“I wonder how I missed that mail?” he mused, as he turned a foreign envelope in his hands. “I reckon the sight of that poor devil, Smith, dropping into town so suddenly five days ago upset me so I forgot my mail and went to see the Shirleys. And the hot afternoon and Smith’s coming in here, and—”Darley leaned back in his chair and sighed. 355
“Poor Jacobs! Why should he be taken? Smith was gunning for me and mistook his man. Lord knows I wasn’t fit to go.”
He leaned his elbow heavily on the table, resting his head on his hand.
“If Jacobs went on in my place, sacrificed for my sins, so help me God, I’ll carry on his work here. I’ll fight the liquor business to the end of my days. There shan’t no joint nor doggery never open a door on Big Wolf no more. I’ll do a man’s part for the world I’ve been doin’ for my own profit most of my life.”
His brow cleared, and a new expression came to the bluff countenance. The humaneness within him was doing its perfect work.
“But about this mail, now.” He took up the letter again. “Carey says he ain’t coming back. Him and young Aydelot’s dead sure to go to China soon. An’ I’m to handle his business as per previous directions. This is the first of it. Somebody puttin’ on mournin’ style, I reckon.”
Champers took up a black-edged envelope, whose contents told him as Dr. Horace Carey’s representative that Miss Jane Aydelot of Cloverdale was no longer living and much more as unnecessary to the business of the moment as a black-bordered envelope is unnecessary to the business of life. Then he opened a drawer in his small office safe and took out a bundle of letters.
“Here’s a copy of her will. That’s to go to Miss Shirley to read. An’ a copy of old Francis Aydelot’s will. What’s the value of that, d’ you reckon? Also to be showed to Miss Leigh Shirley. An’ here’s—what?”
Darley Champers opened the last envelope and began to 356 read. He stopped suddenly and gave a long surprised whistle.
Beautiful as the morning was, the man laid down the papers, carefully locked both doors and drew down the front blinds. He took up the envelope and read its contents. He read them a second time. Then he put down the neatly written pages and sat staring at nothing for a long time. He took them up at length for a third reading.