Father Maloney smiled.
“Ah, well,” he said.
CHAPTER IX
AN OLD-TIME TRAGEDY
After a moment, during which Father Maloney was, I imagine, sorting his ideas, seeking for the best beginning to the promised complicated story, he began to speak.
“Well, you’ll know, of course, that the Delanceys are a very old family. The baronetcy dates back to the time of the Crusaders. The family have never lost the Faith, as we Catholics say. The matter which has given rise to the present upset happened in the year seventeen hundred and thirteen. The then baronet was one Sir Michael Delancey, his wife, Helen, née Montgomery. But sure that’s nothing to do with the tale at all. There were three children by the marriage, Henry, Antony, and Rosamund. It was with Henry that the difficulty arose. He was—well, I fear there’s no denying that he was a rogue, with no decent feeling in him at all. A card-playing, drinking fella he was, and not above doing a thought of cheating if it happened that the luck was going against him. Well, it was in one of these card routs that things came to a crisis. There was cheating and quarrelling and what not, and at the end a duel. Henry killed his man, and raced off to his home to lie low a bit in hiding. The old man—Sir Michael—was sick of him and his ways by that time, I’m thinking. Anyhow he agreed to smuggle him out of the country, but on one condition, and here’s the first, and, for that matter, the whole point of the business. Before he was shipped off he had to sign some paper or other renouncing all claim to the property, indeed disinheriting himself in favour of his younger brother, Antony. Somehow it seems that the old man had not the right to disinherit him himself.”
“Entail, I suppose,” said John lighting a fresh cigarette.
“Something of the kind, I’ve no doubt,” returned Father Maloney. “Legally, I’m thinking, he’d still have inherited the title, but the bargain was that he was to go off for ever, be, in a manner of speaking, dead to the heritage of his forebears in any shape or form. And his heirs to be dead to it likewise. Be that as may be, he went off, having renounced all claim to the property. Five years later his brother Antony succeeded to it.”
Father Maloney paused, then a moment later resumed his tale.
“Antony married Margaret de Courcey, a fine woman from all accounts, and by her he had four children, Antony, Richard, Rosamund, and Michael. Now comes along the next point of interest. Ten years after Sir Antony had succeeded to the property and title, Henry reappeared upon the scene. There’s no doubt but that he had it in his mind to make matters as unpleasant for Antony as might be. He was married, so he said, and had two sons. Margaret was away from home at the time, and the whole business is clearly shown in letters she received from her husband, Sir Antony. The letters are still in existence. In them Sir Antony tells her of Henry’s reappearance, and sets forth his reluctance to do the obvious thing and inform the law his brother has returned,—which would have been mightily unpleasant for Henry, I’m thinking. Sure, he must have been a daring fella to have come back to England at all. Sir Antony tells her, too, clearly enough, Henry’s motive in coming, and it’s one a blind man might be seeing without over-much difficulty. It was the paper he’d signed he was after. If he could destroy that, why, it would leave his son free to inherit the title and property at his death. He couldn’t think to be getting them himself without more of a boggle than he’d have a liking for. But it would be another matter for his son. You’ll be finding all this in the first two letters Sir Antony wrote to Margaret, as well as the whole history of the signing of the paper. Perhaps after a fashion she knew of that before, but not over-definitely. Anyhow Sir Antony writes it all down, and it is from that letter we know of the matter. A third letter, and a shorter one, shows that Sir Antony is getting a trifle uneasy with Henry hanging around, and that he means to remove the paper from the strong box, where it was kept, to some hiding-place of sorts. But never a hint did he give of where that hiding-place would be at all.”
“Possibly,” remarked John shrewdly, “he had no mind to put his ideas on paper.”