“Ashes to ashes,” he said solemnly, and held the paper over the cigar lighter until it flamed. Then he lighted his cigar with it, puffing slowly until the flame crept to his fingers.
“Thank you,” said Morris. “It will save me the trouble of speaking to the committee.”
When Morris reached his office, he found a first draft of Margaret Dameron’s will, written in lead pencil on a faded piece of manila paper, in Carr’s small regular hand. Leighton had come upon it once in cleaning out an old desk, and he had put it among his own papers as an interesting specimen of Carr’s handiwork. He unfolded the sheets now and examined intently the form of the will. The terms were clear and unequivocal; he noted the change of word and phrase here and there, in every case an improvement in the interest of directness and clarity. There was no question as to the meaning of the will. Real estate was not to be sold except by permission of the court; and proceeds were to be reinvested in other realty. There was good sense in the idea, but had Dameron sold the Roger Merriam addition entire to the Patoka Company without referring the sale to the court?
The question must be answered, and he went to the court-house and asked permission of the recorder to look at the deed from Ezra Dameron, trustee, to the Patoka Land and Improvement Company. It was in the hands of a clerk for transcribing, but Morris was allowed to examine it. It was written in Dameron’s hand, and had been copied from a printed form of trustee’s deed. The consideration was twenty thousand dollars, the receipt of which was duly acknowledged. Leighton was a lawyer and he felt a lawyer’s disgust with the situation that the case presented. Dameron was clearly in serious need of ready money or he would not be selling real estate at a ridiculous figure. It was also patent that in his necessity he had turned to Balcomb as a man who would not scruple at oblique practices.
Morris went the next day to the office of a title company where he was acquainted and waited while the secretary made up a list of the property held by Ezra Dameron, trustee. He found that the sale of the Roger Merriam addition, which had just been reported, left the creek property, The Beeches and the old Merriam homestead the only realty remaining in the trust.
“I thought Mr. Dameron was a heavy real estate owner,” remarked Morris.
“That’s a popular superstition,” said the secretary; “but he’s sold it off rapidly during the past two years. He owns nothing personally, and he has been converting his daughter’s property very fast. I hope there’s nothing wrong about it.”
“I don’t know. Are you sure he hasn’t been buying other real estate? Something of the kind is required by the terms of his wife’s will.”
“Not in this county at least.” The secretary was silent for a moment. “It would be a delicious irony if Ezra were to turn up broke, wouldn’t it?” he said, grinning.
“That depends on the point of view,” remarked Morris.