granted the fact that the recipient knew all about matters of which he knew nothing. Speranza was dead, so much was plain, and the inference was that he had been fatally injured in an automobile accident, “particulars of which you have of course read in the papers.” Neither Captain Lote nor his wife had read anything of the kind in the papers. The captain had been very busy of late and had read little except political news, and Mrs. Snow never read of murders and accidents, their details at least. She looked up from the letter, which her husband had hastened home from the office to bring her, with a startled face.
“Oh, Zelotes,” she cried, “he's dead!”
The captain nodded.
“Seems so,” he said. “That part's plain enough, but go on. The rest of it is what I can't get a hand-hold on. See what you make of the rest of it, Olive.”
The rest of it was to the effect that the writer, being Mr. Speranza's business adviser, “that is to say, as much or more so than any one else,” had been called in at the time of the accident, had conferred with the injured man, and had learned his last wishes. “He expressed himself coherently concerning his son,” went on the letter, “and it is in regard to that son that I am asking an interview with you. I should have written sooner, but have been engaged with matters pertaining to Mr. Speranza's estate and personal debts. The latter seem to be large—”
“I'LL bet you!” observed Captain Zelotes, sententiously, interrupting his wife's reading by pointing to this sentence with a big forefinger.
“'And the estate's affairs much tangled,'” went on Olive, reading aloud. “'It seems best that I should see you concerning the boy at once. I don't know whether or not you are aware that he is at school in ——, New York. I am inclined to think that the estate itself will scarcely warrant the expense of his remaining there. Could you make it convenient to come to New York and see me at once? Or, if not, I shall be in Boston on Friday of next week and can you meet me there? It seems almost impossible for me to come to you just now, and, of course, you will understand that I am acting as a sort of temporary executor merely because Mr. Speranza was formerly my friend and not because I have any pecuniary interest in the settlement of his affairs.
“'Very truly yours,
“'MARCUS W. WEISSMANN.'”
“Weissman! Another Portygee!” snorted Captain Lote.