John slowly deciphered the faint lines. Silently he tendered the letter again.
“It set me thinking,” said David reminiscently. “I was in that lumber room for more than two hours reading that letter again and again. It was clear that there was something belonging to us that we hadn’t got; something that, as far as I could see, we had the right to have, though I didn’t just know what it was. It struck me as queer that the Richard who had had the letter hadn’t had a try for it. I know now that he died of some kind of fever after his father had been gone six weeks. His father didn’t return.” David’s voice was grim.
“I know,” said John.
“You’ve heard the story?” demanded David.
“That part of it. But go on.”
“Well,” continued David, “whether no one else knew of the letter, or whether they thought that trying for their rights was a fool game, I don’t know. There were times when I was after it that I thought it a fool game myself. But I’d set out on it, and somehow I never find it easy to turn back on any job I’ve set out on. If the others didn’t think our birthright worth a bit of a fight I did. It took me five years to trace up the family, but I got on the track, back to the certificate of Henry Delancey’s marriage to Marie Courtoise, daughter of a Brussels lace merchant. It was their grandson who first settled in the States. With that I came to England, and followed up the clue here. Then I understood exactly what I was after. They can’t deny that Henry was the eldest son, and though they say he signed away the property from himself and his heirs they haven’t got that document. This letter, too,” he tapped it gently, “shows that though he may have signed it away from himself, he did not touch the birthright of his heirs. See?”
“Yes, I see,” returned John a trifle drily.
Oh, he saw fast enough. Also, he saw pretty plainly that Henry Delancey had been no fool in the game of swindling.
David looked at him.
“You’re on the side of the occupants of the Castle,” he said. It was statement rather than query.